my coworker keeps whispering sexually explicit things in the office bathroom

by Alison Green on September 28, 2021

A reader writes:

This happened to me a couple years ago now, but I still occasionally think back on it (and cringe) and still don’t really know what I should have done! I know I didn’t handle it well, or really at all, when it happened.

This was my first real job after college and the entire organization was so dysfunctional that I could write several different letters about it, but this particular scenario still haunts me. My office building was shared by many different departments and was half empty when I started until several other departments were moved in permanently due to renovations on their building.

We only had one bathroom with three stalls for the women in the office, but there was also another bathroom out in the machine shop area that we were allowed to use. No one I knew from the office used it very frequently as people were often using forklifts or moving heavy machinery around in the walkway.

After the new departments moved in, I noticed one woman going to the bathroom consistently around 1 to 2 pm and staying in there for almost two hours in the accessible stall. I only noticed because when she was in there, there was constant whispering coming from that stall and the whispering was of a clearly sexual nature. I couldn’t make out everything she said and I certainly didn’t try, but it sounded like someone narrating sexual acts they wanted done to them. It made going to the bathroom extremely uncomfortable.

I immediately went to our HR person after encountering this a couple of times and getting over the shock of “am I really hearing sexual whispers in the office bathroom?” and she seemed extremely taken aback and horrified. She also seemed to immediately have an idea of who it was. She said she was going to speak to her manager about what to do, and I felt confident that this wouldn’t go on forever.

After several more weeks of this, I followed up with her and her demeanor was much more reserved, with a lot of what seemed like canned HR speak. She said that her manager, fairly high up in HR, was aware of previous allegations against the woman but there was nothing they could do and that was the final word. We could either use the shop bathroom or walk down the street to Burger King if we were that uncomfortable.

I was already looking for a new job due to other issues and decided to just drop it and avoid using the bathroom around that time. To this day I still get really jumpy any time someone whispers in a public bathroom! What should I have done?

Whaaa…?

My guess — and this is pure speculation — is that your company for some reason believed that if they acted against the whisperer, they could have been exposing themselves to a lawsuit. Maybe she had a mental illness and they felt they had to accommodate her this way. (They almost certainly didn’t — no disability accommodation would require sexualizing your workplace for other people — but even HR people regularly misunderstand the law and hesitate to act when they should.) Or maybe she had some other possible legal claim against the company and so they were tiptoeing around her (also not a good decision).

Or who knows, maybe she was just having phone sex in your bathroom stalls and they didn’t want to deal with it. Maybe she was higher up than they were comfortable taking on, or protected by someone higher up. Maybe the HR manager who said there was nothing they could do was incompetent. Or maybe she had tried to handle it before and been shut down by someone above her. It’s hard to imagine a competent HR person not pushing back on that hard — it is not okay to subject people to sexually explicit conversations in the bathroom! — but who knows.

As for what you could have done, one option was to push back with HR. As in, “I’m not comfortable having to listen to sexually explicit conversation in the bathroom and I believe it’s creating a hostile workplace that’s putting us in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. I’m formally requesting that it stop.” For protection against retaliation (which is illegal but happens), you could enlist other coworkers in making that complaint with you.

You also could have tried telling the whisperer to cut it out. As in, when you heard it happening, “Hello — I’m in here. I don’t want to hear this!” Or, “Could you take that somewhere private, please?”

But it’s understandable that you didn’t do those things! This was an incredibly bizarre (and gross) situation and you’re not obligated to try to fix it on your own when your company wouldn’t act. There’s no shame in having decided to just avoid the bathroom when it was happening. Your company was the party that was obligated to take action, and it’s bizarre that they didn’t.

You may also like:
{ 324 comments }

{ 324 comments… read them below }

          1. Rage*

            Yeah a coworker of mine made a comment today along the lines of “I mean, what else could happen?”

            I am now braced for the worst.

            1. RJ*

              That sentence is usually the harbinger of future weirdness to come. This is going to be an interesting, that’s for sure.

    4. laowai_gaijin*

      Alison takes a week off and this happens. Makes me really glad I don’t work any of these places.

      1. feath*

        Maybe she saved up the best of what she’s gotten to have a totally bombastic week back after the break :D

      1. Xena*

        I dunno, the vacation archive ones were pretty wild. Or maybe there’s just been so much crazy that it’s all run together in my head.

    3. WellRed*

      That’s where my mind went! What crappy company though. The minute I’m told to walk down the street to Burger King is when I (in my fantasy) start calling out the coworker. “Eww! What are you doing?”

