Enough to give you the shits

You wouldn't believe what's happening at my office. Or maybe you might. I don't know how typical this sort of thing is. I'll keep my account neutral as possible, just in case some sort of magical filter picks up the fact I have a blog (which I don't update from the office, of course), but I'd like to start by saying I'm fucking shocked.

The European branch of my company used to operate out of the entire floor of a prestigious high-rise address in this city - classy yet silly, since there are so few of us working there. The cubicles were punctuated by long empty stretches that were occasionally pressed into use for some sort of ball game, interpretive dance, or emotional scene, and since my department is on a flexible schedual we could go for months - really, months - without seeing some of our co-workers. Very sensibly, a couple of months ago the Powers That Be sublet half the floor to another company and lumped us all together on the other half; it still isn't crowded, by any sensible measure. But I remember the Powers That Be worrying that there could be some sort of mounting personality conflict dynamic that would be unleashed by crowding us all together. And I remember scoffing at the idea. Ha-ha, I said, we're all grownups and it's not like we'll be crowded anyways. Right?

Wrong. Or rather, I don't know how the men are doing but the women are in a state of crisis over the bathrooms. It started with a calm, objective email from the Powers That Be about how now that we had reached something like normal office density we would have to be a little more careful not to let our food start to rot in the single communal kitchen, or to crowd co-workers out of the sink by leaving all our dirty dishes there instead of in the dishwasher, and not to filthify the bathrooms too much . . . you know, standard office stuff.

This was followed by a flurry of emails from the women about the bathrooms; about how people should change the roll when they finish it instead of leaving the sad little cardboard tube on the holder, about how it was gross to leave replacement rolls sitting on the bathroom floor, about how it wasn't rocket science to refill the paper towel dispenser, about how we should turn the lights off as we left the john, about how we should make sure there was no one still in the john when we turned the lights off as we left the john, about how we should wipe out the sinks after use, and - most contentious of all - about how we should use the toilet brush to efface any traces of poo from the sides of the bowl if we took a remarkable shit.

Now, I'm of the opinion that once people reach our age - youngest 23, oldest at some point in her 60s - their bathroom behaviour is pretty much defined. Sure, you can encourage people to be more thoughtful about sharing a communal space, and sure, they're kind of rotten or bitchy if they don't make an effort in that regard once it's brought to their attention that their behaviour is grossing people out, but if they're not going to make the effort they're not going to make the effort, and what are you going to do, fight against their entire scatological selves and pursue the issue?

Yes.

Despite the flurry of emails (which were phrased with varying degrees of formality, shall we say) empty rolls were left to languish, the paper towel dispenser was dispensed with, replacement bog rolls continued to be stored on the floor next to the bog, and little poo tracks continued to show the progress of Turds Past down the side of the bowl. Cue a second flurry of emails, this time exclusive to female staff members (though I would love it if the situation was being caused by a wicked male co-worker trying to sow dissent in the ranks of Eve by slipping into our privy and fucking it up when all our backs were turned - but the men at our office are pretty well-bred, and I'd be surprised if any of them had such a scatological sense of naughtiness), and this time more exasperated in tone.

No change.

Cue a list of printed-out demands posted on the door of each cubicle of the ladies' privy, as well as on the mirror and over the paper towel dispenser, enumerating in point form the demands listed above. I'll admit at this point I was getting a little annoyed by the petty maternalism of it all, but whatever. People feel very strongly about how things should be in bathrooms so I didn't really care. Someone else, however, did, printing out a confusing, angry rejoinder about how such things are the cleaning man's job, and that if he didn't do it he should be sacked; the rejoinder was taped up above the list of demands.

Now a colleague, the colleague who I'm quite sure posted the list of demands but of course I didn't ask her because I just don't want to be talking about this, told me she'd taken them down because she felt like they were causing hostility, and another colleague who overheard this conversation joined in and said she was picking them out of the garbage and putting them back up directly, and then there was some general confusion about whether the first colleague had taken them all down herself or whether someone else had torn down at least one of them and crumpled it up in a fit of pique, and the upshot of it all is that now, in the interests of clearing out the cloud of general suspicion lingering over the gentler sex at the company, there's a sting operation in place at my office to work out who the Miss Messer is.

The thing is, everybody already has a pretty clear idea. There are two offenders whose historical behaviour has convinced all concerned that one is responsible for the poo track type offenses and the note about sacking the cleaner, and the other for all the bog roll offenses, but the sting operation is nonetheless in place because, I suppose, these two miscreants need to be confronted with the evidence of their malfeasance.

Fuck, do I ever wish I could telecommute.