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Etiquette, Shame and The Huffington Post

I was a guest on HuffPost Live this week in a segment purporting to discuss the ins and out of workplace bathroom etiquette. We’ve been here before, but it seems like bathroom etiquette at work is the hot topic that just won’t go away.

It was one of those slightly awkward four-way video chats but overall I thought the host did a good job of getting the different guests involved – myself, Michael Podell and Jill Jacinto. That said, it turns out that the discussion had absolutely nothing to do with etiquette – it was all about shame. It seemed like nobody involved could get over the fact that taking a big poop at work was anything other than an act to be downplayed, concealed, or outright avoided. Techniques to avoid smells, avoid noises and avoid letting your coworkers know what you were up to were all that was discussed.

Which is fine. I get that not everybody is completely comfortable with taking a massive poop at work. I get that not everybody wants to come out of the stall after a noisy session to be confronted with their boss. But let’s get one thing clear right now: this has nothing to do with etiquette and everything to do with shame. Taking poops is exactly what the bathroom is designed for. I don’t care how loud or stinky your poop is, there is nothing about taking that poop that makes it bad etiquette. Poop all you want in the bathroom, that is the whole point of that room and pooping is a perfectly natural bodily function.

Now I’m not advocating that you get in the stall and start grunting and groaning – that’s something that is completely in your control to avoid doing, and excessive grunting is certainly bad etiquette. But natural poop noises and smells are just part of life.

May 25, 2014   1 Comment

The mysterious case of the double toilet

The BBC (the BBC!) is reporting on a mysterious double toilet that has appeared in advance of the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Materializing inside the Laura Cross Country Skiing and Biathlon Centre, this double toilet appears poised to humiliate and traumatize athletes from across the world (well, at least from the cold countries).

But seriously, what’s the deal with a double toilet in a brand new facility? All conspiracy theories aside, this is what we know:

1) Two toilets, no partition.

2) One toilet paper dispenser

3) What appear to be the remains of a partition between the two toilets.

Based on these this information it seems like the area was originally designed for one toilet (one TP dispenser). However, we can guess that toilet was never installed in the middle, as there is no evidence of moving a toilet. So it seems like somebody installed the first toilet on one side, and then had the brilliant idea of installing another in the remaining space. At first they put up a partition, but then realized the partition prevented the second toilet from accessing the TP. That’s where the insanity started. For whatever reason (no budget to buy one?) rather than install a second TP dispenser, they simply removed the partition allowing the second toilet access to the first dispenser (if you can call reaching across somebody else access).

Think I’ll stick to pooping at home thank you very much!

January 24, 2014   2 Comments

People Ask the Strangest Questions

User brudenell at Uclue.com:

Back in Oct. 2009 I asked this question: Seeking size of world market . The question went unanswered. Now I am back instead of looking for facts I seek a reasonable guesstimate (an estimate arrived at by guesswork or conjecture) backed by how you arrived at the number, vcialis 40mg pilule to roughly arrive at a market size.

My question: How many restroom / lavatory / WC stalls are there in the world with a locking door? In many countries stalls exist with no doors. I only wish the number to be units that include doors.

Why in the world would somebody want to know that? My guess is that brudenell has invented a new toilet door locking mechanism and wants an estimate of the global market for an investor pitch.

Read the responses or contribute your own!

via mhh5th

May 13, 2012   No Comments

Public Bathrooms, #2 and Locking the Door

Concerned reader G.W. writes the following:

OK – I have read through your site and I have run into a question on bathroom etiquette I haven’t yet seen addressed anywhere.

Scenario:
At work
The men’s bathroom has one stall and one urinal.
The men’s bathroom door locks.

Here is my thinking…

Acceptable multiple person use: (Reason to leave the door unlocked)
I am going in to do #1 and am the only occupant, I use the urinal, leaving the stall open for use.
I am going in to do #1 and the urinal is occupied, I use the stall and try and take long enough for urinal user to wash up and leave before heading to the single sink.
I am going in to wash hands only.

Situations for single use only: (reasons to lock door or leave and come back later)
I am going in to do #2 and am the only occupant, I use the stall but have locked the bathroom door so that no one else can enter the bathroom.
I am going in to do #2 and the urinal is occupied, I go to the stall and try and take long enough for “setup” that urinal user has time to wash up and leave before I get down to business. (someone with good etiquette would lock the bathroom door behind them so no one else is subjected to nasal collateral damage upon entering.)
I am going in to do #2 and the stall is occupied. The user is not practicing good etiquette. I lock the door for them and come back later or head to the other bathroom in the adjacent building.

