# Trapped in a bathroom: did she over-react? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 12, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191 "2013-12-12T19:51:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/61 "2013-12-13T00:02:14Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Shh! If we play our cards right we can charge them $500. 🙂 > > You’re right. A handyman would be a lot cheaper. I was assuming a commercial building like this would hire a contractor. He’ll probably get them to repaint the entire bathroom while he’s there. Maybe replace the door if its cracked. Install a lock that opens from the inside. etc. For that matter, the building maintenance may have someone on staff who could do it. When I worked at a small hotel in NM, I did everything except major plumbing and major electrical. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/62 "2013-12-13T00:07:58Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > If I were her employer, I’d be seriously worried about a badass lawsuit for negligence. The security camera wasn’t manned, the door lock was apparently defective, and nobody checked the building. It’s times like this that make me wish I was a lawyer and this would be the dream case that would pay for my new yacht. Here’s hoping she ends up better off than Nicholas White, who was trapped in an elevator at his workplace for 41 hours: [QUOTE=The New Yorker] White never went back to work at the magazine. Caught up in media attention (which he shunned but thrilled to), prodded by friends, and perhaps provoked by overly solicitous overtures from McGraw-Hill, White fell under the sway of renown and grievance, and then that of the legal establishment. He got a lawyer, and came to believe that returning to work might signal a degree of mental fitness detrimental to litigation. Instead, he spent eight weeks in Anguilla. Eventually, Business Week had to let him go. The lawsuit he filed, for twenty-five million dollars, against the building’s management and the elevator-maintenance company, took four years. They settled for an amount that White is not allowed to disclose, but he will not contest that it was a low number, hardly six figures. He never learned why the elevator stopped; there was talk of a power dip, but nothing definite. Meanwhile, White no longer had his job, which he’d held for fifteen years, and lost all contact with his former colleagues. He lost his apartment, spent all his money, and searched, mostly in vain, for paying work. He is currently unemployed. [/QUOTE] (As of 2010, [NBC News](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/38960380/#.UqpQcI0mx10) said White was “working again after long stretches of unemployment.”) ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/63 "2013-12-13T00:12:06Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I would do exactly that were I in that situation. I’m not gonna sit around for possibly two+ days waiting for somebody to find me. Eights hours is well enough time that I’m going to start destroying stuff to get out of the situation. Basically! The damn door was locked from the outside. WTF. I don’t care if the bathroom is in the freakin’ Taj Mahal. I’d be busting a hole in the wall too if you’ve got me locked in. Eight hours is a full work day. It’s already an eternity when you’re busy. I imagine it feels like a million infinities in a restroom with absolutely nothing to do but stare at a toilet. After the 30 minute mark I would have been freaking out. I give the woman kudos for looking out for number one and not expecting that she’ll be rescued “any minute now”. That’s passive, damsel-in-distress thinking. Sure, her husband would have eventually worried about her, but anything could have happened to _him_. If he’d driven off the side of an embankment or been killed in a fatal car accident en route, then what? She was supposed to sit tight till Monday? No, that’s not reasonable at all. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/64 "2013-12-13T00:13:00Z")
I got stuck in a bathroom on my wedding day, right before I was supposed to leave for the church. My wedding gown had an enormous skirt and crinoline, and I just couldn’t squeeze out through the door. My father, I think, thought that I was having second thoughts! “Uh, can I help you?” he asked through the door. “No.” “Okay, okay.” It took a couple of minutes, but I was eventually able to get out. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/65 "2013-12-13T00:17:36Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > If I were her employer, I’d be seriously worried about a badass lawsuit for negligence. The security camera wasn’t manned, Someone watches security cameras 24 hours a day? ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/66 "2013-12-13T00:23:35Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I give the woman kudos for looking out for number one and not expecting that she’ll be rescued “any minute now”. But it was looking out for number one that got her in this situation to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/67 "2013-12-13T00:34:44Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > It turns out that the problem was that the door opened inward. Like [this?](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BeqZfodP2wE/T7y__QboMWI/AAAAAAAAAJI/7LAFLu0DKwA/s1600/Far-side-school-for-the-gifted.jpg) > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Someone watches security cameras 24 hours a day? If they don’t watch them, why have them? Although I’ll admit not all are manned by Alex Rieger. ---
**Author:** ![turtlescanfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@turtlescanfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/turtlescanfly)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/68 "2013-12-13T00:40:49Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > I’m a contractor, and I could have that repair done for less than $200, and I’m being safe with that estimate. Any decent handyman would do the job. +1 for this. And they make fast-setting drywall compound that will allow you to do all 3 coats, sand, and paint over the course of about 2 hours. Also, as mentioned above, most likely they have someone on staff to do this anyway. So its basically just materials (the person would be getting paid anyway). Probably looking at no more than $50, honestly. And no, she didn’t over-react. She shouldn’t have had to spend even one minute more than she intended in there, she would have been justified causing a lot more damage in order to get out. It seems she made a good faith effort to attract attention before resorting to breaking through the wall. And yeah, I give the husband a pass on not taking action for 8 hours, considering that those 8 hours were 11pm-7am. Seems perfectly plausible that he went to bed and didn’t even notice she hadn’t come home. My ex and I used to do late shifts (getting home anywhere between 12am and 2am) neither one of us expected the other to “wait up”. ---
**Author:** ![shijinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/69 "2013-12-13T01:35:44Z")
how cold would the bathroom be? ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/70 "2013-12-13T01:47:20Z")
