So, despite the fact that I work in what would normally be considered a very professional setting, my coworkers are juvenile swine. And rude.
Allright, here's the deal. Our company takes up three floors. The third floor has their own bathroom (customers are never allowed on the third floor, so it's for employees only). The second floor has bathrooms, each with four stalls. The first floor, my floor, has one set of restrooms. They are one person restrooms and our customers use them as well.
Let me ask you a question: what are bathrooms designed for?
My understanding has always been that if I need to pee, poop, or even vomit, I should use the nearest restroom. I've also always thought it was inappropriate and rude to ask another person about their bathroom habits.
Well, around here, pooping in the first floor bathroom is enough to have you marched into town square and pantsed. You will also have to wear a sign around your neck that says "I pooped on the first floor". Every time someone uses the bathroom for #2, someone will announce it to the whole floor and express their disgust with that person.
I'm sorry...is this an office? Is this supposed to be a professional setting in which coworkers treat each other with common courtesy and respect? ARE BATHROOMS NOT DESIGNED FOR BOTH POOPING AND PEEING?!
Sounds like you need to look for a better company?
It's ridiculous that that is your work environment.
the ground floor bathrooms are stupidly inadequate for your company's needs if personnel and customers are sharing 2 single user WCs.
As to your question: courtesy probably would dictate a trip to the second floor, I'd do that as a default rather than using the ground floor at all (barring some emergency, of course), but the far greater discourtesy is broadcasting and commenting on the bathroom habits of others.
Now, if you are discouraged by management, from going to the 2nd floor for bathroom breaks, that's an entirely different thing.
I actually kind of went off on two of the ladies here this morning. I told them that I was raised to believe that discussing bathroom habits, both your own and those of other people, was kind of rude and unecessary. And that I didn't understand how talking about the fact that someone committed the unforgivable sin in the bathroom would do anything but cause embarassment and discomfort.
Oh, one of these ladies also likes to remind us often (on a weekly basis) that she doesn't eat food that other people bring from home (like if we have a lunch or breakfast or birthday party) because other people are "nasty" and she "ain't eatin' something that came from somebodie's nasty house where they probably don't even wash they hands".
How about just say you aren't hungry?
Sounds like your coworker(s) lack tact.
I have no shame, so I would probably take a massive doodle in floor #1 bathroom. And if someone called me out on it, I'd discuss, in great detail, why I had to doodle in that one.
Bathrooms are bathrooms. For doodling, peeing, barfing, washing hands, etc.
How old are these people?
The two who are the worst are in their late fifties, early sixties.
...and should, by most standards, know better.
They do. If they went to someone's house and had to do the unspeakable, they wouldn't want that person to announce it to everyone in attendance and make a big show of spraying an entire can of air freshener and lighting candles.
And they call people out by name. "So and so is the worst, so and so eats too much fiber apparently, so and so stinks."
I would be mortified if my son acted like that and he's an eight year old boy.
Juvenile behavior aside, first and foremost this is a failure of planning by management. I find it pretty ridiculous that a professional setting has this kind of facilities/logistics set up in a 3 story building which has to allow for the presence of customers.
Do the bathrooms on the first floor have any kind of vent mechanism, or are they just closets with a toilet and a sink? I'm not a facilities manager, but I find it hard to believe that they can't, at the very least, install one of those industrial grade automatic odor control/fresheners things in each bathroom.
Especially given the fact that all it would take is one customer puking or fainting in the lobby because the bathroom was occupied, to inspire a lawsuit. Stupid configuration, and why I'd never use them.
They do have ventilation. They are definitely not closets with toilets and sinks. They are pretty roomy for one person restrooms, really.
The customers don't use them a whole lot. We don't get many people who are here for any real amount of time, most of them are in and out. But I just wonder, if a customer were to decide to poop in the bathroom, would one of our employees (probably assuming it was one of the heathens who work here) announce it to the bank and try to find the culprit? It's unprofessional enough between us, but it'd be oh so much worse if it were a customer who were still in the building who committed the crime.
I'm thinking of writing a saucy little poem and making a sign for the bathroom. Or finding an article about etiquette and putting it up for everyone.
Original Post by lostpumpkins:
Or finding an article about etiquette and putting it up for everyone.
I think this would be the more dipomatic approach, but, in my experience, management prefers to control that kind of "office communication." Be careful of any existing policies that might get you into trouble.
Do you think mentioning this issue in person to anybody in management would make any difference?
Would these same women be the ones to complain about you or someone else 'always' going to the 2nd floor to use the bathroom? Sounds like they might.
I think I'm going to.
I don't know if you guys remember, but not too long ago, one of my coworkers was walking around asking everyone if they were on their period.
Buy some good quality air-freshener, leave the can in that bathroom (for your use AND for the customers) and tell the old farts to mind their own business. Doing what you need to do is not a crime - but it's highly unpleasant for others if it's not adequately ventilated immediately afterwards! (our bathrooms at church are old and only ventilated if the light is on, and most people including me switch it off on our way out the door to conserve power... sometimes it is NOT PLEASANT in there!)
I wish the bathroom on the first floor (my floor) of my building was pee only.
The people who work upstairs come down here to stink up the downstairs - and sometimes it is such a vile stench that I want to send them to a doctor. I guess they don't want to stink up their own floors. Bloody rude if you ask me.
I happen to be one of those people who can only go #2 at home. I wish everyone was like this.
I haven't mentioned it in a long time, but any strong odor, but especially strong foul odors, make me vomit (because of a medicine I take that makes me extra sensitive). Yes, I have vomited at work because of their stank.
However, I will say that this post is the first time I've ever 'spoken' about this issue. I would never discuss anyone's bowel habits, to anyone. Nobody wants to hear about that. So those ladies are jackwagons.
Off topic but once at the mall, DD about 6 and she quipped very loudly "Somebody in here smells like a bus!!" (meaning the exhaust)
I was a little embarrased that she said it with several others still in there, but I couldn't help but laugh. A bus? Really?
LP, I'd poop in there every damn time now! Let 'em talk!
You have some really special co-workers, lost.
I would get them "Everybody Poops" and tell them to calm it down. ;)
OHMYGOD.
BRILLIANT.
I will be making a trip to Barnes and Noble today.