So the reason I am writing is that I am taking flack for locking the door in the above situations. Am I out of line?

I don’t think I am and here is why…
When I lock the door I know what I am going to be doing in there. I don’t want company and believe me, they don’t want to be that company. Nothing about it is a bonding experience nor something I care to share. The same goes for when I walk in and someone is in the locked stall but the bathroom door is unlocked. I am instantly angry! Why? Why did you leave the bathroom door unlocked and assault me with your stench? Why couldn’t you have just stopped me outside the door with the simple press of a door handle button lock? Did you know what you were going to do when you went in there?

I won’t be offended that the door is locked. I am happy you spared me the disgust and revolt of having to have smelt what you have dealt!

Thank you very much!

(My hat is off to you, this stuff is complicated!) Keep up the good work

I’ve got to say, this is one of the most interesting and most difficult questions I have ever received. First of all though, I want to address this issue of the locking door. I’m surprised it’s possible to lock the door for another person. Wouldn’t this result in the potential situation where you lock the door, leave, there’s nobody in there and thus the bathroom is locked up with no way to enter it? Is this a pseudo-lock like you often find in homes which can be easily opened with a paperclip? It just seems like a very unusual setup for a public bathroom.

But let’s forget about that, because it really isn’t crucial to the question. We know the bathroom has a lock, and let’s assume that it is used perfectly and the door is never locked with nobody inside. The real question is, should somebody lock the door when they are doing a #2? Well to answer that we have to get to the root of what etiquette is all about.

Etiquette is about being concerned with other people.

In the context of a public bathroom, this generally means trying to minimize the negative impact your actions are having on other people, because let’s face it – there aren’t a lot of positive ways you can affect somebody by going pee or poo (unless the #2 mitigates a gassy afternoon at the office, but that’s another story for another time).

So let’s consider this action of door locking from the perspective not of the person doing the #2, but of the other people.

Positives:

  1. Nobody has to listen to the sound of you doing a #2, which can be pretty gross
  2. The impact of the stench is abated

Negatives:

  1. People have to wait to use urinal and/or sink

But which of the above is most important? Do the positives outweigh the negatives? Clearly for G.W. they do. He’s a proponent of locking the door because he feels people are better off waiting outside for him to finish his business. The thing is, by his own admission G.W. is “taking flack for locking the door”, which implies the other people aren’t impressed.

And I think that’s really the bottom line. Despite his best intentions, G.W. is taking flack for his actions, and so the people have spoken. People would rather be assaulted by the stench than have to wait a couple minutes to go pee.

The flip side of course is that G.W. himself would rather wait. So the ideal circumstance is that he leaves the door unlocked, but that other people lock the door if they think he’s going to need to go pee, but it’s impossible to predict when that will happen.

And speaking of the stench, it’s hard to know how much it helps to not be present during the actual event. Most public bathrooms don’t exactly have great ventilation, so I’m not convinced that it’s any less stinky to go pee right after somebody finishes going #2 than it is while they are actually going #2.

March 4, 2012   4 Comments

Tucking Your Shirt Back In

Let’s assume that you are wearing a shirt that needs to be tucked in. Now let’s further assume that you need to perform a #2 in public. Naturally, as part of the process, that shirt is going to become untucked. When do you think is the appropriate time to tuck it back in, before you exit the stall or after you exit the stall?

Here’s a hint: It’s not after!

This tip may or may not be based on my recent personal experiences…

February 23, 2012   No Comments

Etiquette, Grossness and Necessity

I was performing a #1 today when an individual in a stall adjacent to me started performing a #2. Loudly, grossly, and from what I could tell rather moistly. Yuck. My first instinct was repulsion, followed by a general disappointment about the sad state of bathroom etiquette I was experiencing first hand.

Then it hit me – this isn’t something that was being done on purpose (at least I hope not). Etiquette is a complicated beast. The whole philosophy of etiquette is to be aware of others and to act in a way as to minimize or eliminate your negative impact on other people whenever possible. Those last two words are very important and bear repeating:

whenever possible

Etiquette is about doing your best when you can, and in this context not being gross when you can afford not to be gross, but sometimes grossness is a necessity.

Peeing all over the seat and not wiping it up is gross. It’s bad etiquette because you can and should clean it up.

Not flushing the toilet is gross. It’s bad etiquette because you can and should flush the toilet.

Taking a noisy poop is gross. It’s not bad etiquette if you can’t avoid it, and let’s face it – sometimes you can’t.

