Have you ever thought about how playing sports as a kid/young adult can mess you up for life? I am not necessarily talking about injuries (which can plague a person down the road); I am talking more about personal etiquette and lifestyles. And let me be clear, I am not talking about former athletes who competed in at the college level and beyond, I am talking about those that couldn’t make it at the college level or beyond. Over the next year or so I will take the time to analyze different aspects of a former athlete’s life as it affects them today.
Today I would like to take a look at office bathroom etiquette. Now I am writing this as a former band member and meteorology club founder. I want full disclosure as maybe it is me who has grown up incorrectly.
Work bathrooms make me very uneasy. There is just something very unsettling about doing such a private, nasty act where other strangers have done the same thing. If I have to go in there for a #2, I automatically feel this sense of guilt and discomfort. When “going” at home, I feel secluded in a room with a door and plenty of privacy. This all changes when you succumb to the dreadful office bathroom. In the public setting you are mere inches away from someone whose feet you can clearly see under the partition. I don’t know about you but I do not want to sit near anyone during that special time. In fact, I don’t want people even walking in the same area to wash their hands. I want silence and privacy.
Common stall courtesy is to give a slight cough when you hear someone entering the bathroom. The second part of that is that the person entering should LEAVE. I would never voluntarily go sit in the stall next to someone and do my business. You would be shocked how many people do that. When someone comes and sits down next to you, it leads to unnecessary rushing and discomfort. When you hear the cough, turn around.
Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about who in the hell could be the people that ignore all warning signs and sit down next to you? You know who I think it is? Former athletes, that’s who. These are the guys that still hang on to the machismo of the old high school locker room where they used to play grab ass with teammates. Former athletes tend to think that the world works like their former locker room back in the ‘90s where the coach made you shower together and walk around in little towels and slap each other on the buttocks. Well now, these same guys think they can just strut into a work bathroom and drop trouser right next to you because “they aren’t uncomfortable with anything after dealing with the locker room for 4 years on the Milton HS cross country team.”
Some of these guys act like the work bathroom is their old stomping grounds. They try to strike up a conversation and pal around with you as you try to wash your hands. There is just something so unnecessary about the level of comfort these hangers-on have. Luckily I haven’t run into an elderly man who walks around with his pied piper hanging out….yet.
When I am in a work bathroom, I would just assume be with band members or debate club folks than a bunch of former athletes.
~ Gordon Southard, JAS High School Drum Major Correspondent
Filed under: Hodgepodge Tagged: | High School Jocks, Office Bathroom Etiquette
As a former high school athlete I can assure you that every morning (after my coffee and bagel) I search my office high and low to find a completely empty bathroom to smash in. If someone is already in the stall I immediately walk out…if someone is wrapping up at the urinal I might linger around the sink pretending to wash my hands until they exit…sometimes I go to three and four different bathrooms before I find a suitable level of privacy and comfort. I found a go-to bathroom in the basement level of our building that’s seldom used.
I’ll smash anywhere, anytime, and that loud cannon fire coming from the stall next to you is your warning that I dominate this bathroom, and you need to get your scrawny trombone playing ass out of here. It’s a bathroom, not a gay strip club. Get over it.
Micah- First and foremost I was talking about the men’s room…but I took your advice anyway and did my business next to another guy. Your right! It’s awesome! Thanks for the advice.
how about the older guy that comes in after drinking 3 cups of coffee and just spackles the toilet while breaking wind a half dozen times without thinking twice? And this same guy never courtesy flushes. he just sits over a stewing bowl of sh*t while he settles into his morning paper. or the guy that uses the stand up urinal and puts both hands on the wall? Because I was in a degenerate rock band for many years I have gotten over any fears of using the bathroom in public. you would be AMAZED at some of the deuces I have taken in some of the seediest rock clubs in America. However, I always courtesy flush that initial onslaught!
Hahahahahaha…I know exactly who you’re talking about (the spackler). It’s always that guy in his mid to late 40’s with a comb-over and bifocals…he drinks three cups of coffee and eats four hardboiled eggs and his ass projectile vomits all over the bathroom stall.
Gordon, I do have a certain level of shame in what I produce after my morning coffee. In fact I go home to have one of the “spackling” type explosions. That being the case I wish we were comfortable doing those activities, I mean I honestly still think its funny, what am i ashamed. Why can’t we all go in the expel our “solidesque” waste of coffee and breakfast, share the morning newspaper, and our lunch plans over a bathroom stall wall??? Why I ask? Why?