A reader writes:
Hi! I work in an office building on a floor that has three different offices on it. The bathrooms in our building are not very big (four stalls, three sinks, and roughly 80 women on our floor).
I have IBS. I’m on a medication to keep me regular, but every so often it makes using the bathroom a sudden, painful, urgent need for me.
So imagine my horror when I run to the restroom and a woman from the office next door is spread out across all three sinks, working on her hair and makeup. Even though what I’m in there for is perfectly normal, it’s still embarrassing. Occasionally, her office buddy comes in and sits on one of the sinks, as well, so they can chat while she “works.”
I thought this was just annoying because of my medical condition and that maybe I was being unreasonable. I don’t like to talk to people about my medical issues, so I kept it to myself and just dealt with it. But it turns out, everyone else in my office hates it, too. (We have an open office and a new employee came in one morning and asked the room if they’d run into her, which started a very lively conversation about how much she is inconveniencing everyone. So this is how I know how they all feel about it. To my knowledge, no one has ever brought it up with her.)
She goes in around 9:30 and she spends about an hour on her makeup. (For our office, this is the “bathroom rush” because most of us go in around 6 so we have more time with the European office before they go home for the day. We have had quite a few cups of coffee at this point. So taking up ANY of the limited sinks for a long period of time is a problem for us since there are roughly 50 women from our office utilizing them.)
She has never once seemed to consider the idea that she’s taking up too much room and she gets an attitude if you ask her to move her stuff aside so you can wash your hands.
Honestly, the consensus in our office has been, “That woman needs a mirror for her desk so she can stop inconveniencing EVERYONE ELSE who has to use this bathroom.” If she doesn’t want people to think she’s weird, she should consider doing her makeup at home.
To be clear, we don’t mind touch-ups or teeth-brushing. It’s the whole makeup and hair routine that bothers us. There is a gym with a bathroom downstairs that she could be using for that.
Are we unreasonable for being annoyed by this? How should we be handling it?
No, you’re not being unreasonable. She’s spread out across three sinks! She’s in there for an hour! That’s not reasonable; it’s inconsiderate.
It’s true that with a public bathroom, you can’t expect perfect privacy when you need it — there could always be someone in there touching up their eyeliner or brushing their teeth, and you can’t expect people to instantly stop and rush out when they see you rushing into a stall. But this isn’t that; this is someone setting up camp in the bathroom for a use that most people would agree is significantly lower-priority than the one most people go into the bathroom for.
But whether or not there’s anything you can do about it is a different question. Certainly someone could approach her and ask her to change what she’s doing, but the fact that she’s already been rude when people have merely asked her to free up a sink for them doesn’t bode well about her likely response. This is the first thing to try, though, if it hasn’t been tried already.
If that doesn’t work … If she worked for your company, you could ask her manager to intervene. It’s still possible that you could speak to whoever manages physical-space issues for her company, explain the problem she’s causing for the rest of the building, and see if they’re willing to intervene, but it’s a little iffier when it’s a different company.
You could see if the building management would be willing to post some kind of sign (perhaps noting that there are limited bathroom facilities for the floor and asking that people not camp out there for non-toilet-related activities), but those sorts of signs are notoriously ineffective on already-inconsiderate people.
But you could try those things and see what happens. If they work, yay! If they don’t, well, then at least you know that you tried and she’s just a rude person (at which point you would also be justified in weaponizing your IBS toward her, should you be so inclined).
someone spends an hour a day putting on makeup in our shared bathroom was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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