    4. Former PSO*

      Doubtful she was a pro PSO, usually companies require you to take calls on a landline and not a cell phone.

      My guess is that she was reading erotica to herself. Gotta get through the day somehow.

        2. lilsheba*

          That’s what I was thinking, in the old days yeah they required a separate land line but can they really do that now?

      2. MusicWithRocksIn*

        My question is just… didn’t anyone notice she was gone for two hours? If you are uncomfortable calling her out on the whispering, then call her out on disappearing in the middle of a workday. That is a big chunk of time to not be working.

        1. Elenna*

          It sounds like OP didn’t know who the woman was, anyways, since she was always in a bathroom stall.
          We can certainly speculate (albeit with no actual evidence) about why the whisperer’s manager didn’t do anything, though. Could be related to why the HR person suddenly decided not to do anything. Or the whisperer’s manager could just be a bad manager.

    5. Former Phone Girl*

      Having been a phone sex operator, yup. She could just have been taking calls for those 2 hours – at the company I worked for, the intake operators screened callers against our ‘no call’ list, collected and pre-approved a credit card, collected any special requests (fantasies, particular operators, etc) and then assigned the call to the operator who would then call the customer back.

          1. Not So NewReader*

            But if you can’t hear “Talk Dirty To Me” because of all the flushing then it becomes neither blech nor kink because it’s now inaudible.

            My dream would be to get people to go use the bathroom for the whole time she’s in there. Everyone take a turn and be sure to run the sink water for an extra moment too.

        1. Former Phone Girl*

          The customer would call in and speak to an intake operator. They would run the credit card provided and pre-authorize a set amount (I think it was $20; we charged $2/minute with a five minute minimum). The operators kept track of who was on calls and would periodically re-authorize the card as needed. If the card declined, they would come to where we were and tell us to cut it off. (It was an unusual setup, I think; it was a small company owned by a couple and we worked out of a house that they owned. There were five bedrooms where we would go to make calls, while the intake operators were set up in the dining room).

          My longest call went for 2-3 hours and involved no erotic material at all. The caller had just broken up with his wife (like, that night) and just wanted to talk. We maxed out 3 credit cards. I kept telling him to get off the phone and call a therapist; he could get actual professional help for less than what he was paying us, but he just wanted to chat randomly with a stranger.

    6. Rachel in NYC*

      That was my thought…

      …and that the best solution would be a small handheld radio that you brought to the bathroom and just nonchalantly turned on loudly to some radio station. (If I didn’t think it was equally not work appropriate, I would go for Christian Rock Radio…or better yet find a station that plays religious sermons or something- and if the person says something to you or HR- you just look very serious and say oh, you just wanted someplace private so you could listen to your favorite )

          1. Carol the happy elf.*

            I want to be you when I grow up! That is BRILLIANT!
            This post could also be about “I think my coworker is working another job while on shift….”

        2. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

          Surely there are podcasts with fire-and-brimstone preachers expressing their opinions on fornication. Cue up a playlist, get a small bluetooth speaker with good volume, and you are set. Or at least can’t hear any whispers.

      2. Insert Clever Name Here*

        I definitely did think that would be a great time to start belting “knock three times on the ceiling if you want me” while going to the bathroom, but I doubt I would actually have the nerves to do that if I actually found myself in that situation!

      3. Mongrel*

        I think the problem with the “Turnabout is fair play” answer, while viscerally satisfying, is that the sex whisperer has already been shown to be immune from repercussions while LW isn’t.

    9. Becca Rosselin-Metadi*

      And the regular customer was someone high up in the company, which is why she was protected.

      3. Margaret Maier*

        I was thinking that she was related to someone high up in the company and that’s why HR can’t do a thing. Who’s going to fire the boss’s daughter….

    11. Bowserkitty*

      I’m masked up at work but no mask (aside from maybe Darth Vader’s) could have hidden my guttural snort at the thought of this…

    12. Betsy*

      …who was in management? Thus the total lack of HR’s ability to take it on? Like a really bad Penthouse Forum story!

    13. Edwina*

      That’s exactly what I thought. Making a little money with a side hustle, but geez, why not go out to her car?

    15. nonegiven*

      I was thinking she was having phone sex with someone high up in the company and that’s why she hasn’t been let go.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      I almost put that theory in the post! Maybe HR checked into it, realized she’s having phone sex with the CEO, and backed way off. But then why the bathroom stall? Why not go right to his office? Maybe for the titillation factor. I can keep spinning this yarn.

