Stocksy
Heading into work, you might touch dozens of things—the front door, the communal coffee pot, the fax machine—without a second thought. But a new study shows it's time to think twice before you press the print button with your bare hands. Why? Because the study found that some office surfaces harbor more germs than a toilet seat—talk about seriously gross.
Hloom, a resume template site, worked with an independent laboratory to rest bacteria samples from five common surfaces within several offices, from small workplaces to large corporate headquarters, according to the study.
Each sample was tested to determine the prevalence as well as the various types of bacteria present on each surface—everything from copier start buttons to conference room door handles—in colony-forming units, otherwise dubbed CFU. CFU reflects the number of viable bacteria cells in a sample, and for this study, CFU was measures by square inch.
The results show that it might be time to build up your Starbucks budget. Every time you grab a cup of coffee from the communal pot, your hands touch a surface covered in more bacteria—108,592 CFU—than a school toilet seat. And the start button on your office copier? Its tiny surface is teeming with germs, too, containing more bacteria—1,200,013 CFU, to be exact—than your dog's dish. But your office water cooler isn't safe, either. Its dispenser is home to more bacteria—185 CFU—than you'll likely touch when you prepare foods on your kitchen cutting board.
Surprised? We were too. But it makes sense when you think about it. According to Hloom, office workers touch about 30 items per minute in their workspaces, from keyboards to phones and desks. Each time you touch a surface, you're transferring bacteria. So, by the time you grab that coffee pot handle, you've got hundreds of germs ready to make a jump.
Of course, not all bacteria will make you sick—which means that hypochondriacs shouldn't read this study and prepare their resignation letters. The samples Hloom swabbed contained four types of bacteria. Two could be harmless—gram-positive rods and bacillus, which can even be helpful to our health, depending on the type. Two others, however, we should be wary of at work: gram-positive cocci, which can cause skin infections and even pneumonia and blood poisoning, and gram-negative rods, which can also be harmful to our health.
Office coffee pot handles had the most bad-for-you bacteria, with 99 percent of the germs found there gram-negative rods, which can cause various infections and may even resist antibiotics. Copier start buttons were also home to gram-positive rods and even gram-positive cocci. Door handles and water dispensers were more likely to host harmless bacteria, but some bad bacteria could be found there, too.
The lesson? You can't wash your hands enough when you're at work. Resist the urge to rub your eyes or touch your mouth and nose. And if you think your personal work space—such as your desk or chair—could use a good clean, grab some Clorox wipes and get to work.
Source: http://www.glamour.com/story/could-your-office-be-making-you-sick
No comments: