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Admin
Or Barry used the men's bathroom, perhaps?
Admin
Did you just assume Barlene "Barry" Barrington's gender?? I think you need to see HR.
Admin
Barry is noted by the article itself as using he/him/his pronouns, so most likely using the men's room, yes.
Admin
Let's not.
Admin
Why wouldn't he use cold water? Over here, we don't even have heated water in our restrooms!
Admin
Tough crowd D:
I think it plenty of places that would be some sort of health violation
Admin
There's of course the distinct possibility this has been fancied up too much and Ellen was in reality a man, who therefor knew that Barry used the same bathroom (or vice versa, that Barry was a gal).
Admin
The most obvious response to all the comments so far is that there is a single gender neutral shared bathroom next to the server room.
Admin
Other - probably more like explanation. Its a relatively small office spaced for IT attached to the datacenter and they have single occupant unisex bathroom.
I am going to give Barry some credit and lend some credence to the cold water theory as well. I am in the habit of just washing with soap and cold water. I'll admit its probably not as sanitary as using hot water would be. However at home I have central hot water heater not one of those under sink deals. I would have to stand around for several minutes waiting for the hot water to get there (bathroom is probably the longest run in house from the water heater. This is old farm house bathroom is an addition and indoor plumbing is a retrofit). I don't even both with the hot tap for just hand-washing because it would only be a waste of water and energy as I'll be done hand-washing before the first warm water gets there.
So if the sink has separate hot cold valves I just instinctively reach for the cold.
Admin
Nice one. Now your bathroom has an interruptible power supply and you can look forward to washing your hands with cold water in the dark.
Admin
Cold water is just as effective as hot water for washing hands.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317712#Results-call-for-FDA-policy-change
Admin
I had a female coworker who according to other female coworkers, did not wash her hands at all, even after #2. Not kidding.
Admin
The real WTF is that this is posted under CodeSOD.
Admin
I once worked with a chap who would wash one hand and then go to the other bathrooms on the floor to wash the other.
Admin
"Or Barry used the men's bathroom, perhaps?"
The story could have been told better; obviously both bathrooms were wired to same circuit and thus ran off the UPS until the wiring was fixed, and they certainly would have had the same instant-on water heater arrangement. So one could indeed conclude that when Barry used the bathroom, he didn't use hot water at the sink. Draw your own conclusions.
Admin
Second the cold-water bit. Most bathrooms will not deliver warm water quickly, I generally don't bother when it's separate taps.
Admin
there is an old joke about various nationalities using the bathroom with the punchline "In Britain we are taught not to piss on our hands"
Admin
half a second to wet your hands, 5 seconds to rinse them. maybe ellen leaves the sink on and barry just isn't a water waster
Admin
I remember working in building with groups doing Engineering development. There were weird problems with computers. Discovered that someone had added an Arc Welder to the circuit!
Admin
Lots of options.
One, the men's bathroom has its OWN water heater wired properly to the mains and not the UPS, thus leaving the women's bathroom having their own water heater which was miswired. It's not an unusual thing for each room to have its own hot water heater. It's common in Europe and warmer parts of the world to have a small hot water heater rather than a big giant tank.
Two, yes, wash with cold water. It's summer, I don't use hot water to wash my hands - I like it nice and cool. I've had many complaints from people in my family because I wash the dishes in cold water during the summer so when they wash their hands, they freeze.
No need to assume any sort of malfeasance on anyone, other than the electrician who wired the women's hot water heater to the UPS.
Admin
I submitted the original story this article is based on.
It was moderately amusing to watch the story unfold over a couple of months. My involvement was from the SNMP monitoring software side. The company I worked for could tell them what the UPS was complaining about, but not where the load was coming from.
It was in fact an intern who "cracked the case" - and who was probably the reason the problem was ever found at all. The problems didn't start when the server room was completed, even though the wiring was wrong from day one. The problems started a year or two later, at about the time the intern started. Either nobody in restricted access area where the toilet was located ever washed their hands, or else they'd all been using cold water. Maybe the intern was the only one to wash his hands, or maybe he was the only one who used warm water. At any rate, the intern commented one day that it seemed like every time he went to the toilet, there was a UPS overload warning when he got back to his desk. That lead to experiments in the toilet, which lead to the discovery of the incorrectly wired hot water heater.
Admin
@IPGuru: That joke is also common between different branches of the US military.
I've seen it played out for real in a toilet used by guys from the US Air Force and the US Army.
Army guy takes a leak, the goes to the sink to wash his hands.
Air Force guy takes a leak, then walks past the sink to leave the toilet.
The Army guy calls out "In the Army they teach us to wash our hands after using the toilet."
The Air Force guy answered back "In the Air Force, they teach us not to piss on our hands."
Both had a laugh.
Admin
Heard it with employees from IBM, Microsoft and Apple:
Admin
Unless you're washing your hands with scalding hot peel your skin off water it doesn't matter.
Admin
Obviously, the men's room has its own water heater that wasn't wired to the UPS. And yes, there are people that prefer to wash their hands with cold water.
Admin
That is a recycled joke about branches of the military. Of course it's the Marine that says "we don't pee on our hands" because Marines don't know that you don't wash your hands after using the toilet because you peed on them.
Admin
At one time [mumble] years ago I ran a small IT shop in a multi-story office building which had several other tenants on our floor. All the tenants shared a pair of common bathrooms near the elevator lobby on each floor.
For a while one other office was the re-election campaign headquarters of a sitting US Senator. I can say from direct personal experience that Senator Schmutz doesn't wash his hands after #1 or #2. Didn't get my vote, but that was hardly the most important reason to vote for the other guy.
He's since moved on from the Senate to being a lobbyist and toady. But I'm pretty sure he still hasn't learned to wash his hands. Despite the extra sleaze he now stuffs them into.
Admin
I second the cold water option, because I normally wash the hands wit cold water. At home I have a gas water heater in the kitchen, and when I open the hot water faucet in the bathroom, the boiler before staring to heat the flame need 10 seconds to start to make ignition sparks, open the gas valve, verify that the flame in on, and start heating the water requires ten seconds, another 15 seconds that hot water reaches the faucet.
Especially now, after the last invoice from the gas company I try to not use gas if not necessary.
Admin
No, I think you'll find that three times is enemy action.
Admin
You'd only need one water heater even if you have two toilets (I'd reserve bathroom for when there's a real bathtub in that room).
But when I first started to read the story I almost expected that someone had connected a vacuum cleaner to an UPS outlet. It has happened before.
Admin
Worf wrote: Two, yes, wash with cold water. It's summer, I don't use hot water to wash my hands - I like it nice and cool. I've had many complaints from people in my family because I wash the dishes in cold water during the summer so when they wash their hands, they freeze.
They don't complain about greasy dishes?
https://www.sunrise-cleaning.com/blog/cleaning-tips/hot-water-superior-comes-cleaning/
Admin
I.... it's normal to use hot water for washing your hands?