Instead of working, I blog.

I was watching this guy in the bathroom the other day (no, not like that… be nice!). And something struck me as a bit useless. So what this guy did was he had one of those large PDA phones and he didn’t have any where to put it, so he laid it on top of the urinal while he was doing his business. When he was done, he took it out and went to the sink and washed his hands. Then he took his phone and left. Since he actually laid his phone on the urinal and didn’t wash it, I was wondering why he bothered washing his hands at all. Doesn’t he know that unless he actually pees directly on his hands that they’re not in any more danger than his phone is, and it’s actually highly likely that his phone has whatever his hands do? And where do you think all that yuckiness will go next time he uses his phone?

I saw this episode of MythBusters where they tested this theory with toothbrushes. They had a control brush under glass down the hall, and they had a couple more sitting in the bathroom, etc. At the end, what they found was that there was just as much fecal matter on the brush under glass down the hall as there was on the one in the bathroom itself. Pretty gross, huh? The point is that there’s a lot of conjecture that goes on when it comes to bathroom habits and the like. The MythBusters however, pulled hard numbers and proved that your toothbrush is going to get nasty stuff on it regardless.

In DBs we deal with numbers, and not conjecture and not feelings. Numbers don’t lie. So the next time you step into a meeting, or go to your boss and ask for a change to the DB for whatever reason, perhaps it would be best if you pulled some numbers so you have something solid to back you up. Otherwise, despite all your trouble, you might just end up with piss on your face.