Massage Time: Cross-Contamination and Why I'm About to Hire Liam Neeson

I have recently become the queen of passive-aggressive notes at my workplace. I'm a massage therapist, as many of you know, and I work at various places in and around the Greater New Orleans area. On Sundays, I work at a spa in the CBD. I won't tell you which one because I don't want to scare off the clientele. This is ironic considering how often my boss gripes at me to post something for the company's Facebook page. I don't think she would approve of this tale of yuck, though. Also, she might frown upon the fact that I'm contemplating physical harm against one of her employees. I'm usually a live and let live type of gal, but I've reached the end of my rope, and it looks like there's a noose at the end of this one.

Handy.

So here's the situation. There are two rooms specifically set aside for massage, and both rooms are shared amongst a handful of massage therapists. The way it's supposed to work is you set up your room for the day and at the end of the day, you clean and restock for the next shift. I came into work this morning and started setting up my room. Everything seemed to be in order. Or, it did, until I looked in one of the cabinets to find one of the rubber mixing bowls had oil residue inside of it. It hadn't been cleaned, which led me to wonder just how many times it had been used before it was unceremoniously thrown into the cubby.

This was the fourth time I've found a dirty mixing bowl. I was forced to clean yet another mess I had not made. I was not pleased. I know who did it because this person has done this before, and she was working the night before. I won't name names just in case she reads this and whines that I'm picking on her, so I'll use a pseudonym. Let's call her...Lazy Asshole Who Thinks I'm Her Maid. Lazy for short. Lazy has left wet towels in the towel warmer over night. I and various other employees have warned her countless times that doing this attracts mold. She's forgotten to sweep and mop her room so many times, I've lost track of the number of oily foot prints I've mopped up. She's left hot stones sitting in dirty water.

This last one is the worst because instead of leaving the stone warmer on top of the cabinet for the next hapless therapist to find, she puts the entire thing back in the cabinet. And it sits there until it's used again. There are three hot stone warmers, and we can go weeks before a client books another one. Right about now you're thinking, "Ew!" But wait! I haven't told you the best part. She's done it at least three times in the past. Have you ever cleaned something with barbacide? That's what I had to do to get those damn things clean, and I cursed Lazy Asshole's name the entire time I did it.

You would think the stone thing would be the last straw, but it wasn't. For me, it was the trash lining. It seems trivial, but having to pluck out one snot covered Kleenex after another from a trash can with no bag really pushed me over the edge. I decided to make my irritation over the situation known. Since verbally telling her of my suffering at her hands hadn't worked in the past, this time I left her a little note:

Things are getting so bad, even the inanimate objects are complaining.

I put this up in both rooms, and miracle of miracles, it worked! The trash can lining has been changed every shift. This morning, I decided to push my luck. If one passive-aggressive note worked, why not another? So I left this:

For those of you who can't read scribble-scratch, here's a translation of the above text:

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you're looking for a maid, I can tell you I'm not one. But what I do have are a particular set of skills. Skills I have aquired over a long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you clean these bowls now (or after use), that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I WILL KILL you.

Liam Neeson, eat your heart out!