Brian wrote: ↑25 Sep 2016, 10:21
When we were in our twenties and still living in the UK, my partner and I both at some point had stop-gap jobs working in busy catering establishments. I worked at a roadside fast-food restaurant which stretched me and my young colleagues to the limit sometimes, all of us charging around setting up tables, taking customers' orders, cooking their snacks and making their drinks, washing up, often with little opportunity to relieve ourselves. I have various memories of some of my male colleagues getting caught short and not being able to go for a pee because they were too busy.
But the most interesting experience was by my partner who worked at a similarly busy burger joint at a city centre train station. (He's not into male pee issues, but he knows that I am so he told me.)
Basically, and I know this is hard to believe but it is absolutely true, my partner's place of work had no toilet on site for the staff. To go for a pee there were two options. You could use the public station toilets a little way away - but then you first had to change out of your uniform (a red shirt, red linen trousers/slacks) and back into the civilian clothes in which you came to work because it was strictly forbidden to use the public toilets while in uniform, and then you had to change back again afterwards. Or you could go to a private toilet for railway staff in your uniform, but that was on a distant platform which took more than five minutes to reach and the same time to come back afterwards. So going to the toilet while on duty was a major operation, whichever option you chose, and the accepted practice was that the staff had to wait for their single half-hour break during their 8-hour shift and go then (just once). I guess that the management considered that its mostly young (early to mid twenties) staff should be able to last out with just one toilet visit per 8 hour shift.
The girls on duty quite often had to ask the supervisor for an extra break for necessary functions, and they were generally allowed if it was not too busy. The guys on the other hand tended to grit their teeth and hold on until their break time if they possibly could - partly because asking to be allowed to go to the toilet was a most un-macho thing to have to do, and partly because in those sexist days the supervisors were more likely to allow the girls to go than the guys, and being denied such a request was pretty humiliating.
Anyway my partner, who was himself a shift supervisor later on during his time there, recounted to me various instances of his young male colleagues having held on until they could not hold it any longer, then having to ask him to be relieved from their posts. Sometimes he could let them go, but sometimes he would have to say that they were too busy.
The most amazing incident which he told me about had actually occurred during the morning shift just before my partner started for his late shift. The unit manager's attention had been drawn to the laundry bag in which the staff who were finishing their shifts had to deposit the uniform which they had worn - uniforms were washed after each use and kept on the premises. On this occasion there was already a pair of red male uniform trousers which had been deposited in the bag despite the fact that the guys on duty had not yet finished. The manager fished this pair of red trousers out, observed that they were soaking wet over the crotch and streaked down the legs, held it up in front of the guys from the early shift and asked accusingly "Who did this?" No-one answered him. Clearly they all knew which unfortunate guy had had an accident while trying to hold on until his relief would take over so that he could go on his break, but no-one was going to tell him who it was.
I feel like I remember this one from an old forum, and sorry for reviving old posts, I'm only reading through all of these now.
Honestly, a business operating like that should have been taken down and those managers and supervisors, quite frankly, deemed unfit to be in, or even abusers of, their positions of power and authority, and held accountable for those actions.
I read context indicating this was a long time ago, it doesn’t make it any better, but at least the context explains a lot. Fortunately things have improved since then and I’m also glad the workers pulled rank.
Following on from something I just considered in relation to a completely different post, I don’t think members of this community would make mistakes like that, even if some ‘bad’ employers occasionally still do. We’re already aware and prepared to address every possible predicament, paradoxically because we in-fact find some pleasure in fantasy associated with them. I think a lot of us would have had temporary jobs like that at one time or another. I’ve certainly worked a few, and whenever I’ve been in the supervisory position I always tended towards extra cautious, to guarantee that no one under my care would ever actually experience anything like what was described. I understand the fantasy of a subordinate, busting for a piss, and a superior with no means to fulfill the request, being fun. But in direct contrast, in real life, a subordinate under my supervision requesting the bathroom reverses, becoming a priority, regardless even if there’s a perceived lack urgency in the request (I would never assume as experience tells me a few people are still embarrassed for whatever reason, and it’s not my place to judge) and I’d actually consider that a supervisor denying such a request in real life shouldn’t be in that role. I don’t think “we’re too busy” even cuts it anymore, that just indicates the business/employer is inadequately prepared, and therefore are at fault, so frankly, they can deal with the couple of extra $$ they might lose while we shut down completely for a few minutes and address the situation, as the care of those under my supervision overrides.
I don’t know, maybe this is also why I’d never get employed in one of those jobs again LOL, the few ‘bad’ employers that still exist mainly prey on young, inexperienced, or already disadvantaged workers who might not understand what they should be entitled to. I’m older, have been around a bit, know what I’m entitled to and wouldn’t have a second thought about telling my superiors ‘where to go’, or if anything like the one described was still in existence, having them taken down and everyone that was employed there compensated.