When it comes to bad bathroom behavior, Matt Coolidge, a public relations professional, has seen his share. Coolidge says that he regularly steps into his office’s restroom around 5 p.m. to hear another gentleman conducting conference calls from a bathroom stall. “I started to make a habit of flushing the urinals more than once, lest there be any doubt that, yes, this clown is regularly taking conference calls from the bathroom,” Coolidge tells U.S. News via email.
Ask any worker about office bathroom etiquette, and you’ll hear dozens of horror stories, complaints and secret bowel-relieving strategies. There’s something about the intersection of the professional and the private that gets people worked up. Says Coolidge: “Yes, I work in PR — but also have extremely strong feelings about bathroom etiquette.”
So, are your co-workers secretly horrified by your behavior in the bathroom? Here’s what to know about doing your business at your place of business.
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Leave your phone. “One of the things that comes across as unseemly is when you take your phone to the restroom,” says Diane Gottsman, national etiquette expert and owner of The Protocol School of Texas. Making business calls on the toilet isn’t just awkward, it could out you as unprofessional when someone (maybe Coolidge) deliberately triple-flushes the toilet during your call.
Playing games on your phone is also awkward, says Russ LaBarca, an engineer in Pennsylvania. He recalls once walking into the bathroom after the automatic lights timed out and noticing, in the split second before the lights came back on, a suspicious cell phone-esque glow emanating from a stall. “I got in and out as quickly as I could,” he says in an email. “At least I gave him a reset on the light timer in case he wasn’t quite done with those Angry Birds.”
No handshakes. A wet, clammy handshake is unpleasant, even in the best scenarios. It’s even worse when the participant has to question whether it’s water — or something else — glistening on their partner’s palm. When it comes to greeting a co-worker, client or your boss in the bathroom, keep your hands to yourself. A friendly hello will suffice, Gottsman says.
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Wash your hands, you slob. Scrubbing your hands after using the restroom is an effective way to avoid passing germs. Yet a 2013 study in the Journal of Environmental Health found that 10 percent of the bathroom-goers didn’t visit the sink.
Gross? Absolutely. But skipping this important step of bathroom hygiene can also stain — pun intended — your professional reputation. Your co-workers might wonder if that sloppiness infiltrates your work, Gottsman says. “If they forego that one detail, which is a courtesy, you have to wonder what else they let fly,” she says. And you don’t want to be known as That-Guy-Who-Doesn’t-Wash-His-Hands — or something worse — around the office.
Keep chatter to a minimum. Mike Cisneros, an office worker, recalls walking into the bathroom to hear someone cry out “Oh, yeah” from one of the stalls. “My goal then became: Finish as fast as possible and get out before I would have to make eye contact with this monster, which I was able to do,” says Cisneros, who dubs the whole awkward situation “The Incident.”
The same goes for business talk. “Leave the business out of the bathroom,” says Michael Sykes, president of the International Center for Bathroom Etiquette, which is a side project (he’s a full-time scientist). He says that managers and bosses tend to be the worst offenders. “You’re in an awkward position. You don’t want to tell them to shut up and leave you alone,” he says.
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Don’t play the waiting game. There’s a moment in a Saturday Night Live sketch where Kate McKinnon, waiting patiently in a bathroom stall, finally loses it with a co-worker. “Excuse me, I can’t poop while you’re in here, and I know you’re just doing your hair, so I’m going to need you to get the f–k out,” she shouts.
We all know this game, waiting in awkward silence until your bathroom neighbor leaves, so you can do your business in peace. If someone’s obviously counting the seconds until you’re gone, take pity. “It’s not the time to put on makeup or brush your hair,” says Jill Jacinto, millennial career expert at WORKS, a career consultancy catering to young professional women based in New York.
Find a secret bathroom. Everyone poops, and you won’t lose your job or get a demotion for having an upset stomach one day. The No. 1 tip about going No. 2 is to be courteous to others sharing the facility, but if you’re especially bathroom-shy, try finding a less-trafficked facility. Some workers venture to other floors to scout out lower volume restrooms. Others find hotels or nearby stores. Some prefer the anonymous crowd at their local coffee shop to seeing their co-workers at the urinal.
Sykes gets it. “I’m kind of the same way,” he says. “I definitely prefer to find a quiet bathroom. It’s nice to have a little peace and quiet.”
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How to Poop at Work: Tips for Acing Workplace Bathroom Etiquette originally appeared on usnews.com
