It's Still a More Respectable Career Choice than "Congressman"

According to a front page article in today's New York Times, the era of the washroom attendant is nearing its end.  In an unrelated story, Windows 95 has been described as "a bit buggy."

Seriously, though, it's about bloody time.  I'm not exactly sure--and the article doesn't say--when the era of washroom attendants began.  Probably during the more sybaritic days of the Roman Empire; somebody had to clean up after Caligula.  But this is the twenty-first century!  We've long since passed the time when people in otherwise good health needed "attending" in a bathroom.

On those rare occasions when I do encounter a washroom attendant, I feel nothing so much as acute unease.  Who is this guy?  Is he going to be listening?  Am I actually supposed to give someone a tip for handing me a paper towel?

Thankfully, I don't get "stage fright," as some people do--and for those poor souls, an attended bathroom must be a special kind of Hell--but I am instantly flooded with feelings of middle-class guilt--feelings unmitigated by the fact that I am likely in a high-end establishment and have just eaten a meal that may have cost about as much as this poor fellow's entire nightly wages.  While I myself can enjoy the occasional visit to the "high life," this man spends every night exposed to the digestive endgames of the one percent.  So I feel guilt, which makes me wish the attendant weren't there--which makes me feel guilty for wishing the attendant weren't there!  After all, I fully support and celebrate the working man (and woman): Anyone willing to do a job, however distasteful--hell, especially distasteful--deserves some respect.

And herein lies my discomfort: What will become of the dwindling numbers of washroom attendants when this profession ultimately goes the way of mastodon wrangler and newspaper reporter?  Because, let's face it, a person who goes into the bathroom-monitoring industry probably didn't start out with a whole lot of career options: "Well, Mike, you've narrowed your choices down to molecular biology at Tufts or handing out towels to people who have just defecated.  What do you think?"

(All right, all right.  In fairness, the Yale Washroom Attendant program did provide solid career training as well as a rich grounding in the liberal arts until it was discontinued in 1972.)

I suppose a place exists for the bathroom attendant, particularly at large and loud clubs--where the job calls not so much for a connoisseur's knowledge of soaps and colognes as for the ability to prevent people from doing drugs or having sex in blacklit stalls.  Still, I will not miss those moments--however rare--when I come upon a tuxedoed gentleman waiting to hand me a washcloth or a toothpick or--a specialty of one Manhattan restroom attendant--a handful of Reese's Pieces.  Sure, after I drop a waffle, I crave peanut butter as much as the next guy.  But I am a big boy now: I can get my post-poop candy myself.

Guilty Consciences

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being, "Not guilty at all," and 10 being "Hitler," how guilty does each of the following scenarios make you feel?

You finish loading your car at the supermarket. Instead of putting your shopping cart in one of the "Please leave shopping carts here" spaces, you simply leave the cart in front of where you had been parked.

Same situation, but you wheel the cart up on a nearby median.

What about this: You're working late, and, when you leave your office, you see that the custodian has already started mopping the floors. You need to walk across the still-wet floor to leave the building.

What if you're at work and doing a legitimate, but not urgent, task. A customer comes up and asks you for assistance. What this person is requesting is really not your job, but you COULD help her with it. You really don't want to, though, so you beg off, citing the fact that you have this other work to do.

What if you decide to sleep in on a day when your significant other has to get up early?

Is feeling guilt in any of these situations proper? Neurotic? Praiseworthy? If you feel unnecessarily guilty about something, is that a sign of character, of being in tune with a higher moral plane? Or is it rather a sign of moral weakness that you feel guilty but do nothing to assuage your guilt?

We have no answers for these questions. We're curious, though, to hear how our own concerns compare with those of other Sloppists.

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Cultural Illiteracy Update

OK, for the last time, here are today's "Top Ten" Yahoo! search items, as of this writing:

10. Swine Flu: Boy, people can't get enough of this stuff, can they? We'll assume this is just carry-over from last week's Rupert Grint shocker.

9. Ted Kennedy: Well, we all know who he is. We assume he's not dead, or there would have been more news about it, so we're not sure why he's being searched.

8. MLB All-Star Game: Tomorrow, from St. Louis.

7. Neil Patrick Harris: TV's Doogie Howser. And he's also on that "How I Met Your Mother" show. Not sure why he's here.

6. Molly Ringwald: Hmm. . . .Neil Patrick Harris, Molly Ringwald. . . OH! This is "Top Searches" from 1989!

5. Blackberry Tour: Wait, "Blackberry" has a tour?!? Does it ride on a bus? With groupies? We have no idea.

4. Daughtry: "American Idol" finalist from a few years back who's actually made something of a career for himself. Don't know why he's here.

3. Butner Federal Prison: Heh-heh, "BUTT-ner." No idea. (Just checked: It's where Madoff is going to serve his sentence.)

2. LaToya Jackson: Rumor is, there IS no LaToya Jackson: She and Michael were always the same person. Michael faked his death and is now going to live out his days as LaToya. OK, we made that up.

1. Jessica Simpson: She and Tony Romo just broke up. On the eve of her (we are NOT making this up) Barbie-themed birthday party. Some people seriously need to be shot.

All right, so, for today, our score is 30%. And for the week, our overall cultural "knowiness" is an even 40%. We will, of course, strive to improve on this score. In the meantime, though, we hope that you Sloppists can tolerate being informed of less than 50% of the news that really matters.

At least we'll try to be amusing.