Of Toilets and Corridor

My faculty is a peculiar one - the location of it, I mean. This vast, long, rectangular room accommodates 30 plus academic staff - all without any partitions. There are two entrances/exits - one of each of the far ends. At one end, a door (say, door A) leads to another part of the building containing a printing service counter, lab service counter and also numerous computer labs (henceforth, called lab area). At the other end, a door (say, door B) opens to the outside of the entire building, where there is a sidewalk cafe, and also staircases to upper levels of the building. This is the door most lecturers use as exits/entrances to/from classes. Within the building, on the right side of door B, there is a long corridor. At the end of that long corridor, are the toilets. Two toilets - one for the ladies, one for the gents. That is two toilets, one per gender, to 30 plus of us. Bad? There is more.

About a month ago, the small passage joining a small room on another side of the buidling to the long corridor was cleared and opened up. A second door (say, door C) was installed between the long corridor and the open space where the academic staff are placed. So effectively now, coming from the direction of the staircase, we would have to pass through 2 doors (which keys to numerous locks we have to carry) to gain entrance into our faculty. Troublesome? Still more to come. The small room, mention at the beginning of this paragraph, was then rented out to an external operator for the provision of "network printing and photocopy" services. There are 2 accesses to this photocopy place - their main entrance, two large glass doors overlooking the carpark, and a side passage connecting to the lab area. But no, two accesses are not enough. The third access is through the long corridor, from door B. And what was the reason they installed door C - to separate students from the faculty space - although door C itself is a rickety old piece of junk, salvaged from goodness-knows-where!

Now the real problem. Students are practically walking freely through our once quiet and private long corridor, littering the place and making noise. Of course, the noises they make a not in English, despite the whole English-Speaking Campus whatever. And, as if the staff number to toilet ratio is not high enough, the students are now using the two precious toilets like nobody's business. After the first couple of days it happened, one of the lecturers printed "Staff Toilet" on A4 paper and pasted one on each of the toilet doors. But the students still used the toilets. Another lecturer (or the same one, perhaps) printed another sign "No Students Allowed" and pasted one below each of the previous signs. Almost immediately, the second sign was ripped off from the door of the ladies' and female students continued using it. Goodness gracious, Christopher Columbus!

I quote myself " girls have as much sense of hygiene as a fly". And yes, they do! They dirty our toilet, litter precious toilet paper all over the place, and (brace yourself, reader) throw used sanitary pads into the toilet bowl! I personally have developed a phobia for the toilet I have been using for the past 3 years - I don't know what I might see inside!

On the subject of doors... recently one of the lecturers in my faculty lost his bunch of keys (yes, a MAN he is!) and fearing break-ins by students in case the lost keys fell into their hands, the management had to change two of the 3 locks attached to door B. And subsequently, all 30 plus of us had to have 3 keys exchanged for new ones. Talk about bulk inefficiencies! Oh, but that's nothing compared to the toilets and corridor crisis.