      1. HigherEdAdminista*

        That was my guess! Some people enjoy the thrill of doing something they shouldn’t be doing, so it might have been part of the game. Not to mention she would never been seen in that person’s office then, so there wouldn’t be gossip about them disappearing together daily.

        This is the kind of thing where you wish you knew the why, but only in rare instances are you going to find out!

      2. Old Admin*

        I’m… horrified. And I like the way you think, at the same time.
        Keep on spinning, this may become a Stephen King story!

      3. Olivia Mansfield*

        Ha! That’s what I was thinking — she was a phone sex worker, and they were going to put a stop to it in the work bathroom, but then they found out that her client was the upper HR dude or the CEO or somesuch.

      6. Database Developer Dude*

        Because if she went right to his office, it would no longer be ‘phone’ sex. Might also be found out.

      8. OP*

        Thanks for publishing and answering my question, Alison! I really appreciate it.

        Our CEO did work two states away so it’s certainly and unfortunately a possibility.

    3. Sharpieees*

      That would explain why HR backed off so decisively and hostilely. I’m flabbergasted that any employer, apart from an outdoor work crew, would tell an employee to leave work and go use a fast food bathroom. Thats turning a five minute bathroom break into a half an hour trek. If you use it twice a day that’s an hour of lost productivity per employee every single day. Craaaazy.

      1. Presea*

        And a fair few people would lose a lot more than that. I’ve had medical stuff in the past that’s made me have to go multiple times an hour. At that point I wouldn’t be able to work at the office!

      3. Jackalope*

        Plus… How does Burger King feel about this? It’s one thing to have employees coming to use their bathroom every now and then; it’s another to have a stream of them for two hours every day.

        1. Elliott*

          That’s what I was thinking! That’s another letter in itself–“Employees from another business are using the bathroom at my work because theirs is occupied by someone having phone sex.”

    4. Elenna*

      Honestly I was thinking the same thing :D Completely unfounded speculation, but then there isn’t really any response to this that isn’t either “WTF” or unfounded speculation.

  4. Crivens!*

    I also wondered based on HR’s reaction if there was some kind of anxiety about ADA, but that would be completely misunderstanding reasonable accommodations. There is no situation in which whisperer’s behavior should be accepted in the workplace, no matter what their issues.

    1. Jean*

      Yeah, this would only be an ADA issue in Clown World. No judge would consider allowing this behavior to be a “reasonable accommodation.”

        1. Anon for this topic*

          I research the far-right, and this is correct! (though I’d describe it as a subculture and set of memes within the far-right more than a dog whistle) But also…I’m really impressed that someone who wasn’t me, in the commentariat, knew this. I didn’t think that one was widely known by laypeople! It’s kind of nice to see someone being aware of something like that when I wasn’t expecting it.

          1. NoviceManagerGuy*

            If none of us know what the heck it means, is it really a meaningful alt-right dogwhistle? I mean, I think such people would be run out of here fairly quickly.

            1. Andie Begins*

              Well, if you aren’t alt-right and you don’t study their communications, you wouldn’t understand it to be meaningful. That’s the point of a dogwhistle – only dogs can hear it. A figurative dogwhistle only attracts select attention, with plausible deniability of the actions because not everyone is going to hear it.

            2. JB*

              The point of a dogwhistle is that only people ‘in the know’ understand it. That’s why it’s called a dogwhistle – like whistles that are used for training dogs because they’re outside of human hearing, but within dog hearing.

              1. OOW*

                Note that the globe by itself is not alt right at all. The globe by itself means “I consider myself a globalist”, which translates to “I’m a Democrat or liberal but absolutely not a socialist – I like Clinton, Biden, and Merkel”.

          2. Anon for this topic*

            Not that I’ve ever seen. It’s a particular absurdist far-right subculture signaling to each other. (HUGE content note for quotes and screenshots that feature antisemitic/racist/nazi imagery) This, by a journalist who’s well-known on the covering-the-far-right beat, is a pretty good primer, from about two and a half years ago, not long after it really started to get going as a phenomenon.

      2. Storie*

        This almost, almost makes me miss the inevitable weirdness factor of office life. Working from home just doesn’t present the same embarrassment of riches in this category!

    2. JSPA*

      Some people with tourette syndrome can channel tics and utterances into isolated sessions, thus damping down the effect through the rest of the day. This does not seem specifically Tourette-like, but that could, I suppose, be something they’re choosing to accommodate (though you’d think that an actual PRIVATE room would be the right goal!)

