Tuesday, May 20, 2008

It's Important for the Regulations to specify "WHERE"

I recently visited a Hyatt Hotel and had the pleasure of visiting their facilities (I went into the bathroom). It was a lovely place – clean, spacious, well-lit. Everything you could ask for. There was one curious detail. Next to the row of urinals there was a warning sign. You’ve seen these before. In English and then in Spanish, it warned that women who are pregnant should not drink alcohol, for risk of birth defects.

A reasonable, important warning. But in the men’s room? I thought for awhile about the placement of this sign. I could almost see putting this at a sports stadium, where the need for women’s rooms sometimes outstrips demand, and women storm the men’s room to increase supply. This seemed somewhat unlikely in the Hyatt Hotel. And even if it did happen at the Hyatt Hotel, and a group of women stormed the men’s room demanding parity, I would think they would still miss the sign because they likely wouldn’t be using the urinals.

Lastly, and this is just a guess, I’m skeptical that a drunk pregnant woman stumbling into the men’s room and (somehow) managing to leverage herself into the urinal to pee, would heed a written warning, not to mention she would likely be pointed in the wrong direction to read it.

No comments: