Probably one of the most irritating questions I get asked daily, where’s the restroom?
Can I have the key to the bathroom? Please I REALLY REALLY have to go! All of the above and more. As if we’re dealing with kids that didn’t listen to their parents and go potty before leaving the house.
The store I work at was converted from an old building. Of course, to cut costs they decided to keep the bathrooms exactly as they were in the old building. The bathroom is right before you enter the backroom.
So, since the only restroom is basically IN the backroom, theft was extremely high, every single time I’d use the restroom there would be stolen boxes inside of it. I mean people would walk in and immediately ask to use the restroom like there was a sign outside that said “please come in to use our restroom, poop and pee and steal also thank you!”.
So the decision was made to cut off the public access to it. Our thefts went way down but the bitching went way up. As we denied that we had no public restroom the outbursts and slamming of doors would occur. Can I have the key to the restroom? “No, it’s out of order”. That’s what we’d tell people, or “we don’t have a public restroom”.
I’ve never in my life seen grown-ass adults throw the biggest tantrums over not being able to use a restroom in a store. I’m aware most stores have public restrooms but due to theft and the fact these grown humans poop everywhere BUT the toilet and pee everywhere BUT the toilet.
Yes, this decision came with quite a few consequences here and there. One man pooped diarrhoea completely down his pants, onto the floor in a perfect 360-degree circle. Then of course we found turds in our backroom around the corner that a customer left us.
This one particular time, I was stocking freight and my Store Manager happened to go in the back room and there’s a puddle on the floor, she instantly checked the camera and watched this grown woman pull down her pants and pee in our backroom. But that’s not it, my Store Manager got so pissed, she went up front to the registers to see if that lady was in line and sure enough, she was.
My SM confronts the lady about peeing in our backroom, she denies and then out of nowhere a customer yells out “there’s piss all on the back of your shorts, you’re a liar!!!” overhearing the argument between my SM and piss monster. My SM kicks this pissy shorts lady out of the store.
That was nothing compared to my very last episode that happened in my almost 3 years at that store.
A lady came in screaming at us for no reason and started knocking things around, so my cashiers called the non-emergency police to put a ban on her and get her away from the property since we cannot touch customers in a forceful manner. Well, I came up and escorted her outside with one of my cashiers. We’re literally holding the doors open escorting her outside. We make sure she’s leaving the property, following slowly because she appeared out of her mind, and what a sight did we get to witness. This lady with her shorts completely to the ankles, ass on the wall of the building peeing and pooping. It was too late, we had seen and been through it all by the time the police arrived to properly escort her away. When they came, yes, it was just way too late, our eyes and memory had been tainted for life at that point.
As soon as I took over, I had the choice to open the restroom back up or keep it shut down and lie to every customer. I did one thing, I asked my entire staff (as some were curious if maybe we should open it back up), “Do you want to clean that restroom daily/nightly as part of your job duties?”. Of course, the entire staff said hell no leave that son of a bitch closed.
And that my retail friends, is our restroom policy! It was the easiest decision I ever had to make as a new SM.