Sanitary antics

“Employees must wash hands before returning to work.” This sign was found in the restroom of a famous Seattle-based coffee franchise. Why do they focus on employee cleanliness? Because even a short list of foodborne illness vectors contains such delicacies as campylobacter, hepatitis A, shigella, E. coli O157:H7, salmonella, and other lovely organisms. And if customers were to become ill from eating at this establishment, that would not be good for profits.

One of the most simple, cheap, and effective means to prevent foodborne illnesses is to have employees practice strict sanitary hand washing procedures. Hence the signs. But there is one small problem – the public often share the same restroom facilities with the employees, and the sanitary habits of the public cannot be underestimated.

Knowing that, the food service provider posts a sign instructing her employees to follow a strict hygienic procedure. The instructions on this sign are as follows:

1. Water
2. Soap
3. Wash (for 30 seconds)
4. Rinse
5. Dry
6. Turn off water (with paper towel)

Why turn off the water with a paper towel? Obviously, because if a previous user of the facilities did not practice good hygiene, the faucet handles might be contaminated with one or more of the lovely aforementioned disease vectors. Gee, I wonder if that applies to the door handle as well?

There were a few problems at this particular establishment… in spite of the sign, there were no paper towels. Only a hot air hand dryer. And the door most unhelpfully opened inward. So how is one to shut off the faucets and open the door without contaminating your hands? And if you, a customer, can’t do it , then how can the guy behind the counter do it?

I recommend that when you run into a situation where you can’t satisfactorily exit the restroom with assuredly clean hands, you need to complain to management that his employees can’t either.

Fun with numbers

The publisher of our local paper entertained us with some numerology in his most recent column ("Unfollow this link shortener", Feedback section).

Among the baubles are this one: “Take the last two numbers of the year of your birth, add what your age is this year, and you’ll get 111.” Except when you don’t.

No magic here, after all, because we are only saying that the year of your birth plus your age should equal the current year.

But to get 111 in particular, another condition must hold – that “you” must have been born in the last century. My nephew, for instance, born in 2001, calculates out to 11, not 111. And Abe Lincoln, born in 1809 and 202 years old, yields 211.

The leftmost digit (hundreds position) does carry some information, however. In the case of Abe Lincoln, 2 indicates how many centuries his birth is removed from the current one. And in my nephew's case, zero hundreds likewise indicates that he was born in this century.

Number puzzles can be fun. For me, the most fun comes from decomposing them and poking around the edges. Not mind-bending stuff, but pleasant over a cup of coffee on a rainy Sunday morning.