Not allowing heavily pregnant woman to use a loo

[pelvicfloorisnomore]

I’m imminently due my third baby and have a massive bump. Popped to the local coop post school run and as I was checking out was desperate for the loo. My pelvic floor is pretty shot from previous 2 kids, the baby had dropped during the school run walk so I was feeling like I could not wait. The store was empty bar a couple of pensioners. I asked if I could use the staff loo as desperate, there are no other loos nearby and I was unlikely to make it the half a mile home in time. The member of staff said no against policy and I soiled myself before I even made it the front door of the shop. Completely humiliating and had to walk home like that and could have been avoided if a little kindness shown.

AIBU to expect some flexibility in branch policy to accommodate for those in need? It hardly fits with the coop key value of caring for others.

People here are all about fault. I’ve noticed that. If they read an OP post and can assign blame then the issue is “solved.” If they can’t they blame the OP for her “expectations “ or her “entitlement “ or(absurdly) sometimes for her privilege. The four horseman of mumsnet circle with their cries of self abnegating suffering “I had twins in the carpark through my nose and no one ever helped me! What makes you so special?”

That is not the issue here. The OP doesn’t need permission from mumsnet to blame someone. its not a question of the jobsworth types. Its a question of our common humanity and common sense. If we stop caring for pregnant women, children, the elderly (alllllll of whom would benefit from public loos) what then of our supposed civilization? Why rush to the bottom instead of demanding more and better treatment?

@wombat15 why do you assume they have a choice?

You can't just allow Joe Public to wander around your stockroom, or to walk through the office where there's money or other important documents being kept - for obvious reasons.

When I was in retail management, our policy was that no members of the public were allowed off the shop floor - at all - no exceptions. We weren't doing that to be difficult - we had no choice but to follow our insurance.

If a customer had gone to the stockroom and tripped or fallen, or something had been stolen, or a staff member got hurt or attacked, we'd have been fucked.

You're welcome. It's sad you expect more consideration from random Co-op staff and Mumsnet posters than from your spouse. 😨

OP is blaming the wrong people.

Unless the risk of the store assistant losing their job is zero, it’s unreasonable to expect them to break the rules, unless it’s genuinely a matter of life and death.

Another poster missing the point.

Can you not understand that the urge came over the OP very quickly?

The staff probably don't get asked all of the time and in any case they should see that a heavily pregnant woman is not in the same category as some other people who may be asking, for dubious reasons.

OP I'm sure you're absolutely lovely and there would be no issue with your using the loo.

But policy making has to account for the generality.

If an exception is made for you it would also have to be made for children/elderly/people with health conditions. That's a lot of exceptions.It probably translates into 'anyone'.

Who's going to decide?

People are revolting. The loo could be left in a disgusting state.

Who's going to clean it?

The store is not just a corner shop, it's also an employer. Staff deserve a nice toilet not abused by the public.

Sorry. YABVU.

Absolutely agree with this. Very well said. It's an absolute disgrace there aren't more public toilets.

I think one difference is lower staff levels in many shops - not sure about Co-op but other shops there are noticeable less staff about.

So if they were expecting a delivery or only had one or two people on shop floor anyway it would be hard to spare the staff member needed to escort.

I don't know - the OP could write to central office and try and get an explanation and ask for more general consideration - see if that has any effect.

My statement was that there should be some flexibility in those policies. I don’t think what happened to me in their store this morning fits with their key values

That's not how policies and insurance works 🙄

You're missing the point.
No matter why or how quickly you need a loo, the staff cannot simply let folk use staff toilets.

The risk of losing their job is more theoretical than anything.

I may be the odd one out here but I think losing the job is a red herring.

That would have to be something very serious to occur that went to court, or if another asst 'told the manager' and he was unsympathetic.

I worked in retail for many years and like many others have said it’s usually always due to insurance that public are not allowed to use staff toilets. It also doesn’t matter if the staff know you well, we wasn’t even allowed to let family members use the toilet it was always strictly staff only. Breaking a rule could mean job loss for a member of staff.

im not saying that I agree with the rule but I understand why shops have it and stick to it.

Hope you are ok💐

No you missed the point because you told the OP to use the school loo.

Is that so hard to get?

We live in a strange and horrible society these days.

No fair enough but all these comments that are effectively saying,

” just because you are pregnant doesn’t make you special you know”

are so depressing!

Being pregnant is very special indeed!

We need to recognise and acknowledge the importance of women and pregnancy.

Because humanity would literally come to an end without pregnant women. There would be no shops, no food stocked within them, no roads, no infrastructure without women incubating babies.

We are special for that reason alone. And we need to stop being so apologetic about having wombs and menstruating and having basic needs.

Fhs, shouldn’t have to pee ourselves in public to comply with laws written by clueless thirty year old men and because the patriarchy has decided that consumerism reigns above every other decent civil need.

Yes, this. The staff member is there making a living. They're not accountable for corporate values to the point of risking losing their job.

They can't have members of the public where they're not supposed to be, insurance, security, risk assessments and also if you do it for one person, you have to for everyone, if they need escorting each time as they are not in a public area this is a problem. As difficult as it is yabu

That's not the fault of the Coop.staff. 😵‍💫

PP mentioned being sacked for doing the very same thing. Why should an employee even put themselves in the position of being subject to disciplinary action?

The problem is once they make an exception it opens the floodgates to lots of others asking for loo access for a variety of valid reasons along with the chancers. Then suddenly stores need to provide serviced facilities for all to use which can be expensive to maintain, especially the hygiene bins.

I suspect women working in the Coop may not want to have to allow members of the public into staff only areas.

But that's exactly why this was such an extreme situation that unfortunately it was difficult for anyone to help.

It sounds like within a minute or two from realising you needed to go it was already too late. Presumably the co-op exit was only a few steps from the till where you first asked about the toilet.

Realistically it was unlikely you would have made it while they paged for someone to come and take you to the toilet and walk you through the back of the shop anyway.

If you'd been in a big supermarket with public toilets but you were in an aisle on the opposite side of the shop in this situation you would be unlikely to have made it.

If you'd been sitting in a pub and the toilet was tucked away up a flight of stairs (as it often is) you wouldn't have made it.

If any of the above situations had occurred and you'd got to the toilet but it was occupied for 5 mins, you wouldn't have made it.

I'm not trying to be harsh but it sounds like things went from 0-100 in a matter of 60 seconds and there was little anyone could do.

Maybe supermarkets over a certain size should be obliged by law to have a public, clean, lavatory?

Lots of them do though don't they, co op doesn't have any supermarkets as such, they're all a fair bit smaller.

All supermarkets should have one clean, unlocked toilet. The reason why I stress the fact it should be unlocked is my local co-op used to have a customer toilet where you had to go to the customer services desk and ask for the key. And then there would be minutes of

"Oh yes, I gave it to that lady with a perm, and then she handed it back in to Janet and then...what did you do with it Janet, dear?"

"Oh I gave it to the family with the three kids and then they brought it back and then I gave it to the man in the nice tweed jacket and then I'm not sure what happened to it after that,"

By the time the key was eventually found, it would have been quicker to walk home. Sometimes, the queue for the toilet key was longer than the queue at the check outs.