High-security laundry room rant
It is currently approximately 11:18 PM / 23h18 here in Paris. Around 8:45 PM, I put a load of laundry in the wash, in our tiny little laundry room. Three washers, two dryers, seems like they could have put a bit more but it’s right downstairs and it’s only €3 so I don’t mind having to wait. Within reason.
Tonight was not within reason. The dryers were in use, with the same person’s stuff, for over two hours. This is not what I’m ranting about, though. Some people leave their stuff in forever. Fine. You deal with it. I decided to be a nice polite person and not take their stuff out of the dryer. This was a mistake.
At about 10:10 PM, I discovered that, for whatever reason, the residence locks the doors to the area with the laundry room at night.
There is a term for such a policy: sheer idiocy. We’re college students! When do you expect us to do our laundry, during class? Do you actually want to encourage everybody to do it on weekend afternoons, which are already default laundry-room glut times? What benefit can you possibly get from locking off that area at night? Is some student going to sneak into the gameroom next door and make off with the foosball table? I’d say they were being hyper-security-conscious, but these are people who would have you turn on the hallway lights yourself if you want to be able to see on your way to the elevator. This isn’t one of those French things that’s a quaint little tradition, or one of those things that’s inefficient but pretty; it’s simply stupid. It’s even worse than the dearth of stores open week-round (the French idea of an enjoyable weekend pass-time, apparently, is a lively game of guess-which-supermarket-is-actually-open-today; this is complicated by the fact that those open on Sunday are generally closed on Monday).
That’s all I have to say, really. I’m just astounded at the utter pointlessness of this policy. I should be getting to be so I can wake up bright and early tomorrow and put my clothes in the dryer.
