Help! She's standing on the toilet seat!!

[Crazyworksituatio]

Help! I've no idea how to deal with this without offending. Since a new female employee has started working with us there are shoe prints on toilet seat. It's a corporate office but only a few females use this toilet so obvious who the culprit is. The lady is from India and new to country. She's very professional and I think this is a cultural difference but I'm horrified she thinks this is ok? What would you do??

But also the toilets are different, at ground level. But the squatting point stands (or not)

Why on earth would it be “all you can think of when you look at her”? Is it all you can think of any time you see a colleague walk in or out of the bathrooms?

I always wipe down the seat before I use the loo anywhere that isn’t my house so the shoe prints wouldn’t inherently bother me- I’d be worried about the toilet seat breaking though as western toilets aren’t designed to be stood on, so I agree get some signs up.

I did wonder why I was regularly seeing footprints on the toilet seat in the Costa's that I go to.

I'd definitely go the signs route. Western toilets are not designed for standing on, it isn't safe and if it breaks she could be hurt.
I would look into adding a removable stool that is made for squatting though, if you google squatting platforms there are several that are made for the job

And the signs with diagrams and please don’t poop on the floor. Apparently if you normally squat to poop (hole in floor toilets) …. It can be very difficult to get poop out if you relax sitting on a toilet seat.

www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/no-permit-toilet-sign-dont-step-1917110825

I doubt if this lady would be embarrassed provided signs were put in all the loos and maybe an unrelated sign was added, eg 'please wash your hands'. It might be helpful to add a notice (in all the loos) that UK toilets are not designed for squatting and may break if used in this way.

Some of my fellow students from Glasgow Uni did their Russian placement at Voronezh Uni.

One lad had us in hysterics in the common room one day, recounting the time he had Voronezh tummy and had to use the hostel loos urgently. He landed the one with the broken lock.

The loos there were bricked around. He described trying to balance, whilst holding onto his trousers and his dignity and trying to hold the door shut with one leg...

Believe you me, when you were heading to the Soviet Union for a placement, one of the first things you did was to check whether any of the older students could tell you what the loos were like.

My first time, a group of us were in Krasnodar during the 1980 Olympics. We were taken on an excursion to the Russian Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik.

We were taken for lunch in a restaurant. Afterwards, there was the usual queue at the ladies'. There were only two, we were told.

As we waited in line, we asked the first girls to come out "Are they proper toilets?"

They nodded in affirmation, but had a weird look on their face.

When it came to my turn I got there the same time as a rather posh spoken middle-aged lady who was there as a mature student.

We entered. The toilets were indeed 'proper toilets' and beautifully clean.

Instead of a door, each toilet had what appeared to be a transparent pink shower curtain. There was wall between the toilets - only a three inch high pink porcelain divider.

I looked at it dumbly, wondering what to do. My companion went ahead so I followed.

I tried to look straight ahead, but then heard the mature student intoning: "Well, it's certainly one way of getting to know your fellow traveller!"

You can get signs for the purpose. It is a cultural difference and one which is neither better nor worse except loo seats aren’t designed for full body weight and will break.
People should either sit on the seat or squat on the rim and damage should not occur, but the seats are not designed for squatting.
Providing a step where people prefer to squat is thoughtful.

This. I work in a uni and we get this every new academic year. We also have signs that say sanitary bins are for sanitary products only as in some countries, used toilet tissue is not put down the toilet, but in a bin.

Often the "aim" is not good.

Get the signs up, better than others noticing footprints, potential for gossip to start and an atmosphere to develop, it’s also preferable to getting the fire brigade out if things go wrong and her leg gets stuck in the toilet or she knocks herself out falling and is trapped in the cubicle

I think that if you stand on a toilet seat in outdoor shoes for any reason then you should clean the seat before you leave.

Take it down once she's got the message.

It's pretty gross if they've walked on pavements of spit, pee and dog pooh.

They are still common in France and also called Turkish

And she was squatting on the seat because she didn’t know otherwise so needed advice - a sign seemed the best way to inform.

When Soviet tummy hit the student hostel where I stayed in Moscow, the toilets were grim.

The hostel had an international client group and you knew which students were squatting, because the heads would bob up and down above the cubicles.

This was a problem because our loos were supposed to be for women only, but some of the men couldn't be bothered walking up the next floor for the gents.

Of course she knows.

That's a good point. The facilities in our student accommodation in Russia had plastic, open weave baskets.

Yeuch.

I have literally never, ever heard of anyone squatting on a toilet like this. Just seems incredibly unsafe balance wise! Would never occur to me that someone would do this. I’ve clearly had a sheltered 44 years!

Universities with a lot of overseas students have notices in every cubicle explaining how to use british-style toilets. Some countries mainly have squat-toilets and they are used to a completely different position. No judgement, just a lack of info.

The office should buy a stool like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Foldable-7inches-Bathroom-Squatting-Anti-Slip/dp/B0B174QP14/
to enable her to get a comfy position (can be left in the appropriate area. No instructions needed) and signs like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samuliy-Toilet-Squat-Warning-Stickers/dp/B0D5VJTZ9T
for each cubicle.

"Normal" in some countries is a very low toilet bowl that you are supposed to straddle and squat over, no sitting. If that's what you're used to our toilets seem unreasonably high and the idea of sitting on them seems gross.

I used one in Santorini only a couple of years ago!

This has never happened to me but I've always had regular bad dreams about this situation. Needing the loo then going and then realising there are no walls or you're in public somehow.

AFAIK it's not just more comfortable it significantly reduces your chances of getting bowel cancer

I had the dreams beforehand...you can imagine the effect of meeting the situation in real life!