Some of the ladies here at work do NOT wash their hands after using the washroom! My office is right next to our washroom, it's small, with only the toilet and a sink. I can hear when the toilet flushes and the when the water in the sink runs. I can tell when someone flushes, then takes the few steps to the door, opens it and comes out. I KNOW without a doubt some of them are NOT washing their hands!!!! There's even a sign in the washroom encouraging washing and mentioning that it helps to stop the spread of illnesses.

I've already been labled as something of a germaphobe because I use the hand sanitizer at the station that is right outside of my office (we also have a shop here and I'm under no illusions that the guys out there always wash their hands). They haven't had to refill the sanitizer since the day it was put up because almost no one else uses it. I know if I say anything to them they'll just tell me it's no big deal.

Seriously??? Is this no big deal or am I right and this is seriously gross??? I hate touching door knobs and just about anything else around here. How do I get them to grow up and wash their hands???

Ew. Ew. Ew ew ew ew.

Ew.

I've found that there's not much I can do to make people wash their hands. I did find that the Purell station outside the washrooms helps, but I much prefer soap and water myself.

What makes me feel better is keeping an arsenal of wipes and lysol around. When someone is sick in the office I go into overdrive and spray down everyone's phone, keyboard as well as all the knobs and handles. No one is safe when I go on a sanitizing bender

Yes, I'm weird, but I am also well.

Sadly, you can't. Criticizing the personal hygiene of others, even if it is gross, particularly in the workplace, is out of bounds in most corporate cultures.

You could talk to HR about ways you might encourage handwashing, though. Bring it up as a concern and say you're worried about people getting sick during cold and flu season and the resulting loss of productivity. And you can always wash your own hands regularly, which will keep you pretty safe.

Ick, though.

We have someone in our office who insists on straddling the toilet and misses every time! We have urine all over the floors. I have suspicions of who it is but the only thing I can do is bring it to the attention of the office manager and hope she posts some signs or something to get the point across.

I know people don't wash their hands after using the bathroom - I often refrain from shaking hands or eating at pot lucks for that reason.

Can you give them dirty/horrified looks when they come out of the bathroom??

We had a very embarrassing office-wide conversation about this very thing a while back.

Someone was in the restroom, someone else came out, did not wash her hands. The "witness" came into our room and confronted everyone. "SOMEONE wearing black pants who just came out of the bathroom did NOT wash their hands. That's GROSS!"

I wasn't wearing black pants, and I always always always wash my hands, so I wasn't particularly concerned, and continued to work. Well, the black-pants wearers were falling all over themselves, "I wasn't in the bathroom, I've been at my desk all morning, I keep hand sanitizer on my desk because the soap stinks, etc. etc."

Hugely embarrassing and not helpful either.

Sorry, though, that really bugs me!

I have a couple of comments about this.

1) I'll be honest...when I am at home, I don't wash my hands when I use the restroom. I don't "touch" anything so I don't worry about it.

2) At work (doctors' office), I ALWAYS wash my hands even though the soap eats my hands up like acid.

3) Public restroom, ditto on washing my hands.

4) I know a doctor who does not wash his hands after visiting the restroom. How do I know this? The toilet is still flushing when he exits the bathroom. I don't work directly with him so I can only hope he does it when he gets back to his area and before he sees a patient.

I don't know how you could report it without looking like you're the "Weird one," playing "Bathroom Police," paying too much attention to who is flushing and who isn't. Maybe encourage HR to post more signs or send out memos about hand washing, etc. Other than that, not much you can do...

Could you say, "Oh, are we out of soap?"

I'm with you Auntie Jam.......gross!

As a nurse, I am aware of what kind of gunk grows on our skin and what can potentially occur if an infection develops. When I exit a public restroom, I NEVER touch the door handle. I'll use a paper towel or my sleeve.

That is gross.. I work at a grocery store and women that work in the deli will use the restroom and walk out without washing their hands. I will wash my hands even if I go into the ladies room but not enter the stall just because I can't stand the idea of germs floating around in the air. It's disgusting.
I too am a germaphope. One time a customer seen one of the ladies that worked in the deli not wash her hands after she did her business, looked at me and asked "did she wash her hands?" I told her "nope."
She then gave a disgusted response and said "that's F***ING FOWL!!!!"

No, that's pretty yucky. There are terms for this.

pee and flee- peeing without washing your hands

poop and scoot- pooping without washing your hands

Ick, ick, ick! That's disgusting!

Well, mostly so everything you touch in between the bathroom (door handle, etc) and the deli isn't contaminated. Also, if sinks have on/off handles (a lot of restroom faucets have the buttons you push down that turn on the water for a set period of time or motion sensors, meaning you don't touch the on/off mechanism after washing), like a lot of deli sinks, you touch that handle with your contaminated hands. Then you re-contaminate yourself by touching the handle when you turn it off. Worse, you contaminate the hands of everyone who touches it after you.

I'm actually not a germophobe at all, and think most people panic far too much about microbes (and particularly about strange things with low risk, while ignoring things with high contamination risks), but if a deli has a policy requiring workers to wash their hands in a sink with a handle they have to touch to turn off, employees who don't wash their hands in the bathroom and then turn on the faucet are effectively making it so every employee that touches that handle to turn on the faucet is spreading the original bathroom germs.

The best thing you can do, in my opinion, is keep you hand hygiene great. You can keep the germs off of your hands and away from the people you care about with frequent hand washing. Keep it up!