Like this?
It's too high-tech for a hotel. Seriously.
And it's unsanitary.
(Are you already starting to not believe a word of this one? . . .)
This past week I've been letting daylight in upon magic and holding us up for ridicule as an industry disinclined to have our technology keep up with the times and modern needs (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to Why does it take so long to check in at hotels? ), but oddly enough, this really is too high tech for a hotel. Before you start laughing . . . well, here's why:
You'd need one in the shower and at the sink. They have to be mounted. If they become detached, they have to be re-mounted. (It's like a law - some guy named Murphy came up with it - that if it ever comes loose, it'll happen when the guest is in the room . . .)
You won't save any soap. Room attendants will spill some of the soap as they're filling the dispenser each day (it's like a law - again, one of Murphy's - that if it ever goes completely empty, it'll happen in the middle of the night as a guest is taking a shower . . .) and, in addition to the waste, it'll add to their cleaning chores as they have to clean up the mess.
And finally . . . well, when we think of soap, we think of it as the cleanest stuff in the world: indeed, the ultimate in clean stuff. Like, it's so clean, it makes anything else it comes in contact with, clean . . . The reality is, when soap sits in one spot for awhile and starts to break down chemically, it is anything but.
You'd be truly amazed how nasty soap can get, if it's been sitting somewhere for awhile, stagnating, fermenting, doing whatever it does as it chemically breaks down.
(Really, the stuff is made from rendered animal fat, and dead bodies - and stuff that is made from them - rot. Ever notice that 'sour, soapy' smell when you scrub something down, and after a time discover you didn't do a very good job of rinsing it?. . . And that built-up crud you have to clean out of your tub or shower every so often - it's called 'soap scum' for a reason...)
But I digress . . .
Anyway, when soap breaks down chemically, it is not clean stuff - or even pleasant. Even in a filled dispenser that sits so long without being used, you can sometimes see a film forming across the top where it starts turning gray, and breaking down. As the level goes down as the dispenser is used, it even leaves a ring.
And inside that pump at the bottom of the soap dispenser is a lot of moving parts, and nooks and crannies, where soap can be lodged, start breaking down, and continue doing so even after it congeals. (If some of that deteriorating icky gray mess breaks loose and is dispensed into your hand as you're taking a shower, we did you no favors putting the soap dispenser there.)
So . . . each of those soap dispensers would have to be taken apart and cleaned and reassembled once or twice a month. Multiply that times maybe a half hour, times two dispensers in each guest bath, times 60 to 150 rooms in each hotel . . . Even in a small, 60-room hotel, that's 120 hours per month. You'd need at least one full-time employee in every hotel just to go around disassembling soap dispensers, cleaning them, and putting them together and remounting them.
Like I said, it's too high tech. It's easier to just give you two or three cakes of soap in the little basket next to the sink.
Originally appeared on Quora
It's too high-tech for a hotel. Seriously.
And it's unsanitary.
(Are you already starting to not believe a word of this one? . . .)
This past week I've been letting daylight in upon magic and holding us up for ridicule as an industry disinclined to have our technology keep up with the times and modern needs (Michael Forrest Jones' answer to Why does it take so long to check in at hotels? ), but oddly enough, this really is too high tech for a hotel. Before you start laughing . . . well, here's why:
You'd need one in the shower and at the sink. They have to be mounted. If they become detached, they have to be re-mounted. (It's like a law - some guy named Murphy came up with it - that if it ever comes loose, it'll happen when the guest is in the room . . .)
You won't save any soap. Room attendants will spill some of the soap as they're filling the dispenser each day (it's like a law - again, one of Murphy's - that if it ever goes completely empty, it'll happen in the middle of the night as a guest is taking a shower . . .) and, in addition to the waste, it'll add to their cleaning chores as they have to clean up the mess.
And finally . . . well, when we think of soap, we think of it as the cleanest stuff in the world: indeed, the ultimate in clean stuff. Like, it's so clean, it makes anything else it comes in contact with, clean . . . The reality is, when soap sits in one spot for awhile and starts to break down chemically, it is anything but.
You'd be truly amazed how nasty soap can get, if it's been sitting somewhere for awhile, stagnating, fermenting, doing whatever it does as it chemically breaks down.
(Really, the stuff is made from rendered animal fat, and dead bodies - and stuff that is made from them - rot. Ever notice that 'sour, soapy' smell when you scrub something down, and after a time discover you didn't do a very good job of rinsing it?. . . And that built-up crud you have to clean out of your tub or shower every so often - it's called 'soap scum' for a reason...)
(My first business venture was a used book store and coffee shop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I leased a building that, for years previously, had been a hair salon - with thick carpet on the floor. And you talk about some chemicals that had seeped into the carpet over the years and accumulated . . . ewwww! When I was cleaning it up and renovating, the place even smelled bad
Fortunately, in the end it turned out to be something that seemed worth doing . . . even though I'd opened it in a flawed location [not to mention that the interior was a hazardous materials site because of all those deteriorated shampoo and salon chemicals] and it didn't last. But it didn't come out looking too badly . . .
But I digress . . .
Anyway, when soap breaks down chemically, it is not clean stuff - or even pleasant. Even in a filled dispenser that sits so long without being used, you can sometimes see a film forming across the top where it starts turning gray, and breaking down. As the level goes down as the dispenser is used, it even leaves a ring.
And inside that pump at the bottom of the soap dispenser is a lot of moving parts, and nooks and crannies, where soap can be lodged, start breaking down, and continue doing so even after it congeals. (If some of that deteriorating icky gray mess breaks loose and is dispensed into your hand as you're taking a shower, we did you no favors putting the soap dispenser there.)
So . . . each of those soap dispensers would have to be taken apart and cleaned and reassembled once or twice a month. Multiply that times maybe a half hour, times two dispensers in each guest bath, times 60 to 150 rooms in each hotel . . . Even in a small, 60-room hotel, that's 120 hours per month. You'd need at least one full-time employee in every hotel just to go around disassembling soap dispensers, cleaning them, and putting them together and remounting them.
Like I said, it's too high tech. It's easier to just give you two or three cakes of soap in the little basket next to the sink.
Originally appeared on Quora
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