I’m working as a cleaner on a ferry. I get paged to the male washroom to find that a toilet has decided it was a water fountain. Lucky for me, it looks like just clean seawater that our toilets use, so I turn it off and try mopping up the several inches of water all over the bathroom that’s all moving with the ship.

Unfortunately for me, the docking announcement starts playing to tell people to go to their cars. Of course, in most people’s minds, this means go to the bathroom and THEN your car. People begin filing in, and I’m trying to mop around them. Most can tell it’s a flood and not routine cleaning until a group of five guys together enters. One speaks up.

Guy: “What a stupid time to do your mopping!”

Me: *Very sarcastic* “I’m sorry. Sure, I’ll try and time our toilet floods around your schedule better.”

His buddies burst out laughing at him. He turns red.

Guy: “Well, how was I supposed to know?”

I wish I had replied, “Who mops by putting three inches of water on the floor?”

Our store is in the mall, and we have a tiny employee-only bathroom in the back office. It isn’t available to the public, but every once and a while we’ll get someone doing the pee-dance who can’t make it to the public restroom a few hundred feet away.

A woman comes in and uses the restroom, and then:

Customer: “I’m going to have to demand a discount on my DVDs.”

Me: “Why is that, ma’am?”

Customer: “The soap in your bathroom made my hands smell like flowers. I hate when my hands smell like flowers. You need to offer a citrus soap option to your customers!”

Me: “Well, that’s not a public restroom, so we can choose whatever soap we like. None of this has any bearing on your DVD purchase.”

She didn’t care. After a few more minutes of this nonsense, my spineless manager just gave her a 10% discount to get her out of the store for a whopping savings of $3.50.

I work in a small family restaurant with no public bathrooms.

Customer: “I see your ‘No public bathrooms’ sign, but I have to pee pretty bad. Is there anything you can do?”

I decide to be nice and let him have the key. He comes out a bit later and hands back the key.

Customer: *Very pitiful* “Sorry…”

From his tone, I instantly knew the guy must’ve had explosive diarrhea.

I was right.

Some people who use our public restrooms miss the toilet completely… while taking a poo. But the worst was when the plumber unclogged the toilet after someone tried to flush a lot of toilet paper. Human feces was caked all over the floor, and I had to clean it myself.

A customer walked in while I was cleaning.

Customer: “Can I use the bathroom?”

I just stared at them as I stood there, ankle-deep in s***. That day was… something.

Our customer toilets are out of order. We are waiting for a plumber to show up, and until then, there are big yellow barriers in front of the doors and signs everywhere (including all entrances and the bottom of all stairs leading up to the toilet floor).

Despite this, people still go there, find they are closed, and then complain to the nearest staff member they can find, which is usually someone from Menswear, given the location of the toilets.

I am chatting with a colleague from Menswear whilst on my break and she tells me about some of the customers she’s had to deal with. She caught [Customer #1] trying to break down the barrier in front of the toilet doors.

Colleague: “Madam, those toilets are out of order! You can’t go in there!”

Customer #1: “Oh, I didn’t realise.”

Later:

Customer #2: “How dare you close your toilets?!”

Colleague: “I’m sorry, madam, they are broken, but we—”

Customer #2: “It’s illegal for your toilets to be broken!”

And yet later still:

Customer #3: “We’ve come all the way upstairs to use the toilet and it is closed? Why didn’t anyone warn us?”

Colleague: “We do have signs at each entrance and at the stairs.”

Customer #3: “No one reads signs! You should have someone telling everyone who comes in!”

After my break, I head back downstairs. The way to the shop floor involves going past the customer toilets. As I walk past, [Customer #4] almost grabs me, pointing at the “Do Not Enter” barrier.

Customer #4: “WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

We are counting down the seconds until the plumber arrives.