Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness

I should give everyone fair warning that you may not want to read this post and view the photo if you are already a germaphob, have a weak stomach or you are currently living in an air-tight plastic bubble to shield yourself from this dirty, dirty world we live in. If you fall into any of these categories, I suggest you stop reading now before your body goes into shock. I'm about to dish up the dirt, letting you know how filthy that office you work in really is. Trust me, it won't be pretty, but it will be educational. So grab a gallon of bleach and a scrub brush. You may want to rub your own skin off after learning about the creepy crawlies many of us are unaware of living right under our very fingertips (insert shuttering here).

A study was conducted to measure normal bacterial levels inside offices across America. They found that paper isn't all that's piling up on desks. In fact, the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat! For bacteria, a desk is really the laptop of luxury - feasting all day from breakfast to lunch and even thru dinner. Unless desks are wiped clean with a disinfectant during the day, bacteria levels climb higher and higher, peaking after lunch. The study, funded by a grant from The Clorox Company, found that surfaces in personal work areas such as offices and cubes, had higher bacteria levels than surfaces in common areas. Telephones came in as the #1 home for office germs, followed by desks, water fountain handles, microwave door handles and computer keyboards. Surprisingly, toilet seats consistently had the lowest bacteria levels of the 12 surfaces tested in the study.

We don’t think twice about eating at our desks, even though the average desk has 100 times more bacteria than a kitchen table and 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet. Without cleaning, a small area on your desk or phone can sustain millions of bacteria that could potentially cause illness. With more people spending more time at their desks, with the average workweek increasing to 47 hours, bacteria are finding plenty to snack on. If that wasn't bad enough, they discovered that your keyboard is dirtier than your toilet! You should absolutely wash your hands after using a computer keyboard. There is a whopping 265 times more bacteria on a keyboard than on a toilet seat! Basically, you are probably better off eating your lunch off your office toilet seat than at your office desk.

Workers can control the spread of illness-causing bacteria by helping to stop the spread of germs. You should clean your personal workspace regularly. By using disinfecting wipes bacteria levels decrease drastically (99.9%). Among people who did not use wipes, bacteria levels increased an average of 19-31% on their telephone, computer mouse, keyboard and desktop surfaces throughout a typical workday. So your Mother was right all these years when she told you "wash your hands, you don't know what germs you can get". Well now we know what germs we can get, where we can get them and that there's alot of them just waiting to land on our keyboards! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm a bit of a clean freak myself so I feel the overwhelming urge to go and disinfect this keyboard.