      1. just some office person*

        Yeah, I had a co-worker who I think was doing exactly that in the work bathrooms – talking in a “gotta make these sounds” kind of way. Nothing sexual or sweary, but a bit disconcerting until I realised it was probably something like Tourette’s.

        I didn’t feel it was my place to ask him about it, but I guess it worked for him, since I never heard those outbursts anywhere else.

    3. Beautiful, talented, brilliant, powerful musk-ox*

      All I can think of is the episode of Better Off Ted where the company defines sexual harassment as “a disease” to protect certain employees from legal issues. And if you ever find yourself on the side of the company in Better Off Ted, you should probably take this week off to do some self reflecting.

  5. Mental Lentil*

    Oh, I would definitely have gone down to the Burger King to use the bathroom. I could have gotten some onion rings to eat on the walk back.

    5. Elenna*

      IDK, I had Burger King onion rings a few weeks ago and I was underwhelmed, thought they were kinda bland. It’s probably location-dependent – I had them at a highway rest stop in Canada.

      2. RB Purchase*

        BK is pretty franchise dependent unfortunately (at least in the US; can’t vouch for Canadian King at all!)

      3. Kathlynn (Canada)*

        Canadian. We had some recently and liked them. Anything deep-fried is very location dependant. (honestly anything cooked too). For example I won’t buy food from the last place I worked at due to knowing that the machines aren’t washed properly and nightshift when I worked there didn’t follow food safe guidelines. (I tried to bring it up. Nothing changed).
        And there’s only 2 McDonalds I’ll get breakfast from otherwise the hashbrowns are gross and breakfast muffins stale/over toasted.

  6. Anonariffic*

    Go into another stall and then start talking to her very loudly when you hear the whispering: “SORRY, WHAT DID YOU SAY? ARE YOU OUT OF TOILET PAPER? I CAN GET YOU SOME TOILET PAPER, GIVE ME A SECOND AND I’LL PASS IT UNDER THE STALL DOOR. OR DID YOU NEED A TAMPON? I DIDN’T QUITE CATCH WHAT YOU SAID!”

    1. Littorally*

      Bodily noises app on your phone. And possibly a fart spray from a joke shop or something. Desexualizes an atmosphere right quick!

      1. Former Young Lady*

        Unless that’s what she and her callers are into. “Thank you for calling 1-900-HOT-TOOT…”

        1. Free Meerkats*

          When I was doing field work, I regularly stopped at a particular park for lunch. After a while I noticed that a certain car would pull in and the woman in it would go into the accessible portapotty. A few minutes later, another car would park and the guy in it would look around to see if anyone was watching, then knock and go into the same portapotty. After a while one would come out and drive away, followed by the other in a few minutes.

          People are into whatever they are into.

      2. James*

        There was a guy in our office that set off the fire alarm using air freshener after…well, let’s just say the food truck didn’t agree with him. You can always claim it was an accident.

    2. MissBaudelaire*

      I was about to say, I would do this.

      “WHAT’S THAT? ARE YOU OKAY? DO YOU NEED SOME HELP? LET ME GO AND GET SOMEONE TO HELP YOU.”

      Also just start kicking on the stall walls when she does her whispering naughty things. I don’t care if she is phone sexing someone (which is what I suspect) but learn to sext, at least.

      1. Worldwalker*

        You could have recordings of all sorts of crazy stuff on your phone, and turn it way up. She’s looking for two hours of quiet and privacy … awww….

        How about a baseball game? Hot dawgs! Get ya hot dawgs! A busy subway station? A noisy playground? A pond full of frogs? I have a sound app on my phone — myNoise — that has all sorts of options. In fact, it has the *perfect* one: Calm Office, but you can adjust the sliders so it’s not nearly so calm. Save a preset for that with “chatty colleagues” turned all the way up.

        I’m feeling evil today.

        1. ThatLibTech*

          I would absolutely not have been above scheduling one of my 15’s to sit in the bathroom listening to unmuted tiktoks the entire time in this same 2 hour block.

    3. pope suburban*

      God, yes. When someone like this has already made it awkward, just lean into it and be awkward back. Which is of course not going to be palatable or feasible for everyone, I know this, but which I’m kind of inclined toward myself. What is that person going to do, complain to the boss that I rudely interrupted their scheduled afternoon phone delight with my questions? Sure, they may well, but that’s probably not going to shake out the way they hoped, so I’d feel pretty safe in this course of action.

    1. Clorinda*

      There’s no update, I would bet.
      Now that I am old and thick-skinned, I would completely ask out loud if she needed help, offer to pass TP, etc; but when I was young, I would have done exactly what OP did, which is wonder fiercely but never interact.

