Awkward Moments: The Restroom At Work

We have an unfortunate restroom situation at our new office. When I first moved in, we only had one functional restroom, which was located downstairs. It was a bit of a hike to get to the restroom, and you had to walk through a whole floor of people you didn't know. Aside from that, it wasn't really a big problem. It mostly meant I had to stop making a habit of waiting until the absolute last second when my bladder was at maximum capacity to take a bathroom break.

Shortly after we moved in, they installed a new set of restrooms on the second floor, where I am located. I was out of work at the time and didn't realize it was open and proceeded to use the old restroom downstairs for about 2 weeks before I was told the new one was open. Oops.

Unfortunately, with the new one open they shut down the old restrooms for a remodel, so we are currently having to deal with 1 stall and 2 urinals total for the entire building. Not an End of the World type of problem, but it has led to some awkward situations.

I wouldn't think designing a restroom would be all that complex. I mean, I have never done it (and I have drawn a surprising number of diagrams of what I thought was a better way to show my teammates) but I would expect people who do it for a living would be pretty savvy at it. This doesn't seem to be the case.
The design of the new men's restroom is horribly thought-out. A friend told me before I'd seen it that the door opened outward in such a way that people in the department across the hall could see inside to any guy who was using one of the urinals. I thought this had to be a joke. Turns out he was right.

During my first adventure to use a stall, I'm standing there, doing what you do at such a location, when the restroom door opens. As one naturally tends to do, I looked back to see who had entered the room (without making eye contact; it IS the men's room, after all). Having seen who was entering, I start to turn my head back around when my sight goes beyond this new person, out the still open door, across the hall... and my eyes lock with a very uncomfortable looking woman in the department across the way. I think I could see a little part of her die inside, even from that distance. Now I spent half my time trying to ninja my way around the office so I don't bump into this person.

The stall itself is another adventure. The inside of the stall is HUGE. The toilet is so far back from the door of the stall that you can't see if anyone is in there by looking at the floor to find feet. And the stall door closes on its own so there's never a time where you walk in, see it open, and know it's safe to enter. Now you either have to knock or bend over to look under the stall. Both obviously quite awkward. I've tried to figure out a good angle to use the mirror to see feet, but so far, when I've thought the coast was clear, it proved to be very unclear.

So it comes down to knocking, which isn't nearly as reliable as you'd expect. If I'm in a stall and there's a knock, I can't yell "OCCUPIED" - in a fake voice to disguise my identity - fast enough. Much to my surprise, not everyone is like that though. Twice in a row I had exhausted my other options to see if it was safe to open the door, and proceeded to knock. Loudly. No answer. I pull the handle, there is resistance and a very angry shout of "I'm IN HERE". Twice. By the same person. The first time was evidently not enough of a lesson.

In the old location the cleaning lady would come by and knock on the restroom entrance and yell "is anyone in here?" while knocking. It was really weird to yell out something to let her know someone was there, but it was even worse if one of the other stalls was being used. You didn't want to shout out and let the other person know who you are. So you'd wait it out and hope they answered. It was like a really strange game of chicken. In the end, you'd both wait too long and the cleaning lady would come in anyway and there would be three very embarrassed people instead of just one semi-embarrassed person.

I'm starting to think those people who refuse to use any public restroom are on to something.

Hot Yoga

I learned about Hot Yoga approximately 8 years ago from a show called "Dead Like Me". Due to that single episode which featured a class filled with trim, gorgeous women, I assumed for the longest time that 'hot' meant 'sexy' instead of temperature, so I avoided looking into trying a session, fearing I might be denied access and have my self-confidence shattered.

I overcame my fear after all these years and went to my first class today and I learned something very important. It's freakin' HOT in there. I should have known I'd be in trouble when I was at home getting ready to leave for class and I thought to myself, "it's sweltering in here" and it was only 68 degrees. Clearly I was going to do well in a 110 degree room while doing difficult yoga poses.

I told the friend that invited me that I might not be able to make it because I couldn't find any (clean) pants that I could do yoga in. She laughed and said, "oh no, you want to wear shorts". This troubled me because I find the idea of doing any sort of deep lunges as a shorts-wearing male to be risky business. Plus I recalled the last time I wore shorts to a class (a spin class), I nearly exposed myself. And I don't want to be like this guy.

 

I didn't have time to run to the store, so I had to make due with what I owned. 2 pair of shorts and 3 pair of boxers (that's right, no briefs and certainly no tighty-whiteys). I thought about doubling up on either underwear or shorts, but I figured it would kill my mobility, so I had to find some way to keep myself decent for the duration of the class. And let me tell you, I felt pretty weird sitting around testing to see if I could do a squat without my cash and prizes making an appearance. Not to mention that some of the phrases I googled to get advice on the 'situation' probably made me show up on some sort of national pervert list. In the end, I tried every possible combination of shorts and undies until I finally found a combination of slightly longer shorts with slightly tighter boxers that gave me the best chance of keeping myself covered.

Longer shorts. Tighter underwear. I had done all I could. The rest was in the hands of fate.

Naturally when I got into the studio, my friend had reserved us a spot in the very front by the mirrors. I was hesitant, needless to say. But I think I safely made it through class without showing off anything. I certainly was keeping an eagle eye on my shorts to make sure. I guess I could have asked my friend if she noticed anything, but I think that's probably a pretty awkward conversation to have. I'm going to assume the whole class managed to stay PG and make sure to buy some tighter shorts before I go back.

I doubt anyone paid me any mind, being so focused on their own workout, but if they did I'm sure they were wondering why the new guy in the front was staring at his own crotch in the mirror the whole time.

Buckley

I don't really post videos, but I had one that I felt needed to be shared with the world.

My dog Buckley is very well-behaved at home. He's mostly quiet, doesn't chew things, and was house-broken very quickly as a puppy and has an accident maybe 2 or 3 times a year, thankfully always on the hardwood in the same exact spot by the door. But when I visit my family, he acts like he has never had a day of training in his life

He's always been a little skittish and I believe that was because he was abused before I adopted him. I don't KNOW that he was, but it's just a guess from how he used to act as a pup. He's gotten braver over the years but he's still pretty timid at times, especially around guys that aren't me.

My mother has three little dogs; a 16 year old 2 lbs chihuahua, and two dachshund. And they also scare him, though you'd never really know it by watching him. He just acts like they aren't there. But sometimes their barking makes him nervous enough to cause him to tinkle (I have 5 nieces and a dog, so yes, I say things like "tinkle" and "potty") JUST a little on the carpet. My mother is not a fan of this. So she forces my poor dog to wear a diaper. I especially like when she puts on the tiger-striped one that makes him look like David Hasselhoff.

This is a video of what he does literally ALL day when he has a diaper on:

The weird thing is he does this dance even without the diaper, but only when I'm sitting down. He'll back up between my legs and then start doing the weird dance, bouncing the back half of his body between both of my legs like he's in a pinball machine. He's strange.