I sat in a confernce room in Building 10, enjoying some tea, waiting for the other three members of my team to arrive. I flipped through some documents describing the schema of another team's database, to refresh my knowledge before the meeting. Suddenly, I needed to drain the lizard. That's tea for you.
The plus shapped buildings at Microsoft (#1-#8) are confusing as hell. They're constructed from a central hub with elevators and amenities with four arms of two hallways each extending from it. That leaves you with four intersections, all of which look just about the same in every direction. A friend once pointed out he felt so much like a rat in a maze, that he often expected to find a chunk of cheese waiting for them when they reached their office.
The double-plus buildings (#9 and #10) are even worse: they have a third hub between the pluses, and the hubs are larger and have intersections through parts of them. Talk about taking it to the next level. When I first moved from building 27, I considered taking bread crumbs to work with me. However, I quickly found a better solution: the visible artwork and posters differ for each intersection, so no matter where I ended up, I could figure out where I was by artwork triangulation. Eventually, I didn't need the art work any more.
So, to the bathroom. Up, out the door, right, left, right, first door on the right... two steps in, my hand still on the door, the alarms going of in my subconcious stopped me in my tracks. There was something amiss. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, all I could see was the entry hall, but I suddenly knew I was in the wrong bathroom. I backed out to check the sign. That's right, I forgot one key fact: the two sides are mirror images, and I was on the opposite side from my office. Now, how did I know I'd chosen the wrong door?
As I entered the men's bathroom and breathed a sigh of relief, I saw what tipped me off: the men's had cool blue tile and beige walls, the women's had burgundy tiles and pink walls. Blue is for boys, Pink is for girls - Who knew?