DO THIS, DON'T DO THAT

You can really tell a first-rate establishment by its willingness to put homemade signs all over the place. Like the "No Shoes With Wheels" signs at my favorite grocery store, or the sign above from my workplace. Usually these signs express some type of tormented exasperation and often have an ominous tone — a dark suggestion that karmic tabs are being kept on you.

Sometimes they seek to make their point by shaming the would-be violator, like the signs in the faculty breakroom where I teach; they say things like "Your mother doesn't work here. And neither does your wife. So clean up after yourself." That one honestly delights me because it's so unabashed in pointing out the gender of the typical slob. Also, I feel like because I can't legally have a wife that it's cosmically OK for me to leave an unwashed cup in that particular sink. My wife not only doesn't work here, but she couldn't work here; therefore, I can make a mess. Another sign there says, "If you would like a styrofoam cup, request one from the dean's office upstairs." It took me awhile to figure this one out. Um, I don't have a Ph.D., but wouldn't it make more sense to store the coffee cups by the coffee maker instead of on a completely different floor of the building? But I eventually concluded that it's meant to discourage waste, like from the men and bitter lesbians who would opt for a styrofoam cup instead of one that would need washing and a wife. On a couple of occasions — when I have inexplicably been without my own mug — I have trekked up to the dean's office and requested a styrofoam cup, and the administrative professional acted like I had asked her to stop typing and give me a foot massage. Like I had some kind of nerve! Like, hello, that sign is just for show — meant to shame, not to enable, polluters. She grudgingly shuffled over to a filing cabinet and fished out a dusty styrofoam cup for me. My shame was such that I almost turned into the bathroom to pee in the cup before I remembered what it was for.

Tonight I had a little downtime at my other job, so I decided to collect a sampling of the homemade signs there. They all sound the same scolding notes of fear, shame, retribution, etc. I happen to agree with the content of all of these signs, I must say; however, I'm just not down with mucking up the workplace with them. I mean, why should one mar one's environment with an ugly sign in a vain attempt to keep some jackass from doing what he's going to do anyway? It's like those idiotic "no guns" signs posted everywhere. Are those going to keep some wackjob from packing? No. Are they going to mar the beauty of our public buildings? Yes. In place of those dumb red gun signs, you might as well just post a sign that says, "We have officially failed as a civil society." I mean, isn't there lurking — under this thick layer of Scotch-tape-and-paper tackiness — some grave admission of defeat, like we've all just given up hope that anyone will be courteous and common-sensical without written, bold-faced reminders everywhere?