tangentwoman

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

An etiquette question

I care deeply about proper workplace bathroom etiquette, but I had a new dilemma today that I think I handled wrong, but I'm not really sure.

Tuesdays are hell days for me at work; I have a gazillion back-to-back meetings and I almost never have a chance to pee, so I'm always running to the bathroom at the absolute last minute before I explode.

So I was dismayed to find, at 2:30, that the first stall I entered had no toilet paper, and the one next to it had disgusting remnants in the toilet. I flushed with my foot (that's one of my pet peeves: when people go into the stall, see the toilet has stuff in it, and move on without flushing. If it's clogged and it'll spill over if you flush, that's one thing, but c'mon, especially if you use your foot, what's the harm in flushing before you find a more pristine stall?) and moved on to the third stall of the four in this bathroom.

Someone else came in and went into the first stall (proper etiquette, leaving an empty stall between us), at which point I realized I should've taken the fourth stall so anyone coming in could go to the functional -- and now poop-free -- second stall. But I hate using the handicapped stall if there are others free, and I wasn't really thinking that far ahead.

Anyway, the person clearly didn't check the toilet paper status when she came in, so she stayed in the first stall. While I was washing my hands, I heard her spinning the empty rolls.

And that was the point where I didn't know what to do. If I'd been at the sink when this person came in, I'd have told her there was no toilet paper in the first stall. But I wasn't, and I didn't, and then I felt like a jerk for not warning her sooner, and I figured that she must've realized there was someone else in the bathroom -- I was running the water and ripping paper towels from the dispenser, and it's not that big a space -- and that she'd ask for TP. I sort of hesitated and lingered for about 30 extra seconds before I left, hoping she'd say something, but she never did, and I felt weird offering it at that point.

I feel like I probably should've offered anyway, because boy does it suck to be in the stall with no toilet paper and have to either (1) reach allllllllll the way under and up the wall of the adjacent stall to reach that roll of paper, assuming it's stocked and affixed to the appropriate side of the stall or (2) make a run for it and hope against all hope that your boss doesn't walk in while you're scurrying to another stall with your underpants around your ankles. These are not fun options, and certainly ones I'd endure only if there were no one else in the bathroom to shove a few squares under the stall. So I guess I figured that if this person today had some sort of issue about asking me for help, she'd really feel weird about my offering it unsolicited.

I know, I know: I don't have time to pee, but I have 10 minutes to agonize over a random person in the bathroom and to write about it? My priorities are all out of whack.

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