October 22, 2011   2 Comments

Eating is the Opposite of What Bathrooms Are For

My most formative memories of my childhood all involve the bathroom. One time, during intermission at a hockey game, I was faced with two tasks:

  1. Get food from the concession
  2. Go to the bathroom

In my current wisdom and experience I know that there is right and a wrong order in which to perform these tasks, but at the time I wasn’t so knowledgeable. So I got my food. Then I took my food into the bathroom with me – as I recall it was a hamburger wrapped in a foil sack which I placed in my pocket – and went pee.

My parents spotted me after I did my business, and made the connection that I had just strolled into a public bathroom with food. They were less than impressed, and I hadn’t even taken my burger out of its wrapper.

Food and bathrooms don’t mix. It’s not just the ick factor either, with all the flushing that goes on germ-laden droplets are constantly quite literally whizzing (ha!) through the air. So I was more than a little disturbed to hear the following tale over at Eatocracy:

The intern with the shaved head was on her phone in the bathroom again. She seemed to regard the third floor ladies room at our office as her personal rec room which was…fine, if somewhat unnervingly intimate on occasion. I realized, though, that I’d severely, thoroughly, grossly underestimated her level of one-ness with these particular environment on the day several years ago when I saw her emerge from a stall, eating cereal. From a bowl. With milk.

Yuck! It’s not just wrapped food. It’s food that’s open to the disgusting environment of the public bathroom. And it’s not just open food, it’s open food that’s actively being consumed.

Eating is the opposite of what bathrooms are for. Don’t eat in the bathroom.

Read the full story at Eatocracy, including a few other tales of gross places to eat.

via J

August 1, 2011   1 Comment

Public Bathrooms and Children

One of the subjects that is coming up more and more is that of accompanying children in public bathrooms. When a mother accompanies her daughter, or when a father accompanies his son it’s pretty straightforward, but when it’s mother/son or father/daughter things becomes a little more complicated. The main rule when taking your opposite-gendered child to the bathroom is this:

You go to your bathroom, no theirs. Fathers take daughters to the men’s bathroom, mother’s take sons to the women’s bathroom.

The tricky question is how old does a child need to be for this practice to become inappropriate? Though honestly that’s not the real question, the real question is how old does a child need to be before they can safely be allowed to go to a public bathroom alone? Because as a parent myself I can assure you that safety will win out over impropriety every time.

That’s a question that I don’t intend to answer right now, and is going to vary from child to child, parent to parent and situation to situation (not all public bathrooms are created equally). What I will say is that I’m a big fan of family bathrooms and one person bathrooms which eliminate these problems and concerns.

Now alert reader Roger recently asked a related and very important question:

What is the proper thing to do when you enter a public restroom, a man is at the wash basins with a young daughter, and the urinals are close by. Do you step up to the urinal or wait until they leave? This has happened to me several times.

That’s a tricky one. When the man and his daughter entered the bathroom, there could have been men at the urinal. When they exited the stall (presumably the father and/or daughter went pee in a stall in this case) there could have been men at the urinal. So while possibly a little uncomfortable, there is certainly precedence for men to use the urinals while the daughter is present. But should you start to use the urinals while the daughter is at the sink, especially if the sink is close by?

In general the answer is no. There are obvious exceptions, like the urinals and sinks being in virtually separate rooms, but as a general rule if there is a female child using the sinks in the men’s room, and the urinals are close by, you should wait. The time spent at the sinks is almost always very short, so in this case it’s best just to play it safe and bide your time until the father and daughter have finished up and left.

June 19, 2011   3 Comments

How are you doing today sir?

Overheard in a men’s bathroom in O’Hare Airport:

How are you doing today sir?
Sorry about that.
Lock your door sir.

-An unlucky member of the housekeeping staff

And that is one of many reasons you should always lock the door when you are using a stall…

February 25, 2011   2 Comments

Toepener vs. StepNpull Battle!

A couple of days ago I posted about the Toepener. Well that generated a flurry of responses, or at least what we call a flurry around the ICBE. One of those response was from StepNpull, a similar product:

Great option but it’s not a new idea. StepNpull came out in 2007 which is the same concept. http://www.stepnpull.com/ Thanks

Hang on, two competing door opening solutions for your feet? I love me some sweet obscure bathroom-related products competition! Let’s see how they stack up in a series of completely arbitrary categories…

And it’s the StepNpull by a hair! Tough to argue with that price, though Beth in the original post suggests the Toepener may be easier to use in certain situations. Any volunteers to install one of each in the ICBE offices so we can torture test them?

February 15, 2011   13 Comments