I think it’s funny how people don’t give much thought to what they are saying before they say it. Slightly embarrassing story from work this morning:
I used one of the more private restrooms in the office, way off in the back, isolated, private, and I did something in there most people don’t enjoy having to do in a shared restroom. But sometimes it has to happen.
I left and went back to my office. I have stacks of depositions to read right now and it’s exceedingly boring work. About 10 minutes later, the assistant to one of the partners was walking by and stepping into my office. She’s not one of my favorite people here. She’s very gossipy in an awkward way, and not great at knowing when a conversation is over. She’ll stick around well after she should have walked away.
So she steps into my office and asks if I’ve been in the hallway lately. I say no. I came close to saying, “I walked back from the restroom a few minutes ago,” but decided against sharing that information with her because it might just prolong the conversation. I’m really glad I didn’t say that.
She says, “Something horrible happened down at the end of the hall.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, but clearly without much interest.
She goes on to say that it smells so bad next to the restroom that she at first thought that maybe someone had gone to the bathroom right there on the floor in the hallway.
I paused what I was doing and looked up at her thinking you are so ignorant.
I’m sure it never crossed her mind that I might have been the source or the bad smell. The truth is that since it is a gender-neutral restroom she most likely immediately presumed it’d been a man.
But even still, everyone has unfortunate bathroom experiences from time to time. There’s no need for bathroom shaming. Grow up.
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