I mentioned recently that I was back working in corporate America, earning my living as a Java programmer. Part of the experience of returning is seeing what has changed and what hasn't. Today's topic is one of the unchanged things.

We have some fairly simple hand-washing guidelines in our home. You wash your hands after using the bathroom, before preparing food, before eating and anytime they get genuinely dirty for some other reason. Not too draconian. I think this shows I'm not some kind of helicopter parent who rushes in with the medicated wipes every few minutes.

It still amazes me that grown men can use the bathroom and then not wash their hands! (I don't use the ladies bathroom, so I have no data on how that demographic behave in the same circumstance.) Now, I'm not for paranoid levels of hand washing, but I am in favor of some, especially when you are interacting with so many co-workers.

The craziest though are the ones who run some water on their hands and then dry them. This is really bizarre. If they're going to the effort to be right by the soap dispenser, how do they think it's a good idea to save ten seconds by ignoring the soap? This is one of the aspects of working in an office building that I did not miss.