Why Does This Quick Country 96.5 Paper Towel Dispenser Have a Lock On It?

Now here's one of those rhetorical questions that hit me one day last week after visiting the little announcer's room here at the radio station.

Just why is there a lock on this paper towel dispenser? (I know, first world problems, right?!?) This question, though, leapt to the top of my mind, though, after a new dispenser was installed in the men's room.

It's the one pictured to the left. It's designed to hold a stack of individual paper towels, and it replaced the broken dispenser that used the big roll of paper towels.

But ever since this new one-- without any pesky moving parts to break, as the old one did-- was installed, it's been locked. And, it appears that no one has the key, so now, instead of being housed IN the dispenser, paper towels are now just stacked on TOP of it.

Which kind of defeats the purpose of the dispenser in the first place, doesn't it? But that got me thinking about why in the world a paper towel dispenser would be locked in the first place.

Are there a lot of employees who are walking off with stacks and stacks of paper towels? Are they that valuable they have to be locked up?  Are we going through just too many towels?

I don't have the answers, I'm just asking the question. What about you-- is the paper towel dispenser locked where you work too? And, does the fact that I'm pondering this mean I have too much time on my hands? (Okay, I have an answer for THAT one...)