It started with the installation of a hands-free dryer at my office building. Its domed silver head installed awkwardly by the entrance of the bathroom meant that anyone attempting to use it would have to squeeze themselves into a tiny corner to avoid the heavy bathroom door's path. I saw it and thought, "what idiot decided that this would be the best place to install it?" There is a teeny bit of logic to the placement: it was on the way out of the bathroom and next to the pre-existing paper towel dispensor. With one opening of the bathroom door, however, anyone can see how improper the placement was.

I never saw anyone use the hand dryer, never heard anyone use it (for all its modernesque curves, it still sounded like an ancient howling vacuum), nor did I see the telltale drops of water at the dryer base to indicate that someone has recently used it. Kudos for trying to save the environment, but it's not working in my office.

The dryer stayed in place for about a week when, over a weekend, it was removed, leaving large holes in the tile. A few days later, the dryer was reinstalled in a small "counter" area of the bathroom. Its new placement would require someone to go further away from the door than towards it, but it was no longer in anyone's way. Paper towels are still offered, so still no one uses the dryer.

Then came the automatic flushing devices.

I find these devices awkward and, months now after their initial installation, they remain untested by the installers. In some stalls, the detection sensitivity is too high: move ever so slightly forward on the toilet seat and it will flush. In others, it's easier to push the button to manual flush it than deal with the handwaving in front of the sensor to try and get it to flush. Awkward, annoying, and still exposes me to unflushed toilets. For toilet automation, I prefer those automatic toilet seat sanitizer plastic cover things that you see in the train station bathrooms than these automatic flushers. Never again would I have to wipe another person's pee off a toilet seat!

A week afterwards, automatic faucets and automatic soap dispensors appeared. These are a mixed blessing. Translucent white soap is dispensed, making a disconcerting squirting sound when they pump their too-small load into a carefully positioned hand. The first time I used it, the soap missed my hand completely. My first thought was "ew, someone had to select that color liquid soap instead of the bright pink the manually pumped dispensors once held." My second thought was "this is going to take some practice". After much practice, I've determined that 1) the dispensor needs atleast a three second "hands away from the device" delay before it can pump again and 2) I need four pumps to have an adequate amount of soap.

The automatic faucets are okay, especially compared to the old spigots. The old types were of the pump variety: push down on either the hot, cold, or combination of the two and water would come out for an inadequate amount of time from the faucet. Annoying but allowed user to determine the temperature of the water. In the new, automatic faucets, the temperature cannot be changed and range from mildly warm to scalding depending on the basin one uses. There is no cold water. Some days, my hands feel uncomfortably warm after rinsing with warm water and I end up rinsing them in the kitchen sink, which still retains its manual knobs.

We have the fancy, automated bathroom. I believe the automatic faucets and soap dispensors are acceptable, but the other materials are unnecessary and not useful in their current form. Application of technology in every facet of our lives isn't necessarily useful.