Our submitter, B., was shopping at a shoe store in San Francisco when she realized she really needed to use the facilities. Although there was no public restroom in sight, she did spy the familiar infographic just beyond a doorway marked “employees only.” When she ducked inside, B. was greeted by this sublimely creepy warning from management[!].

Meanwhile, Chelsea’s boss at the La Quinta in Perrysburg, Ohio managed to dial up the creepy just a smidge more.

Apparently disatisfied with the staff’s response to her frequent written notes, the hotel manager brought in this doll — which chelsea says “looked exactly like her” — to do the job instead. (Er, so to speak.)

related: So many questions

Joe Six-Pack in San Francisco never actually got this note, because our own passive-aggressive pit bull secondsout swiped it from under his windshield wiper. Again, my understanding is that he recused himself,  but I don’t want to talk about that: I’d like to talk about energy.

And also, too, under the umbrella of job creation, therefore:

related: Herbie goes to Washington

Need another sign we’re officially in a recession? How ’bout three?

related: “No” questions asked

Omar says he found this tucked underneath the windshield his car in Noe Valley, a neighborhood of San Francisco “inhabited by self-centered jackasses — myself included, if you believe this note.”

Adds Omar: “I should clarify: The author of this masterpiece is talking about residential street parking, not a private/public lot with clearly designated lines or, for that matter, even metered street parking. I like to think of myself as a fairly considerate person; clearly I’m nowhere near considerate enough.” (Not by Northern Californian standards, at least.)

related: The parking class

Christoph found this polite and friendly note on the door of his apartment in San Francisco. a reasonable enough request, to be sure, except for the fact that — despite his neighbor’s claimed omniscience — “I don’t own any exercise equipment.”

Admits Christoph: “The sound in question was likely a swivel chair…and my habit of rolling back and forth on it at 2 a.m.”

Meanwhile, Kate spotted this lonely stair-climber in the front yard of a nearby house in Snohomish, Washington. “It made me wonder whose stairmaster it really was,” Kate says, “and who wrote the note.” (A newly self-aware infomercial enthusiast? A bitter spouse?)

Alas, Kate says, “We may never know. The underused piece of exercise equipment was gone by morning.”

related: If you needed an excuse to skip the gym today
extra credit: The hawaii chair [youtube.com]

“I work for a pretty awesome non-profit, where people are amazingly laidback, accepting and non-OCD,” says our anonymous submitter in San Francisco — so this note came as something of a surprise.

Adds our submitter: “I have to admit, seeing the newspaper on top of the toilet tank the previous week had kinda gotten on my nerves too.”

related: oh dear

Sure, it’d be easier and quicker to just clean it up. But the modern passive-aggressive (like Katey in Berkeley’s ex-roommate) can’t pass up the opportunity to make a point.

A common variation on the Van der Rohe approach, as documented below by Sam in Dallas, is the so-called “Reverse Magritte.”

Meanwhile, post-modern passive-aggressives (like this New York office-worker below) can’t resist throwing some irony into the mix, intentional or not.

More recently, passive-aggressives have begun to show the influence of the burgeoning neo-pop movement. Our anonymous submitter in Houston, for example, designed the original stamp below for use in his work. “I am an engineer and we have to mark up technical drawings for manufacture,” he explains, in his artist’s statement. “It gets used at least twice a day.”

The bleeding-edge of passive-aggressive note-writing, however, lies on the west coast, where Rebecca in San Francisco says that in the past, “We’ve had an ongoing series of notes left in the office kitchen — usually of the ‘your mother doesn’t work here’ or ‘there is no such thing as the coffee fairy’ variety.” The Koons-inspired piece currently on display in the office breakroom, however, makes its point with no words at all.

related: Why-fi

Ellen in San Francisco says this note is but the latest development in what has become a toilet paper-thin relationship with her passive-aggressive roommate. It started two months ago, she says, when her roommate “decided after six months of sharing that I was no longer allowed to use her toilet paper. I should mention that she never once asked me to chip in for toilet paper, and I never really had an opportunity to buy more because she bought it in bulk and we always had a huge supply.”

Ellen obliged “until this morning, when nature called and I had just run out.” When Ellen got home, this work of art (my favorite line: “now that we’ve settled this”) was waiting for her.

Adds Ellen: “Funnier still is that this roommate freaked out on another roommate for leaving a note. She yelled at her, ‘If you have a problem with me, talk to me, don’t leave me a note. Be an adult about it!’ Nice to see she followed her own advice.”

related: it always comes down to the toilet paper

OMG, ramekin drama! (from San Francisco, natch…)

(click to enlarge!)

related: #54 kitchen gadgets [stuffwhitepeoplelike.com]

Marc in San Francisco spotted this at a restaurant in the Haight called All You Knead (have fun with those puns, kids). I can certainly empathize, but after reading some of the reviews…well, maybe there’s a reason the tips aren’t so great.

related: A friendly tip from your waitress