  8. animaniactoo*

    I have 5 bucks on She was having Phone Sex or ACTUAL sex with someone way high up in this company in that bathroom.

    Or helping people get their Duck Club points in on the regular.

    Or putting in some time for her 2nd job narrating Literotica.

    I have more theories, but those are my top picks.

    1. anonymous73*

      My first thought was phone sex operator with a regular. I would think that it would have been obvious if someone else was in there with her, but maybe they were the strong silent type?

    2. Elenna*

      Yeah, I really suspect someone higher-up in the company is involved somehow, because otherwise why wouldn’t they fire her? (Or, as Allison said, they could just be afraid of some sort of lawsuit… but that’s less fun to speculate about.)

      (More unfounded speculation: maybe she seduced the HR person and that’s why the HR person suddenly changed her mind about punishment!)

  9. Retro*

    There’s something particularly gross about occupying the accessible bathroom for two hours to have phone sex. Don’t occupy the only accessible stall for long periods of time unless there’s no other option!

    (And yes, I’m also looking at you, Cleaning Cart! You’ve got a home in the supply closet, leave the accessible bathroom for the folks who need to pee there!)

      1. Rose*

        Often it’s easier to hide your shoes in there because of how they’re set up. You’d have to be in the stall next door to see the shoes of the person in the accessible stall. I don’t feel awesome about it now but I used to take out accessible stall if I needed to poo at my first job. :-/

          1. Della*

            Probably out of fear of becoming known as ‘the office pooper’ as per Ask A Manager hall of fame.

            To clarify, there is nothing wrong with pooping in the office toilet. That is obviously literally what they are for and no one should feel ashamed of their bodily functions. But, there’s a whole history of shame directed at women doing normal things with their bodies, so some women feel awkward about pooping in that context. This could especially be the case when you are younger.

          2. Canadian Valkyrie.*

            Because having to poop at work can feel embarrassing even though it’s just a bodily function. Hide the shoes and no one knows it’s you.

          3. Rose*

            I just want to poop anonymously. What if my boss comes in while I’m going? What if one of my direct reports does? It’s hair very awkward

        2. Lab Boss*

          That’s why you think like a pro and hide a second set of shoes at your desk, to be your unidentifiable poopin’ shoes.

    2. Retro*

      I once read a tantalizing piece of fanfiction that was a romance between John Watson’s cane and Mycroft Holmes’ umbrella and now I keep thinking about what kind of things the mop and the bucket are getting up to in there.

      Well, it’s a more heartwarming explanation for their presence than “We didn’t want to actually be accessible for disabled people, it’s just that the building inspector wouldn’t sign off on our plans unless the architectural plans looked accessible”.

        1. Retro*

          There’s an excellent piece on AO3 under the cane/umbrella tag that’s actually about Mycroft’s umbrella and Lestrade’s notebook that features language such as “The notebook was a rascal, it knew it perfectly, everyone had heard of its string of pens.”

          Don’t read it on a public toilet – you’re going to disturb people with your muted giggles.

      2. Becca Rosselin-Metadi*

        I may have read a piece about Mulder and Scully’s glasses. Okay, yes I did and it was fun.

    3. OhNo*

      Oh, lord, yes! Speaking as someone who needs the accessible bathroom, this would make me absolutely livid. It’s hard enough for disabled people to find a usable bathroom in the first place, we don’t need the extra wrench of trying to time our breaks around Jane’s Phone Sex Variety Hour.

      1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

        hear, hear! Of course, if I were working there I would be more likely to roll my wheelchair up to the door and bang on it. “Hey! Gotta go PEE up in here! Also, I think the word you’re looking for is ‘thrusting.'”

        1. TiffIf*

          Also, I think the word you’re looking for is ‘thrusting.’
          Now all I can think of is Julia Stiles’ character in 10 Things I hate About You suggesting wording to the guidance counselor (played by Alison Janney) for her erotica writing.

      2. tamarack and fireweed*

        True. OTOH it provides an extra pretext for getting her to stop. “BANG BANG BANG – Hey, lady, are you going to be using this stall for long? Someone is needing the accessible washroom. Sorry, are you saying something? I can’t quite make it out. Are you going to be finished?”

      3. Retro*

        Parttime wheelchair user here. I’m very familiar with this scenario: You have to pee… have finally tracked down the accessible bathroom… your bladder is somersaulting the yippee-ka-yay of ‘yes, yes, finally!’… you open the door… and there’s a cleaning cart in there.
        Now you have to go track down an employee and dignifiedly beg for them to remove the cleaning cart, before your bladder starts weeping from frustration.

