Feeling very uncomfortable and almost violated after visit today by BT Engineer

[DontGoChasinWaterfalls]

I need a sense check and to realise I'm not overreacting.
BT engineer came today to upgrade my service to fibre optic broadband. He was late first of all which could've been accepted if he acknowledged he was late and apologised. He stepped into my house with his work boots on and I asked if he would mind wearing shoe covers as I have grey carpets. I'd never ask workmen to take shoes off and I provide the blue shoe coverings. He huffed and said he has to go in and out my house. Immediately I felt uncomfortable but explained I have a small child who sits and crawls on the carpet. He reluctantly agreed.
He somehow managed to jam the lock on my porch door by trying to leave it on the latch. After 15 minutes I managed to release it. He then tells me he needs a colleague to come to do something outside with the plyons and phrased it as "if it's after 2pm they won't bother coming". He eventually starts work after 40 minutes after faffing and I go upstairs to do some work.
5 minutes later I hear a panicked call asking if he could use my bathroom. Before I could say anything he was half way up the stairs. I froze and he directed himself to the bathroom. He was in there for 20 minutes and I was now downstairs feeling quite upset. Eventually he comes downstairs and doesn't say anything. I went upstairs to survey the damage and it was horrendous to say the least. To make things worse he rooted through my wardrobe to find the toilet paper.
I feel disgusted and sick..but feel like I'm overreacting as I don't know if he was unwell or has a medical condition.
He's got to come back tomorrow and I don't want him here.
aibu to call OpenReach to request another engineer???

This is where you said you don't allow work people to use your toilet. Then later you denied ever saying it 🙄

YANBU OP. He violated boundaries. He needs to be reported and hopefully given some advice on how to treat customers.

Another person who doesn’t understand bowel, bladder and urgency issues.

My 7yo daughter has ulcerative colitis and doesn’t just do her “morning shit” nor do a lot of people with IBS, allergies/intolerances etc.
such ignorance.

Yep and I can testify from experience it’s not just men who suffer with ‘needing to shit throughout the working day’. No wonder there’s still so much shame and stigma around these sort of issues.

Its not the using the loo - op have permission. It’s the leaving it in a state and going in her bedroom. It’s stories like this ( I’ve heard a few) that put me off allowing strangers to use my loo. Of course I have sympathy to those who need urgent trips but how does suffering with a bowel condition mean you can not clean up or that you can go into someone’s bedroom,

How was he supposed to clean up with no loo brush and how was he supposed to clean himself with no toilet roll? I agree it’s an unpleasant situation for all involved.

There was loo roll in her bathroom cabinet!! You can use loo roll to clean up! Open a window at the very least. You have some low standards .

You want him to stick his hand down the toilet with toilet roll? It’s not me with the low standards.

He did open a window…. But OP still complained. Poo smells, who knew.

I realise digestive issues can occur unexpectedly from time to time, but I do feel generally that if your job is working in other people’s homes, you need to build offsite toileting into your routine by using transfers between home and job or between jobs, or choosing a public convenience option in breaks. You are in a home to do a job, not as a guest or to use the facilities.

Of course if a person is taken short it’s only kind to let them avail themself of the loo; but this is becoming a sort of perk of the job with tradesmen: disappear for a dump and a bit of a scroll on the phone without logging off or using up your breaks.

If those are the two choices, I think most people would choose the first one.

I'd go for a third option, either he cleans up after himself, or in the absence of a loo brush, he acknowledges the situation and ask for a cleaning product.

No scenario would involve a trip to the bedroom to pick up loo roll instead of looking in bathroom cabinet.

So why not clean up?

Jesus, I've heard it all now. You expect tradesman to log off to use the toilet?? Do you log off work to use the toilet?
If a tradesman is doing a job for several hours in my house, then as a fellow human being, he's welcome to use my toilet.

Her response (as was mine) was to you saying that you never allow workmen at your house to use your toilet.

I can’t remember when I last walked out of a meeting to go to the loo.

I go before so I’m ready to attend, and often several of us head to the loo straight after if it’s been a long meeting.

Occasionally if it runs a couple of hours we all take a break “ for a coffee” and the vast majority use that opportunity to go to the loo. Very few people have to duck out in the middle- though of course there are always days of unsettled tummies etc, but it isn’t a general thing. In many professions people generally structure their toilet visits around meetings and I see a tradesman’s house visit as equivalent.

To be honest, 15 years ago I didn’t have tradesmen disappearing to my bathroom for ages ( or even using it really). It’s been smartphones that have precipitated the rise of the 25 minute piss-take-piss.

A meeting is rarely longer than 2 hours. How about if you are somewhere all day or for half a day as many trades people often are at someone's home?

I have a couple of brilliant tradesmen that we have reused on many occasions. Both aged over 40 if that makes a difference ( and I think it does).

They arrive about 8:30, do a full couple of hours with no greasy dump or phone scrolling, leave in their van to go for coffee/ a “refresh” about 10:30, return about 11, work till 1pm then do the same thing, returning 2 pm ish after about an hour’s lunch break, one disappears again about 3:30 for 30 mins then returns from 4-5/5:30, the other tends to work through with a flask cuppa ( though if I’m there I make it fresh) about 3:30 and downs tools at about 4:30. He seems to make that 2-4:30 stint without need to sit in the bathroom for 20 minutes. But these are proper professional workmen. Standards have just slipped so low.

Once again though you are referring to the ‘average person’ for whom an hour meeting probably wouldn’t require a toilet break. Not everyone is the average person.

For many years I’ve suffered with IBS which is as much linked to anxiety as much as physical issues. Work meetings were a major trigger for me because I knew how weird and noticeable and unprofessional it would look if I got up to use the loo so this invariably set off my anxiety which made me need to go more. It’s a vicious cycle. The same would happen on long car journeys or anywhere new when I didn’t know where the nearest loo was. It was so debilitating to me for so long. I missed out on a lot of things because of it. And because of attitudes displayed on this thread I never felt able to talk to anyone about it other than my closest family and friends. I used to sit in meetings looking perfectly normal but being a massive ball of anxiety inside thinking I was on the verge of shitting myself, it was horrible.

Im not saying this is the case for the BT engineer. Who knows. But things like this are real and they do affect more people than you’d think. I’m not excusing him making a mess or being rude but the panic that sets in when you’re in that situation is very difficult and I really can’t imagine ever wanting to knowingly make another human feel like that by denying them access to a toilet.

When our HA was replacing kitchens the flats were indeed classed as their workplace

One of my pet hates is employers who expect you to shit to a timetable. I had one ask me years ago if i was ill just because i had to leave the shop floor to go to the toilet
Cant wait to see how employers like this will cope once they have an employee who has IBD More likely to happen because of the forthcoming benefit cuts And potential employees probably wont mention it at interview when the new Labour Government choice is work or starve

I can totally understand that, but in a way most people managing is what helps people in a position like you are. A meeting really couldn’t function if half of them were popping out for five or ten minutes throughout. By having a culture where people generally try not to, it creates more space for someone with a genuine issue to slip out without the meetings becoming generally unproductive. To have to say “ foxy while you were out we just touched on x and have agreed y” is totally different from having to work around constant departures.

Even in schools ( as opposed to nursery) the children are often encouraged to go at break.

I don’t think anyone minds it when it is a medical issue. It’s just that suddenly a vast majority of workmen seem to have developed IBS.

Do you lock your workmen in for the day? In that case, you really do have to let them use your loo.

Where are they supposed to go? In a bush? Public toilets are available some places but few and far between these days. Honestly what kind of society to we live in where people begrudge others the ability to go to the toilet!!