Desks harbor more germs than toilet seats:
“The average office desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat, according to a new University of Arizona study. ‘The premise of the study was to find the germiest place in the workplace,’ said Chuck Gerba, who headed the study. While telephones had the highest levels of bacteria, desks, fax machines, water fountain handles, microwave door handles and computer keyboards also had high levels, researchers found.”
Oh, don’t forget the mouse, the cup full of pens and the desk drawer handles. I’ve spent too many years in the field as a desktop support person not to know this. I’ve seen it all. Sneeze marks on the monitors, stains of questionable origin on the keyboards, god knows what between the keys. Food, hair, dandruff, flakes of skin and innumerable other nasty things. It’s enough to make you go screaming off into the night.
When people’s keyboards used to blink out, 99% of the time is was coffee/water/pop but, they wouldn’t never admit they spilled anything. Anyway, I used to make a big production of covering my nose and mouth with one hand, flipping the keyboard upside down and giving it a smart bang on their desk. All of the aforementioned vile junk would explode onto their desktop and the user watched in horror. Of course, the exercise had no point, I was just being mean. I never did it to my favorite “customers.” Oh, the stories I could tell…
Another time, just keep washing your hands, baby… keep washing your hands (via slashdot).