Bathroom Games

[Martin Hash]

I studied my Basic Sciences year of medicine in Newcastle, England, just south of the Scottish border. I was always an Anglophile, and the youngest castle in Newcastle is 1200 years old so my wife, Gwynne, and I loved our stay... Mostly. I'm an American, and I was raised with & used to “customer first.” Getting used to egalitarian workers takes some getting used to for Americans. Never have I seen such poor service, dirty shops, limited operating hours, lack of obsequious behavior, and complete lack of concern for customer convenience. I'm taking about you Great Britain.

When workers are the center of the universe, all expectations are reset. They set the days & hours they work, what they do & how they do it. For example, contrary to most of the private shops, the Northumbria University library was open on holidays but no janitors will work so there's no toilet paper in the bathrooms. Plus, people eat in the library, even though they're not supposed to, and the tables & chairs are covered with empty cups, plates & wrappers because no one cleans up after themselves, so before I could sit anywhere I had to police the area.

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Since workers rely on mass transit, they aren't expected to work nights so janitors get to the library in the morning about the same time I do. I eventually got used to the loud vacuuming, even around my feet while I was trying to read or use the computers, and I could block out the constant dithering & distractions, and the wet stairs were at least negotiable if one was careful, but there was one thing I could not abide: closed bathrooms.

When I say “bathrooms,” I mean all of them. The janitors would close all of the bathrooms, on every floor, simultaneously. My goodness sake, that's the kind of yeoman organization & coordination I thought socialists were incapable of? Each bathroom would have a big sign of a stick figure falling & rope across the door. The first time, being American and not knowing what to expect, I waited quietly until my patience ran out but there was no urgency and I eventually gave up. After a couple times of this, I started sitting where I could see the bathroom and was astounded to learn that as soon as the janitors closed the bathrooms, they went on break, often for an hour. I was flabbergasted to say the least. Except for government employees, in America this kind of disrespect would have been dealt with forthwith! Well, also American, I can deal out the passive-aggression as well as take it, and these folks were going to learn my facility. As soon as it dawned on me that the reason they are successful with their terrorism was by exploiting my courtesy, I engaged in a similar form of retribution.

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Since they always cleaned the bathrooms at 7 am, I would go in there at 6:55 and sit in a stall and read email for 20 minutes! Every a janitor would yell, "someone here?" (in a British accent) I'd say "yes." (in an American accent.), and wait them out to go on break without closing the bathroom. I would switch my enterprise among the many bathrooms as a mass training exercise. However, some of these empowered workers could not be cowed, and they would come into the bathroom & start putting up their signs so they could go on break while I was still in there, so the battle escalated... If someone came in and started cleaning, I would pull the emergency chain in the "disabled only" stall and point down the hall like someone else had done it and was getting away.

And forget about throwing away my own garbage myself!