You: "Wait, wait, wait. Back up. Civil? What does that mean? What does she do?"
Well, MKA's main engineering service is structural engineering - which is what I do - but we also have a pretty great civil engineering team. To simplify it, civil engineering is when you control water as it enters and leaves your building site. A sexy part of that job is controlling "blackwater" which is water + piss/shit.
We've all been there. You've just eaten lunch about an hour ago and you feel the need to dispose of your stockpiled waste to make room for new waste. Plus, you welcome a mental break to scroll through salty Trump posts on Facebook, bragging friends on Instagram (guilty), pointless stuff on Snapchat, or maybe you take advantage of the moment to swipe left or right on Tinder before you wipe up and down (also guilty). Or perhaps best of all you decide to catch up on the latest slab on STLLT.
As you flush away your break time, your waste embarks on a journey. It leaves your building (MKA-Civil's role), enters the city's sewer pipes, and eventually arrives at the sanitation plant looking like delicious chocolate milk. Its journey concludes here where it finally gets treated and turned into harmless pathogen-free water. None of that happens by accident. Although not glamorous, this process is one of the greatest inventions of humanity. In fact, within our civil engineering world we often like to brag to ourselves that "civil engineers have saved more lives than doctors," because of this very invention. There is a surprisingly large amount of people in the world who don't have this luxury.
Each year, I anxiously await for November 19th to roll around to see Sonya's post informing the office that it's World Toilet Day and how we can help further sanitation in developing countries. With a master stroke she simultaneously catalogs the post, and puts a smile on everyone's face by using the hashtag #dontbetabootalkaboutpoo. World Toilet Day is the best holiday because of:
1) its logo (see below)
2) all of its punny topics ("Urgent Run," "Raise a Stink," "Talk Shit")
3) it's a good cause that saves lives in a literal sense
On November 19th I inevitably think of something an old high school friend told me. His fraternity had a goal of using every stall on their campus within a year. They got maps of all the buildings on campus and they divvied up the stalls to their brothers (frat-talk I think). While out at class, if they got an urge, they'd be sure to cross campus if needed to use one of their unexplored stalls. I know, I know, it sounds like a very frat thing to do, but... I liked that idea a lot.
So much so that I decided to do it for my own building.
I've shared the results of my research on this link. It took a long time but I achieved my goal. It came with a cost. I had several awkward elevator conversations to explain to coworkers why I wasn't heading to one of MKA's floors. But overall, I think it was worth it as can be seen by my trophy:
I found that floor 34 was the best bathroom within the building for cleanliness and privacy. Often my entry triggers the motion sensor to turn on the lights - even during prime time - which suggests it's rarely used. This is due to the fact that the companies on that floor are female dominant and the floor is partially vacant. Floor 30 also performs well for the same reasons. The worst bathroom was clearly the White Pages' bathroom (yes I was surprised they still exist too) on floor 16 which appeared to have missed a renovation that all the other bathrooms in the building underwent.
I challenge you to endeavor on a similar goal. Make sure all the stalls in your building are in proper working order. After you flush, appreciate the fact that functioning sewer systems are pretty much a guaranteed thing where you live/work (hopefully it is). Best yet, help out with efforts to expand that service. Let me know how it goes, and I'll tell Sonya.
Lastly, I don't want to leave you without a slab that looks like a thing. Since this wasn't a beautiful topic, I'll share some of the more beautiful entries I have received. These come from my coworker Luke. Luke and I took each others places within the company earlier this year. He replaced me in the "retail" group and I replaced him in "cultural" group. He left big shoes to fill and I've enjoyed the opportunity. Luke presents: "Dumbo Looking at his Reflection in a Puddle" and "Blooming Flower."
Correction:
Another coworker, Lily, first used the hashtag #dontbetabootalkaboutpoo within a comment of one of Sonya's posts. Sonya has since used it within her post in subsequent years. STLLT regrets the error.