        That’s assuming the accessible bathroom isn’t used as a supply closet to the extent that it’s also locked, in which case someone first has to track down a key.

      4. Lab Boss*

        You’re giving Jane too much credit with “Variety Hour.” Based on OP’s letter not a single plate was spun, not a single pie was thrown, not a single full-cast ensemble was performed.

  10. Jennifer*

    What is happening today? I can’t believe they actually suggested that you walk to Burger King to use the bathroom!!! That is nuts. I get the sense that this lady knew where the bodies were buried at this company and they were afraid to fire her for that reason. Either that or as someone else suggested she was having some kind of sexual relationship with someone higher up in the company. I mean the fact that she could take two-hour long breaks without anyone saying anything tells me something was up.

    There was some reason why she was untouchable and I think it’s one of those things you’ll likely never know, unless you happen to run into an old coworker from there one day that knows all the tea.

    1. RealPerson01*

      Yeah I think my response would have been loud enough for half of the office to hear

      “You want me to go to burger king to use the washroom so the mystery person can continue their sexual whispering in the accessible stall?”

    2. Not So NewReader*

      “Okay. I will be sure to let the manager at Burger King know to expect all of us at some point to be by for a visit and a toilet.”

      “Hi Manager! We are here to use your bathroom because someone is having phone sex in ours!”

      s/This shouldn’t be a problem./s

    3. Hannah Lee*

      I’m wondering, since it’s years later, if LW shouldn’t leave some sort of Glass Door review mentioning this situation. It’s genuine feedback about the work environment and how employees’ concerns are addressed … or not.

  11. ZSD*

    This is one of those times when I desperately wish the subject of the letter would write in to give us their point of view.

      1. OhNo*

        Not sure if I should hope that there is nobody in the whole world that actually does this, or that there is someone who does it so I can read that interview. I’m… conflicted.

      3. NerdyKris*

        I had a job where half the floor was sending dirty IMs to their significant others during calls. Myself included. It was pretty toxic.

          1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            Not gonna lie, I’d love to read the interview with a person who was doing on the job phone sex as their job.

      5. tamarack and fireweed*

        In this case, I wish the HR person would write in! I’d like to know what happened between the initial shock/horror and the later stonewalling.

      6. Professional Human*

        Not quite phone sex, but I did call a phone sex hotline at work accidently. Was calling to have some machinery repaired, put them on speaker so I could work while I went through the expected hold time (The other person in my office was used to this). I called them quite often so I knew the number by heart and didn’t pay close attention, so I was unaware one time when I fat fingered one of the numbers.

        I started typing away when I heard “Oh baby, I’m so glad you called because I’m so wet and ho..” I slammed the button to end call and looked over to my co-worker who was staring at me. After a few seconds I croaked “Well, they seemed to have spruced up their answering service”. He didn’t say a word and I was happy to pretend it didn’t happen, but I no longer put any calls on speaker.

    2. WellRed*

      Like what? “My job doesn’t pay very well so to make ends meet, stick it to the man and get my rocks off all at the same time, I do phone sex work on company time. Am I efficient or what?”

      2. Charlotte Lucas*

        I worked somewhere that probably would not address the sexualized whispering, but the would address the amount of time. You do that kind of thing on your 15-minute break or 35-minute lunch. Then back to work!

        And I say this knowing for a fact that HR there refused to do anything about someone doing nonsexual but equally disturbing searches on their work computer. But it was during their breaks! So it was OK! (And, yes, people complained.) This person went on to a brief criminal career.

    1. Catalin*

      10/10 would have ensured to take several HR people with me to the bathroom 10 minutes into the next day’s venereal visit.

    2. I Wrote This in the Bathroom*

      (yes, yes I know about the username)

      I am almost positive they cannot record anything in a bathroom. Source: my dad used to go to a gym, either the one at the community college that he attended in his 60s, or an YMCA gym, I can’t remember which one, and had his locker broken into and his wallet stolen from the locker. The gym management told him that their hands were tight and there was nothing they could do, as it was against the law to have cameras in a locker room (fair enough), so they had no way of knowing who’d done it.

      1. I Wrote This in the Bathroom*

        Their hands were tied*

        “their hands were tight” sounds like something OP’s coworker might whisper in the bathroom stall.

      2. Rose*

        But someone could go into the bathroom and hear them doing it for themselves. You don’t need recorded evidence to fire/reprimand someone.

