Baby Steps to Clean Your Hands

detailed instructions to wash hands

This type of sign seems to be popping up in bathrooms all over the place these days. Detailed instructions on how you ought to wash your hands. Now, I know a lot of people choose not to wash their hands when they finish using the toilet, but do we really think it is from a lack of knowledge?

That is the general question.  Now, specifically relating to the instructions on this sign:

  1. Do we expect people to carry around fingernail brushes with them? If not, are we providing them? If we are providing them, would it ever be more sanitary to use a communal fingernail brush than to just work the soap around your nails as much as possible by hand?
  2. Doesn’t washing your hands “up to your elbows” seem a bit much? If people are really not washing their hands at all, don’t we think a slightly easier to complete ask is in order?

Your thoughts please.

4 comments

  1. I suppose this sort of sign is a ‘sign’ of the times.

    In our litigious society it’s not difficult to imagine a restaurant having to put up signs like this to help prove their innocence when it came to a food poisoning suit.

    “See? We did everything we could short of having the manager washing the employees hands.”

    As an aside, I have found that since purchasing my first touch-interface cell phone I wash my hands more than ever. Who needs or wants greasy fingerprints on their device!

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