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Archive of posts tagged washing hands

must wash hands

Posted by  on 25 June 2009, 1:35 pm
during yesterday’s coffee break, i stopped at a starbucks in vancouver to have the morning ‘fix’. while i was sipping away…i had to take a short trip and ‘check-out’ the facilities at the location. the first thing that jumped at me was the sign ‘employees must wash their hands’. first thing i thought about was something along the lines…’great…but have you told them how to do it properly?’.

make my way to wash my hands, and i noticed the short ‘how-to-wash-your-hands’ picture-gram (and as soon as i get a chance i’ll post a picture of it). in short, the diagram itself was made up for five pictures showing different stages of the washing procedure. as you can imagine, i was quite pleased that the instructions were there, they were clear and had subtitles to each picture in order to explain what to do. first you wet your hands and then you get soap. then you wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds, and after you rinse them. you take paper towels after and turn off the water with the paper towel (as to not contaminate yourself from the dirty handle…thumbs up for this to starbucks).

seeing this brought a few questions. i do wonder if other training was offered to employees besides the posted information (which does most often get ignored). the second thought was…i wonder why they did not put a picture to tell the employee to use the paper towel to open the door when getting out of the bathroom…afterall there are some who do not wash they hands and will have to use the door handle to get out. so…for the same reason as to why one should use a towel to turn off the running water in the sink…one should use the paper towel to open the door when coming out (thus one would also require a garbage basket at or near the door). and the third thing (and this is probably nit-picking) is…to my knowledge one should wash one’s hands with soap form 30 to 60 seconds (given different sources). perhaps i am being picky on this…but at least they have these up there.

overall, i am quite pleased to at least see information about this posted. yes, most employees tend to ignore signs, but at least efforts are being made. i hope that training went along with the information, but if not there’s still time. and while i wonder why the employees bathroom is common with the public bathroom at starbucks (most likely due to space constraints)…it’s comforting knowing they took the time to instruct about washing procedures, unlike others.

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careful where you eat…

Posted by  on 22 April 2009, 1:45 am
it’s been a while since i posted anything…given various random things that have occurred, but at least i think this post is quite worth it. recently a new swept through north america. this one deserves a place in the ‘you’re dumber than you look’ category and also…the ‘you did it to yourself’. as it seems, not only were some domino employees dumb enough to tape their tampering with food (in other words…creating evidence)…they had the bright idea of posting it on youtube. this really deserves a new level of stupidity and/or foolishness. they essentially created the evidence that not only got them fired (in a ‘crisis filled society’…they decide to fire themselves), but apparently they might face some jail time. really wish that there were some awards similar to the ‘darwin awards‘, but for alive fools that can’t figure out a dumber way to get fired, but also spent some time behind bars. need i remind you of the fool from england that taped himself speeding, posted it on youtube and then that was used against him (fine, licence suspended, etc.). nice going…what can i say, some just can’t figure out how to get in jail faster…here’s an idea…just try to join the darwin awards…save us the embarrassment of being group with you in the same category (humans).

so, as a friend of mine said a few days back..sometimes you really do not want to know what goes on behind the scenes in restaurants. shocking, but true (to some extent). i would like to know what goes on behind the scenes…it will help me decide where to eat. a nice initiative has been started by vancouver coastal health (awesome job), which posts information about inspections to food establishments, information about license suspensions and the reasons as well as the length. enjoy…and read it with care.

on the same topic, i ended up in a ‘club’ on saturday. it’s called the crush champagne lounge, it’s on granville streets (with davie) in downtown vancouver. during my trips to use the facilities i ended up observing some rather disgusting behaviour. the ones involved, a bartender, a bus boy and a body-guard. each one of them on separate occasions. they used the facility, and simply walked out. yes, you got it…without washing their hands. now, i was about to essentially go and talk to someone about it…but eventually gave up (perhaps next time). however, the next day i did email the manager of the establishment and shared my opinion about…their lack of training about personal hygiene, about the fact that they are putting their customers’ health at risk, it’s disgusting, and more. i truly wonder if they don’t spent time training their staff about this…i wonder how good they train their staff about other aspects of health and safety.

the manager did reply, within 10 minutes, to my email…and did state he will bring this up to the next meeting. also he made sure to mention that there are 3 sinks (with soap) and a hand sanitizer behind the bar (sure, awesome…completely useless if they are not used). however, it was appreciated that he did pay attention, was polite and did respond.

however, quite disgusting knowing they do not wash their hands…serve drinks…and essentially serve you…so keep your eyes open…and don’t be afraid to complain.

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