Another driver made an unplanned delivery on the street after delivering a package.
I see news about delivery people taking outdoor potty breaks a few times a year. The bush beside your house may be dying for a reason.
It raises an interesting question.
What are the shipping companies bathroom break policies for delivery personnel?
Are they allowed to seek out a store or business that offers a restroom for the public?
Office buildings have public restrooms. That’s ideal because a daily pit stop can be planned after delivering the packages.
A residential delivery person might have a significant drive finding a business with a restroom. So many convenience markets don’t offer public restrooms anymore.
Obviously it’s not acceptable for delivery people to use the streets or bushes. Every employee should have bathrooms available at their work site. Or some policy to seek one out.
My friend was a delivery driver for Fedex and would sometimes text me and say he was in my neighborhood and ask if he could use my bathroom. I usually wasn’t home when he would ask this or I wouldn’t see the text until it was too late. So I guess he didn’t consider a gas station to be an option.
Maybe they can’t leave the truck unattended like that in a parking lot while they go inside?
There are many buildings with multiple different offices inside. I’ve seen UPS and other deliveries walk inside. They must be able to lock those trucks. Even in the building I work in, they deliver to the mail room which is inside and quite a distance from where they park.
I’m sure these companies have bathroom break policies. Otherwise the poop in the streets would be a foot deep. I’d guess at least a million business and residential packages get delivered every week.
I used to deliver dry cleaning to a fairly rural part of Maryland (Potomac, MD), where the nearest public or customer restroom was miles away.
If the urge came (which it often did because I drank a shit-ton of soda), I would pull my van over, take an empty soda bottle, and carefully pee into it. I’d make sure I had twp empty bottles ready, because my bladder would often have more than 20 oz of pee.
I’d then stash the full bottles in the door paneling (so they wouldn’t roll around), and would toss them at the end of my run.
One time, my assistant manager was going to clean everyone’s van prior to an inspection. I was still taking care of my pick-ups when I notice him headed to my van. I quickly ran out, but it was too late. He saw my full pee-bottles, picked one up, then asked me (as I ran up) why I was keeping a warm bottle of Mountain Dew in the van. Then the realization hit him, and the look on his face was hilarious as he pitched the bottle into the nearby dumpster.
When we had some renovation done on our house, they set up a portable toilet in the front yard. I asked them went they kept it locked, and they said “we find that otherwise the mailman uses it.” They didn’t explain why this was considered such a problem, though. Maybe mailmen have really bad digestion.
The unit is rented and emptied based on expected usage. So many workers x so many expected uses per day means it’s emptied on a specific schedule.
Too many extra uses means the unit is unusable unless it’s emptied early.
Means extra cost for the customer and an extra trip by the driver.
Multiply that across the whole company.
Wandering away from the OP now, but the reno projects I see that are big enough to require a porta-potty for the workmen also tend to be fenced off with chain link, with an auxiliary mailbox on the fencing (sometimes) or maybe the mail just forwarded if the house isn’t occupied.
Many such businesses, and additionally, bus drivers, provide bathroom facilities at the depot. And sometimes, its not enough, and someone really has to go. Also, they may skip a bathroom break, get stuck in traffic, become really late, and the problem compounds. And everywhere, in every job, management provides a policy for human accommodation. And sometimes a person will abuse the privilege. And sometimes a low-level supervisor will give people crap regarding a reasonable use of the policy. And then the problem simply spirals.
My letter carrier used to also live next door, and delivered to our neighborhood. She would surreptitiously enter her house to use the bathroom. This is because when in uniform, she represents the post office, and isn’t allowed to enter a house on her route, even her own home. Even for a bathroom break. Anyway, she was pregnant, and needed a few more breaks. But the real problem was her toddler seeing her, and thinking, “It’s mommys home playtime yay.” And its not, not while in uniform, in the middle of the day.
Elsewhere on the net, people are remarking that letting a delivery person use their bathroom, at work or gasp home is the biggest disaster ever. I think its something of a trope, such people being celebrated poopers, or something. I’ve never refused a cable guy, in-house contractor, delivery person a chance to use the bathroom. What is the worst that they can do? Everybody poops, right?
That’s the same trope I’ve seen before. I get that some people don’t want foreign poo in their toilet bowl. I get that people don’t want foreign butt cheeks on their seat. I think the sentiment is dumb, and I don’t adhere to it. The joyous rapture I got from the cable installer guy when I said, “Sure, in the hallway on the right. Be my guest.” seemed like the whole would was being unnecessarily cruel to this blue collar worker.
Over at Fark.com, someone has mentioned that they put in their delivery van a camp toilet from Walmart. This after a 200 mi trip from a job site turned bad suddenly. Said camp toilet can go unused for a very long time, but when you need it, you need it.
Cracked.com mentions in one of typically poorly informed rants that there’s no legal requirement for bathroom breaks. And some equally clueless comment was made regarding union rules. But not everyone has a complete asshole for a boss. Not everyone works for a union. Some people hold their poop in all day. And some people gotta go when they gotta go.
Thing is rules and conventions can be ignored at any time, “just this once.,” they say. And sometimes the standard position is inadequate for a particular biological circumstance.
Former UPS driver here: As far as bathroom policies, in all my years the subject never came up.
We had fairly predictable routes, and got to know the workers at all the businesses so it was not big deal to use their employee restroom (we were usually in back, near loading docks, etc.). In residential areas there were always fast food restaurants that could be used, and in my case I regularly delivered to people who had businesses in their homes. Those who I saw every day had no problem with a “Hey, do you mind if use your restroom before I leave.” For one year, I had a mainly rural route that was (literally) dirt roads and wooden bridges. In that case there were plenty of dusty, empty roads where I could stop near the foliage and take care of business. In the quiet, an approaching car could be heard for miles, so no chance of getting caught mid-task.
Both the rear door, and the entry door to the cargo area (behind driver) have sturdy locks. And these were required to be closed and locked at any time the driver wasn’t actually accessing the cargo area. It was also a requirement that both be locked (lock plus chain on rear door) any time the truck was moving. The company had no problem with leaving it in a parking lot while delivering, or even to enter a restaurant and eat lunch.
For a time I drove a route delivery truck delivering tires to independent shops. Fortunately my system was regular enough so that a morning poop before I headed out on my route was reliably sufficient. Another pit stop at lunch at whatever restaurant I was at would take care of one bladder stop. And then I could use the facilities again at the refueling stop at the depot.
That usually left only one more bladder stop throughout the day. Though customers never had an issue with letting me use their restroom I usually ended up stopping at a convenience store somewhere along the way and hitting the loo there.
Our company did not have any particular policy on the matter. And I have no idea how other drivers handled the issue. But it really was not a significant issue.