One time I went in to work much earlier than usual, 4:30AM, to get some sheet cakes baked for a big party that afternoon. The elevator stuck, and the emergency phone would not work, so I didn’t get out until released at 7:00AM. Okay, I understand, shit happens. Then, a year later, I get in that very same elevator at about 5:15 AM on Labor Day. The library will be closed for the day, but I’m going in to the cafe I work at to retrieve some bacon grease I’d been saving. The family will be having a big breakfast cookout and I’ll be starting the fire. Elevator gets stuck again, and guess what? The emergency phone still doesn’t work. When family finds me not at the park my sister and cousin go to my house, then find my car at my parents’ house(they are out of townn) They don’t know I’ve switched vehicles. So the police are called. “Does Baker do drugs? Did she run off with a guy?” My folks van is located at the library, so my boss is called. He can get them in to the building, and they hear me pounding on the elevator, after I hear someone out ther. So the fire department has to be called, to open the elevator, and while all this is going on the head of the library happens to drive by. I’m released after well over five hours in that elevator, and the main reason I’m pissed is because of the second failure of the phone. I could have been in there for twenty four hours if nobody had been expecting me to be somewhere. I’m going to give the woman in the bathroom a pass. It’s a natural human impulse to try and escape confinement So the boss is upset, how about making it a worker safety issue, to have a place where you can be locked it with no way to call out for help? At least it was a bathroom. I was lucky I didn’t have the urge while stuck in the elevator with a broken phone. I sure wouldn’t have cleaned up the mess. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/71 "2013-12-13T02:05:52Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Someone watches security cameras 24 hours a day? She was inside the bathroom an _entire shift_. No one makes rounds? No one investigates seeing a pile of 200 paper towels outside the ladies room on the monitor? At the very least, that would indicate possible flooding/water damage happening inside - not something for security to ignore all weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/72 "2013-12-13T02:42:13Z")
Unless I missed it, no one has brought up this point: Who the frack would lock the door without first checking for occupants? mmm ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/73 "2013-12-13T02:43:17Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > There is no reason a bathroom door in an office should be able to only be locked and unlocked from the outside only… > [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > I wonder if the lock was installed backwards? It sounds like there’s a key to lock it from the inside and a knob to lock it on the outside. Usually it’s the other way around. > [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Unless I missed it, no one has brought up this point: Who the frack would lock the door without first checking for occupants? It never said the door was locked from the outside. It implied the lock or latch had jammed. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/74 "2013-12-13T03:55:26Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Yeah, that’s the WTF part of the story for me. Why would a bathroom even be lockable so that you couldn’t get out? What if someone wants to take a shit in the hallway but doesn’t want you to walk out of the bathroom and see them doing it? ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/75 "2013-12-13T04:11:38Z")
Sadly her lack of building knowledge appears to have led to a lot of unnecessary damage. Why she beat the door to hell or put another hole in a random part of the wall is beyond me. I don’t think her actions were unreasonable. If I was trapped in a bathroom I’d wait a while to see if anyone came by to help. After a few hours I’d have poked a hole next to the door as she had. Quite possible you’d only need to put a hole in the bathroom side to push the latch in. Realistically a few holes in drywall is a 50 dollar repair, would my boss rather pay me my hourly rate to be trapped in their faulty building or pay for the repair? The emotional drama of the story is certainly overblown. I think her describing it as though it was a near death experience is certainly overreacting. If the boss has a problem with the damage he and his broken ass building can suck it up, expecting someone to sit around for hours locked in a bathroom is unreasonable. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/76 "2013-12-13T04:12:21Z")
> [@epbrown01](#): > > She was inside the bathroom an _entire shift_. No one makes rounds? No one investigates seeing a pile of 200 paper towels outside the ladies room on the monitor? At the very least, that would indicate possible flooding/water damage happening inside - not something for security to ignore all weekend. I thought that it was Saturday. With all those people there, surely someone would have needed the bathroom. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/77 "2013-12-13T04:14:27Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Like [this?](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BeqZfodP2wE/T7y__QboMWI/AAAAAAAAAJI/7LAFLu0DKwA/s1600/Far-side-school-for-the-gifted.jpg) > If they don’t watch them, why have them? The two places I’ve worked that had them, the recordings were only examined if something untoward occurred. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/78 "2013-12-13T04:16:23Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > It’s a two day job because they have to let the drywall mud dry before sanding & painting. This is not accurate. It’s a patch job you use an accelerator in the mud and sand and paint 30 minutes later. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/79 "2013-12-13T04:23:00Z")
This reminds me of an Onion story. [In Retrospect, I Guess We Might Have Resorted To Cannibalism A Bit Early](http://www.theonion.com/articles/in-retrospect-i-guess-we-might-have-resorted-to-ca,10878/) ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191/80 "2013-12-13T04:31:30Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Yeah,\* the next morning.\* > > If my wife went missing one evening, and I waited until the next morning to get mobilized to find her, I’d be lucky if the worst thing she did was to divorce me. Not that I would blame her if she chose to claw my eyes out first. I’d be asleep and not notice she was missing until I woke up the next day. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trapped-in-a-bathroom-did-she-over-react/676191.md?page=5)