The price of nosiness...

Ok, I've been in my new Department a good five or six months now. I know how most things work so far and I suppose I'm generally content. Some things make me wonder, though.

I'm not usually a nosy person, I don't give a fuck about the tedious minutiae of the lives of others (I am not, or have ever been, a Stasi agent). However, all this went out the window one evening last week when I was returning to my desk after having been to the toilet. I was working back a little bit later than usual and think I may have taken my colleague, the previously mentioned Trappist EO by surprise.

The Trappist EO was on the phone! He glanced up as I returned to the room, with an expression akin to that of someone caught by the Bishop having a wank on a Richard Dawkins book at the back of a church. The conversation was terminated very quickly at that point, and the consternation of the other party was audible from my side of the room before the receiver was replaced.

"Hmmm..." I thought. "What the feck was all that about?"

The next day, the Trappist EO had returned to form. Nothing was said. Lunchtime rolled around, and I expected the Trappist EO to vacate the room and make his way to the canteen before the one o'clock rush, as is his daily, unchanging routine.

One o'clock, and he was still there, meditating on a pile of forms. "He's up to something," I thought, and decided to delay my own midday outing purely for the reason that he might be waiting for me to get out in order to make another one of his furtive calls. "I'm not moving until he does," I resolved.

Unfortunately, the two cups of coffee I had earlier were making their presence felt, and nature was calling, loudly, but not quite shouting. Yet.

1.30, and both of us were still manning the office in silence. He was shuffling bits of paper around his desk with an inscrutable expression. I was trying to hide the fact that I was pressing my legs together while wiggling in order not to reveal the fact that the flood gates could open at any moment. Fuck. What was I doing to myself? A ruptured bladder just to hear the Trappist EO making a call?

1.45. He was finally off. Maybe he gave up. Phew. Now came the hard part. I had to negotiate an open-plan area full of COs and a corridor with some APs' offices off it in order to get to the toilet. I rose, steadily, keeping my legs crossed. I grabbed a bundle of forms that I could pretend to study if I had to make an emergency stop along the way. Waddle waddle waddle, through the open plan area. I stopped right on the threshold of a double door, a group of COs parting as they passed me on either side on their way back to work. I felt my face going red. More waddling, until I reached the door to the toilets. I ran a gauntlet of gossiping civil servants before finding an empty trap.

Aaaah, major wazz. Crisis averted! And not a drop spilt!

As I sat there, I thought, nosiness is never worth it. Just think of the embarrassment I could have suffered had I had a major accident in the Department! I'd have to look for a transfer back to Squeaky Doors, a fate worse than death!

No, next time, I'm just going to drop a "listening device" in the office and save myself the hassle.

Shite Talk

At work, rushing to the loo because I've left it almost too late for number ones again.

I crash through the toilet doors and barely notice the two people at the sinks as I lurch towards a stall.

Having successfully completed my business without spilling a drop, I wash my hands and return to the section.

"Ooh Govstooge, you were in a hurry back there," a colleague's voice calls from across the section. "You didn't even stop to talk when I was in the bathrooms."

Now, toilets are for weeing and pooing into (just weeing for me at work). Sinks are for washing hands and the tap with the boiling water coming out of it is handy if I want to strip a layer of skin that I don't need any more.

Workplace bathroom facilities are not places for congregating socially. Not for me. I can't understand why (why, goddamn it!) some folk at work like to stand there and gossip for ages. Especially when someone's just dropped the kids off at the pool and the stench is slowly spreading. Why would you want to stand there and inhale all that?

I treat workplace loos as a necessary evil. Joining in conversations there in the presence of other people's bodily functions is not an option for me.

So I responded to the colleague: "Sorry. I was trying to get in and out without having to breathe. Lunch was half an hour ago and I was afraid what might assault my nostrils as a result when I went in."

It shut my colleague up. Which led me to think that they might be the culprit.

Someone's listening at last!

I went to the jacks at work today. I had to do a pee, and I didn't want to mess up the carpet in the office, so I braced myself for the olfactory onslaught of the ladies' toilets.

No stink!

And I noted with glee that our facilities management section had stuck notices on the backs of each of the doors reminding users to "Leave the facilities as you would expect to find them".

Hooray!

Now, if we can weed out those staff members who expect to find the toilets minging of shit and with piss, toilet paper and other disgusting women's things on the ground, hunt them down and kill them, we are onto a winner.

Scary

One of the more harrowing experiences of my recent trip to Dublin was this toilet door I encountered on the journey.


Seriously, what the fuck are those holes for? Lesbian toilet voyeuses? Fulfilling the need for sexual pleasure of men with multiple penises of various shapes and sizes - who just happen to have a chipboard fetish?

Either way, I finished my business as quickly as possible. The threat of another lady glancing through that aperture at me as I hovered made sure I did not linger.

I was not alone, I'm sure of it, because ALL THE FUCKING DOORS WERE LIKE THIS!!

I'm becoming very, very scared of public toilets.

Now, where's that complaint form?

Today was a good day...

Yes, it was.

Despite drinking several cups of civil-service-standard-issue ditchwater coffee and a few bottles of you-don't-know-where-it's-been-but-you-can-guess water from the water cooler, at no time did I feel the urge to urinate while in the Department today.

So therefore I did not have to endure the stink of the festering contents of other people's colons.

One of the clerical officers confesses to never visiting the workplace toilets. They are always in a good mood. Now I know why.

What a wonderful day.

But maybe I should see my Doctor.