The Politics of the Office Shit
There are three ladies’ rooms in our office building (one on each floor), and each is distinct in its own way.
The one of the first floor sits across from the dentist’s office and apparently shares their air circulation system, because it always smells like a dentist’s office. This one, unlike the others, has no decoration (if you call a framed piece of advertising for the management company decoration). Despite the slightly unpleasant olfactory connection, this one is my favorite because it’s always clean, and it’s always empty because outside of the two dentist’s assistants on that floor, the offices are predominantly male.
The one on the second floor is never too cold and by far smells the best. We used to work on the second floor before we moved to a larger space on the third, and while this bathroom had more traffic, it always smelled like apples and cinnamon. Maybe someone on the floor had a thing for Apple Jacks and it reflected in her pee, but this bathroom has a homey feel like you’re in a little old lady’s house, albeit a little old lady who has a deep appreciation for an industrial flush.
The one on our floor sucks. The good thing about it is that it’s the only one that has a full length mirror so you can thoroughly check to make sure you aren’t leaving the bathroom with your skirt tucked into your underwear. But on the other hand, it always has this awful chemical smell that comes through the vents, making me think about chemical warfare and what that would smell and feel like. Also, this is apparently the building’s designated Shitting Bathroom.
Now most people (women at least…I’ve noticed that my male coworkers actually seem proud when they fold a magazine under their arm and proclaim that they’re taking the Browns to the Super Bowl…in fact, once my boss actually told me that he was going to the bathroom, then seconds later, called me to discuss different accounts as his words echoed on the tile around him), most people do everything possible not to do their business at work. The office bathroom is a shared space and to hot box a shared space with mcnasty is just embarassing and will quickly have your co-tenants hating you. Yet for some reason, our bathroom always smells like the most unkind hotbox.
I started timing when I go to the bathroom based on the traffic that I see out the window coming in and out of the bathroom. If I see someone going in there and they don’t come out within 3 minutes, I’m not going in there for at least 10. I don’t care if they were just doing their make-up, my fragile psyche can’t chance it. If I walk in and there’s someone already in one of the stalls and they suddenly go silent and stop moving, I assume they’re waiting for me to leave so they can continue taking a shit, so I jam out of there as quickly as possible. I notice that when I walk in and there’s someone already in there, I’ll get going with the peeing as quickly as possible as if to say, “Don’t worry! I’m just peeing! You can take your time in front of that mirror!”
The worst thing is when you walk in and someone has already laid a stink bomb. Now you have to think…well, now that I’m here, the next person who walks in is gonna assume I did this. And depending on the level of stink, sometimes I walk right back out. I can’t hold my breath for that long anyway.
Sometimes when you walk in, you discover that someone hasn’t fully flushed. My first reaction is always to jump out of the stall to get as far away from the offending toilet as possible, and then run all the back to my office. But the bigger, more mature voice in my head will convince me I can always use the other stall. Here’s the thing though…if you discover someone left something nasty for everyone else, it’s in your best interest to flush it. Because let’s just say that you use the other stall, but as you’re leaving, someone else walks in. They have no way of knowing that you used the other stall. For all they know, you left the monster in the toilet. So you have to flush it, even if it’s none of your business, even if it means you get sprayed by tiny microscopic shit particles as the industrial toilet whooshes the offense away.
So in conclusion, please don’t shit at the office. Shit in the alley out back or in the corner of the parking garage where your boss always parks, but please don’t shit at the office. And if you have to, make sure you use one on another floor, so if you manage a perfect covert getaway, it will never be linked to you.