Humiliated by work colleague about smelly toilet

[JadeyGreen]

My workplace has a shared toilet - it’s outside the office in a corridor so people can’t see the comings and goings.

Anyway, I noticed this smelt really foul when I went in this morning (no big deal, it’s a toilet after all). As I walked out and opened the door, my colleague was waiting to go in.

A couple of minutes after, my colleague walked back into the office and announced ‘JadeyGreen, what on earth did you have for breakfast? it absolutely stinks in there’

I obviously protested my innocence -
but it was really humiliating in front of the c.15 colleagues who were in work today. We have quite serious roles and this isn’t the sort of comment people usually make.

AIBU to feel offended?

Some people find it quite normal to talk about smelly poos! If she's a loud mouth, it's possibly normal 'banter' for her and was just having a laugh perhaps?

I live in a house of boys, and at home poo talk and smells/farts talk is regularly talked and laughed about, it's not my idea of a fun but I've ended up joining them as I can't beat them!

However if you really don't like it though you might need to say something, she could be offending other people with other comments thinking it's 'just banter'.

Perhaps she was worried she'd get the blame from the next person and was trying ot shift it on to you?

Laughing at all the posters clamouring to have a go at the offender just assuming it was a man. Haha, it was a woman! Bet they all go quiet now because females can do no wrong in some women's eyes.

Op said it was a woman.

Same here, but you wouldn't let your boys carry on like that outside of your house, would you? We teach them what's appropriate in different company and situations, for a grown adult to think it's ok to say something like that out loud in an office of people she hardly knows is not 'normal', even for people who think poo jokes are funny.

Men would make remarks like that about smelly toilets to other men, and no-one would take offence or think anything of it. Women tend to view these matters rather differently.

I think what you meant to type there was 'Oops. Totally got that wrong. Sorry.'

But there are so many typos that it almost looks like you weren't saying that at all.

We had a young woman in our workplace who was horrified when she went into the loos and they were a bit whiffy.

Came out exclaiming to the whole department how shocking it was someone had done a poo in a work toilet and that they should only be done at home 🙈🤣

I can't help finding the side arguments ironic, considering the topic of the thread.

Really? In a serious office environment? I've never witnessed men do this.

Oh I have worked in a office with a toilet like this. It's horrible. Everytime you need to go it's completely obvious you are going to the toilet and sharing with men in the office is just grim. I feel for you.

It's mumsnet, of course it HAD to be a MAN😂😂

Everyone has a different tolerance to poo talk.
And it depends on the relationship you have with the person as to whether they were being serious and criticising or just commenting on the clearly obvious smell.

Your colleagues will have forgotten this already, or maybe weren’t even listening.

We’ve had complaints about the smell at work and the suggestion that we move to single gender bathrooms. As apparently Women’s poo doesn’t smell as bad!

Ask for some air freshener in the toilets instead of emailing HR.

It's probably usual in most workplaces, it's only on MN where every little perceived slight has to be reported to HR etc. I recall the caretaker complaining in the school staff room at the amount of toilet roll he had to put into the ladies' loo, 'I don't know what you're doing with it!', so we told him, in great detail

Definitely speak to HR. So unprofessional. Hate people who try to embarrass others

Yanbu.

I hate it when people try to shame others for normal bodily functions.

Everyone in a workplace is a grown adult and she needs to grow up and accept that sometimes toilets smell.

My tolerance for any kind of toilet talk is an absolute zero. I’m surprised no one else in the office pulled her up on being disgustingly bad mannered, I would have.

Totally inappropriate OP! Bullying and idiotic ‘banter’. They will have embarrassed themselves with it though!

Not the point of the thread, but why does it matter if it’s a man or woman? Still an awful person.

Awww, you ruined the vendetta crowds day!

I missed that, I thought op explained it was a shared toilet because it was a man...

My comment still stands. Complain to HR and suggest the bullying woman finds a good probiotic and maybe some food allergy tests.

Then you and 4 others immediately leapt to the conclusion it was a man…mumsnet at its finest!

It's childish and would annoy me for all of 30 seconds before I forgot all about it. I read some of these posts and genuinely marvel at some of the things people are so wounded by. It's no wonder the word is the way it is now. Let it go OP, know that it wasn't you and rest assured your colleague looked a bit silly.

I bet she was a mumsnetter. The number of MNs who are horrified at the thought that a tradesperson might need to do a jobby in their porcelain throne! 😁😂😂

I do wonder if the OP was deliberately ambiguous about the sex of the colleague to see what conclusions would be jumped to. It would’ve been much quicker & easier to type ‘she came back into the office’ rather than ‘my colleague came back into the office’.

Did they not? Ok well if it wasn't one then ignore that part. If it was one I stand by what I say. But you can clearly see my post in meant in humour right?

It wasn’t a man, as OP explained in an update.