Call it Common Courtesy

So, I work in an office building. I am not going to name names since I truly treasure my job (and more importantly my paycheck), but let's just say that my office building alone employees close to 700 people, and at any given time I'm sure there are more than that considering vendors, meetings, etc. that take place in the building. Therefore, a small bit of common courtesy can go a long way. Here's a little lesson from me to you (you know who you are!)

1. When traversing the stairwell, keep to one side. I like chatting with my friends too, but they can hear me just fine from behind!
   I like to associate well known "road rules" when walking the stairs or hallway. Keep to the right, right of way, yield when approaching a blind intersection, etc. These will keep you from running into someone with a full plate of food, or running someone off the stairs completely because you refuse to step behind your walking partner. {this happened to me this morning, I literally had to walk backwards two steps to get out of this lady's way...grrr.}
2. Phone calls should be private. I especially get irate when I'm sitting at my desk (read cubicle) and someone is having a conference call on speaker phone with a person sitting two cubes away! It was kind of funny at first since there is a weird echo-ey sound considering I can hear their true voices AND their voices on the phone, but now it's really annoying and rude. I have work to do too ya know!
3. Another phone lesson...speak softly. When I am on the phone and cannot hear myself or the person that I am talking to because you can't learn to speak at a normal volume it really makes our company look unprofessional. Learn to speak softer.
4. When you are in the restroom: A) you SHOULD wash your hands. The sanitizer things outside aren't as good as ol' fashioned soap and water. B) if you drip water all over the sink, simply take an extra paper towel and wiped down the counter. It takes two seconds. I realize that there are cleaning people that our company actually employs to do this kind of work, but I'm pretty sure they only clean at night so during the day it's up to us!
5. The copier/printer. This is a lesson that everyone needs to heed. I know that we have to print some items, sometimes a lot of items. However, if you do feel the need to kill a couple trees and print a 50 page slide show 20 times...REFILL THE PRINTER WITH PAPER! You know you used a lot so just add a few reams and the rest of us won't have to completely stop what we are doing because the printer is out of paper. {side note: the person refilling the paper is most often ME! Either people don't understand what the blinking light is and are completely dumbfounded by the fact that their documents aren't coming out, or they don't know how to add paper and simply just wait for someone else to do it. Either way is rather unacceptable.}
6. On the other hand...why are you printing that much? Everyone needs to be more conservative so that our company isn't a blight on the environment because we print every email. With technology today you don't need to print things when you can save them electronically.

Okay, okay. I'm off my soap box. However, please try to remember that there are other people here too! I realize that my menial goings-on may not matter as much to you as chatting with your friends side-by-side down the stairs, but it really makes you look like an ass. And after this blog I'll have completely forgotten about it, but you'll still be an ass. I'm just sayin'.