  13. Jennifer*

    Plus who wants to have phone sex while toilets are flushing and there are other bathroom sounds going on in the background? Doesn’t sound very sexy to me.

    1. MissBaudelaire*

      Okay, okay, just spit balling here.

      But…

      Maybe she just wanted two hours of peace and quiet in the stalls, and realized if she kept up with the sex whispering, people who leave and she could have the toilet all to herself for extended periods of time. Could be to cover up drug use, could just be dicking around on her phone.

      1. Jennifer*

        Maybe she was reading and she’s one of those people that whispers along while they read. I know a few people like that. I’ve ducked out of the office a couple times to read because I just needed a break, but I went to my car.

        1. Jennifer*

          You mean lock the door so that no one could come in for the next two hours? I think they probably would have had to draw the line there.

  14. Jennifer*

    Oh! Maybe she is an author of erotic novels and was recording the audiobook. The acoustics were good in the bathroom and she just edited out the farts later.

    2. Lab Boss*

      Nah, you just work them in.

      *pooooooot* “Jebediah could hear the thunder of cannon in the distance but…” *fluuuushhhhhh* “as he lay in Susannah’s hungry arms by the side of the brook, the war seemed so far away”

  15. Up and Away*

    Does this make anyone else think of Blanca Flores in Orange is the New Black? She had a contraband cell phone hidden in the wall of one of the toilet stalls, and was having phone sex with her boyfriend on the outside. They all thought she was insane! Miss that show…

      1. Barbara Eyiuche*

        Maybe she was using the accessible stall because she is a cam girl and needed more space for the video recording of whatever acts she was performing.

  16. Selina Luna*

    Wait, HR’s response was to just deal with it? Man, start documenting from here on out. Start with documenting their statement that if you’re bothered in the closest restroom, go to a restroom further away or even off the premises!

  17. Essentially Cheesy*

    Allison, when you were on vacation and were posting older letters, I was very concerned you were running out of material before I realized you were on vacation. I am no longer worried about that and now wonder about the things you don’t post!

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      My inbox is so backlogged that I don’t think I will ever run out of material!

      Humans will always do weird things.

      But also, when I go on vacation, letters build up even more than usual, and then I always like to tackle the weirdest ones straight away when I’m back. So I think there might be a pattern of my first few days back from vacation always having particularly outrageous/weird letters.

      1. Former Hominid*

        You’re training us to enjoy your vacations because it means a week after filled with juicy pustules of purely entertaining weirdness.

        1. quill*

          After heated debate over letters from past years and posting THIS WAS BEFORE COVID at people who skim the letters.

  18. Rose*

    The truly practical solution here is bring in your phone and play very loud diarrhea noises every time you have to go. I’m sorry my genius was not available to you back the.

    In all seriousness this is totally insane and I’m happy you got out.

    1. Venus*

      I would have been tempted to go into the stall with a good book at 12:55 and then see how the other person copes with having their routine changed.

    2. Kathlynn (Canada)*

      You could also blast “shut up” by the black eyed peas. Especially if you have an edited version that just has the shut up lyrics.

            1. Solana*

              Or the Numa Numa dance.
              I used to work at a used bookstore that let us play the music (within certain guidelines). One year on Christmas Eve, I threw in a CD that was Christmas songs made by barnyard noises. It was on for maybe ten minutes before my friend comes charging up front and yells for me to shut it off. 0 : )

      2. Phoenix Wright*

        Funny that you mention this, because according to the Hitchhiker’s Guide, vogons have as much sex appeal as a road accident. Guess some people really have the weirdest tastes.

  20. Albeira Dawn*

    Alison you are throwing so much at us today and yet I know it is only a fraction of what is thrown at you on a daily basis

  21. Detective Amy Santiago*

    Okay, so… phone sex aside (and there’s a sentence I never thought I’d type)… this chick was spending TWO HOURS every day not working! How was that in and of itself not worth disciplinary measures???

    1. Jane*

      My thought exactly! How is the company okay with her spending two hours of every day not working, never mind the reason?

  22. irritable vowel*

    New indie track just dropped: “(Am I Really Hearing) Sexual Whispers in the Office Bathroom?”

    1. Former call centre worker*

      I mean, pretending that she was saying that stuff actually TO you would be one way to get HR to deal with it (you’d hope)

  24. Choggy*

    No one else at the organization noticed this but the OP? I think the bathroom, after lunch, would be pretty busy but instead there was someone in there “getting” busy! :)

    1. OhNo*

      The letter did say that there were other “allegations” mentioned, so I have to assume the LW wasn’t the only unfortunate person to overhear that. Unless this person was up to some other weird stuff too?

