This situation happened to me yesterday and I always feared it would.
What do you do when you head to the bathroom and find it disgusting? You don’t want to clean it up, let alone touch anything, so you somehow do your business with as little contact as possible. Then when you leave, there’s someone important (that you are desperately trying to impress) standing right outside waiting to come in. There’s that awkward moment where you desperately want to say, “It wasn’t me!” and proclaim your innocence. But then, if you do, it comes off as drawing unwanted attention to the problem, in a juvenile way, and almost like an admission of guilt. If you say nothing, then they must assume it was you who made the bathroom a disaster and might skew their impression of you. What do you do?
How badly do you need to go? Because I would have to be about to vomit before I’d use a truly gross bathroom. If practically possible, I’d warn the person and then make a show of alerting the host / manager. Second choice, if you really *had *to use it would be to kind of wince and warn them "look out, it’s pretty gross in there ". If someone said that to me, depending on the look on their face / tone of their voice, I’d get what they meant.
Well, there’s your problem. You shouldn’t be desperately trying to impress anyone. Everyone shits. And we all came into this world (more or less) the same way.
Even in a dirty bathroom, I’ve never felt like there was anything I couldn’t touch that a little soap and water would take of at the sink before I left. Not that I’m going to stop and clean up anything, just that I’m not that grossed out by it in the first place. Maybe that’s why I wouldn’t feel like I have anything to apologize for.
A truly dirty bathroom rarely looks like the fault of any single person, no matter how much of a slob they are.
If I’m passing anyone as I go out, I’ll probably say something like “Someone left a mess in there. I’m going to go tell management about it now.” but that has less to do with what they might think of me than letting them know that they don’t also have to go tell management.
In any event, I wouldn’t count on anything I say making a difference in their opinion of me. It’s the kind of situation where protesting your innocence won’t change the perception. If they think you made the mess, they’ll also think you’re the type to lie about it.
Very well stated. But say it’s just the toilet that’s clogged with shit everywhere and there’s pee all over the seat. It’s not you, but it very well could have been you. If you don’t say anything, then they have no reason not to assume it was you.
Maybe another option is to say, “I’m going to find another bathroom. I can’t use that one and I don’t recommend that you use it either.”
In regards to the poster above saying “Everyone shits”…yes, they do, but you run the risk of alienating a conservative or prudish person by bringing attention to what’s a traditionally private topic. No doubt most on this board are open-minded, but how do you make it professional sounding when you really want to say “SOMEONE SHAT THEIR BRAINS OUT AND IT WASN’T ME I SWEAR!!!”
This instantly reminded me of David Sedaris’ short story “Big Boy”. Here is the first paragraph;
It was Easter Sunday in Chicago, and my sister Amy and I were attending an afternoon dinner at the home of our friend John. The weather was nice, and he’d set up a table in the backyard so that we might sit in the sun. Everyone had taken their places, when I excused myself to visit the bathroom, and there, in the toilet, was the absolute biggest turd I have ever seen in my life - no toilet paper or anything, just this long and coiled specimen, as thick as a burrito. I flushed the toilet, and the big turd trembled. It shifted position, but that was it. This thing wasn’t going anywhere. I thought briefly of leaving it behind for someone else to take care of, but it was too late for that. Too late, because before getting up from the table, I’d stupidly told everyone where I was going. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I’d said. “I’m just going to run to the bathroom.”
