Experts reveal what workplace surfaces may be teeming with bacteria — and what you should do about it.
It’s a routine by now: You head into the office. You scan your keycard and reach for the door, fill a mug with coffee in the communal kitchen and take a quick-before-work bathroom break. Then, you head over to your desk and settle in for hours of typing away at your keyboard. As your day progresses, there are meetings, lunch, visits to your colleagues’ desks and so on.
But have you ever taken a moment to think about all the surfaces you’re touching in the midst of all of this?
Between doorknobs, coffee pots, water coolers, communal tables and more, office workers are coming into contact with endless germs throughout the day. And encountering these microbes can expose you to everything from RSV to the common cold, E. coli, salmonella, and more, said Gabriela Andujar Vazquez, an infectious disease physician and associate hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center.
So which parts of the office are the worst? We tapped some germ experts to expose the most contaminated things you’ll encounter around the office, plus advice on how to keep them from getting you sick.
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The Bathroom
“For public bathrooms and office bathrooms, many will spend more time and work than they do at their homes at times, which means that restrooms get a lot of use, and most times employers do not clean them as often as they should,” said Shanina C Knighton, a research associate professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.
Therefore, she said, it is important for you to minimize using your phones in the restrooms. And yes, wash your hands afterwards.