One of the challenges about cycling is that you don’t get to enjoy showering at home as much as you’d like.

Another challenge is cycling to work, going to have a shower and finding someone’s put a fridge there.

I started a new job today. Bizarrely and purely coincidentally it is located in the same building as my old job, just one floor up. There is one shower to service 5 levels. I was prepared for this.

After 2 months of injury and being unable to cycle, I was determined – now that I’m feeling better and now that my bike has been serviced – that I would cycle to work Day 1 of my new job in the renewable energy sector.

Cycling to work (especially for grrrls like me) requires lots of preparation and means carrying lots of extra stuff on the back of the bicycle, particularly the first day when you’re carting all the things you generally keep there permanently (e.g. hair dryer, towel, toiletries bag). You also have to make sure you remember to pack important things like shoes. I have forgotten to pack shoes before which meant cycling down the road to purchase some, but that’s not something you want to do everyday (despite the grrrl in me finding it a perfectly reasonable notion). And it’s certainly not something you want to do on your first day in your new job.

The last thing I expected was to arrive at work all super organised with all my stuff then chain my bike then hop in the lift then mosey on up all sweaty and stinky to discover a fridge in the shower!

A fridge!

And that’s the thing with showers at work. The people who don’t use them seem to think they’re not used. It’s quite a strange phenomenon, really.

Luckily the building’s landlords had a shower tucked away in their own locked offices and kindly allowed me to use it. Otherwise my first encounter with my new colleagues would’ve been ‘Who’s the stinky, unkept, greasy haired new girl?’

I contacted the building caretaker who is going to sort it, but before I went home today I took the initiative to pull the fridge from out of the shower and pop it in the hall. Tomorrow morning I would really like to simply mosey on up and jump in the shower. I really have no desire to encounter the fridge again.

I don’t like the idea of arriving at the office in all my daggy cycling glory and much prefer to shower and change and beautify before anyone who matters sees me, so I’ve decided to leave my cycle bag and bath towel hanging in the shower clearly labelled with my name and phone number.

If people feel they can keep fridges in the shower, I figure I can keep shower-related items in there.

You know, because clearly no-one actually used workplace showers do they … ?