To be annoyed at this male member of staff in the female toilet

[witchofzog]

Part of me thinks I am and part of me is still annoyed. I don't go for a number two very often. Although I have tried different things and got slightly better lately, it is still maybe every 3-4 days. I nearly always try to go at home.

Today on the train I needed to go and knew I wouldnt be able to even wait until I got to work, never mind until I get home. So I head to the quieter toilets at the large station I commute into. Usually if I use them I am the often the only one in there. But today there were a couple of ladies waiting for 3 cubicles.

Finally it's my turn and there is no one else behind me. Although I was desperate I was also a bit constipated so I wasn't sure how long it would take. Literally 1 minute later I hear a male voice. He tells a woman coming out of another cubicle that he is there to replenish the toilet roll. And he just waits and waits. Then he starts spraying air freshener and chunters to himself that he is only waiting now for the person in my cubicle. And still he waits.

I need to go but am feeling really uncomfortable now and under pressure to be quick. But how can I be with a bloody evesdropping man? So I manage half my business and leave the cubicle to a glaring man and now I am enroute to a customer visit feeling slightly better but still uncomfortable.

I get that his job is probably not particularly pleasant and that he wanted to get the toilets done. But really? Did he have to hover and make it so obvious he wanted me out?

Zephyr Haha I should have just brazened it out. Your suggestion is the solution

Some posters should look up metaphor

Yet seems to believe someone would borrow to take a non-existent bet (no odds given etc.)........

WhamBarsArentAsFizzyAsTheyWere your explanation is very good. People should respect you as there is nothing wrong with doing an honest job and earning a living.

I can't see the point of saying I bet they don't have women cleaning in men's loos. It is a metaphor for what? Women do clean men's loos, it is a fact.

This thread is so tense! Goodness me!

OK YANBU, I would have felt so rushed!

He'd have taken root if he was waiting for me

I'm not sure the word metaphor is being used correctly
Or I'm lost

Stealth, I don't think so either, I would love to hear the explanation. I don't know if their is a name for using something totally irrelevant to prove something that it doesn't prove.

nina looking up metaphor wouldn't help. Your example wasn't a metaphor

OP I understand how uncomfortable you felt, but I'm not sure he was doing anything wrong. He couldn't know your situation. I think a quick "I might be a few minutes" would have helped?

At my place female cleaners clean the men's toilets and male cleaners clean the female toilets. I really don't understand this logic.

Why yes he should of come back later just for another person like op being in the loo how many times should the cleaner have to go away again

So you think he was right to stand right outside the loo door, making it obvious he's hassling the loo user to get out? If you have IBS, you can't just "hurry up" to suit other people.

Take a different example - let's say the OP was menopausal and had flooded her clothes with blood. You really think it's appropriate for the cleaner to stand on the other side of the door, huffing and puffing, while the OP struggles to get out of her clothes, change, and clean up a bit? Have you any idea how embarrassing that is, without the added misery of someone making it obvious what a nuisance you're being?

Oh, and yes, it would bother me more if it was a man. There are quite a few circumstances where I'd feel more comfortable with a woman around, and that's one of them. I happen to think that's my right (and it has been until recently).

PinkHeart5911

So you missed the bit about the chuntering and glaring then?

Other posters 'But WHY is his gender relevant?!

Oh fuck off.

Is he a mind reader? how was he to know you wanted a long shit in peace.

I would assume, that he knows people are going to be urinating, shitting or doing other things a person in a toilet does (vomiting, changing pads/tampons, getting changed, emptying colostomy bags etc etc)? And presumably he has used a toilet before? Or knows someone who has?

I don't think one needs to be a mind reader or even educated to know people in toilets are using the toilet!

Yanbu op. As well as being highly intrusive it also shows an irritating lack of initiative and gumption to find something else to do for 20 minutes and come back later.

I would also spray fresher and try and busy myself while waiting for the cubicle.

Its either that or people come in and think I'm some sort of weirdo hanging around a toilet whilst doing nothing.

The talking to himself might have been a misguided way to reassure op that he was waiting to do his job rather than waiting to pounce on her.

I still think the solution is to close the toilets for cleaning and restocking. At least that way, the inevitable complaints about people desperately searching for toilets on the way to customer meetings can be explained.

OP, I am very sorry that you have problems using public lavs. You are not alone. However the cleaner has a job to do and he did it. Any time I have been in the loos and the cleaner came in, they would hang about outside the cubicles until they were vacated. None would go away and pop back later. Because they just don'the have that sort of autonomy and would probably get into trouble.

If you are very upset about it, write to the owners of the loo with your experience and suggestions. It'seems not the cleaner's fault.

Of course gender is relevant here, women are socialised not to want to perform intimate ablutions in front of or in the vicinity of men. I would have felt very inhibited and embarrassed to be trying to poo with a strange man hanging about. It would ALSO have been embarrassing had the cleaner been a woman, but in a different and IMO less stressful way.

Sex is also relevant. As a male member of staff he should have been more sensitive in a sex segregated facility. If this was a mixed space such as the swimming pool changing room near me, it would have seemed more natural to have a male hanging about waiting to change the toilet roll, but it wasn't mixed, it was female facilities, so a male was unexpected.

Don't let them guilt you into thinking you have to eat your words OP. If you feel uncomfortable because its a man thats fine, and perfectly reasonable given the actual, real life, everyday situation of women and girls in the world, subject to commonplace harassment and/or attack by aggressive or predatory men.

its not a big mystical secret

How did you know it was a man - perhaps the person identified as female or was a transitioning gender changer? I'm amazed someone n the 21st century could place so much importance on visible gender identifiers.

How will you cope when all toilets become mixed gender?

Erm because he was a man cdtaylor And as I said earlier, I would have been embarrassed if anyone had waited outside the cubicle regardless of their gender or job.

I do however appreciate he had a job to do and that he did that job.

I also appreciate the comments acknowledging the embarrassment factor of the situation

grannytomine

Stealth, I don't think so either, I would love to hear the explanation. I don't know if their is a name for using something totally irrelevant to prove

...if there is a name...

HTH

cdtaylornats was joking, OP. Weren't you cdtaylornats?

"Sorry pal, I'm busy laying a cable, give it 5 minutes"

I have been in public toilets when a male cleaner was waiting for me but he was waiting outside the main door not the cubicle door. He had put the cleaning sign out and announced he would be closing the toilets for cleaning just after I had walked in, he waited patiently for everyone to leave.