      That just makes the HR response even more ridiculous, though. How many people have to come in and say “someone is whispering sexual stuff in the bathroom for two hours a day” before they would be able to do something about it, I wonder?

    1. Olivia Mansfield*

      Right?! And basically HR told another employee: She’s going to be using that bathroom for two hours of sex noises every day, so during that time, you’ll need to use the bathroom down the street.

      1. Hannah Lee*

        I’m wondering if that’s even legal. Don’t fixed workplaces have to have bathroom facilities for employees?

  26. BootsAndADress*

    OH MY GOSH I MIGHT KNOW WHO THIS IS.
    Kind of. I mean, probably not. But I know someone who used to do this exact thing. She was the daughter of a celebrity and was college-age like me when we worked together briefly. Our job was customer-facing. She would sit under a merchandise table, sometimes put on headphones, and stare at pictures of celebrities she liked. She would tell the pictures what she wanted to do to them. And it would go on for hours if we let it. During her shift, and even spilling over after her shift. Customers would stare at her and ask us if she was okay.
    The reason I mention she was the daughter of a celebrity is that I always figured that was 1) why she was so out of touch with how to behave in public (I have so many other examples beyond the whispering) and 2) why she didn’t get reprimanded.

      1. BootsAndADress*

        @tangerineRose More examples of this person’s out-of-touchness? I was only a passenger in her car once, but here’s what happened that one time. It was at night and we were sort of “cruising the ave” if that’s what the young folks call it these days. You just drive in loops on a main boulevard in town, playing music and maybe stopping somewhere to flirt with other people doing the same thing. My Whispering Coworker was driving, and she wouldn’t turn her headlights on even though it was nighttime. She insisted that the ambient light of town was enough and that turning her headlights on would drain her car battery. Eventually, to turn around, she pulled into the exit ramp of a restaurant, and a policeman flashed his lights and came up behind her. He came up to the window and did the whole thing of asking us if we were drinking. He said Whispering Coworker could be fined however much money, $150 maybe, for going the wrong way into an exit. And Whispering Coworker said, “Oh… Okay,” opened her purse, and started counting money. The policeman had to stop her, and then he just let us go.
        Now that I’m telling it I think it’s crazy he didn’t care that she didn’t have her lights on.
        Another work-related thing is that she would ask people if they had breast implants. Not conspiratorially, or privately, just kind of flat-affect bored, like, “your total is $86.17… Did you get your boobs done?”

    3. The Smiling Pug*

      I’m with tangerineRose on this. I’m intrigued, but also slightly horrified at the same time.

    4. quill*

      And I thought my college problems of “Nobody wants to hear about your Batman Erotica featuring an OC that’s named after you at creative writing club, Janet” were embarassing.

      (No really, Janet. It’s sketchy enough that the main character is named Janet, but could you please stop describing how you and Christian Bale – I mean Batman – “Did it”?”

      2. The Smiling Pug*

        Yikes. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered this trope before in fanfiction…

        1. quill*

          Yeah but I vastly prefer it when I don’t have to watch the author eyebrow wiggle at me during writing group.

          “Hey Janet was there an actual writing question after all that? Because I cannot stress enough how unqualified we are to determine how realistic sex with a man dressed as a bat is.”

          1. The Smiling Pug*

            That’s true too. This is another reason that I tend to avoid author-insert works, fanfiction or not.

          2. Nobby Nobbs*

            My “never read porn by someone I know offline” rule has served me well since middle school. You’ve just reminded my why I’m never giving it up.

            1. quill*

              YUP. You try and start a writing discussion and then it’s like… look I’m all for you writing porn but maybe not in front of my attempts to patch a plothole?

        2. Starbuck*

          Obviously it’s no problem to be totally self-indulgent in fanfic, which is something people write for their own amusement, for free, and post and websites where it’s usually pretty thoroughly tagged.

          But bringing it in-person to a writers group where people haven’t opted-in for that kind of content is definitely not okay!

      1. BootsAndADress*

        @Elizabeth West I wonder about that, too. She has no social media presence that I know of, and supposedly doesn’t work. But hey, maybe she’s secretly Chuck Tingle, I don’t know.
        You know, when it comes to mental illness and money I often think of Jermaine Jackson and the 28 toilets in his house. He doesn’t like to use a toilet more than once, so he has 28 of them. I’m sure there are loads of people who are freaked out by toilets, but by necessity they can’t, pardon the term, “indulge” their discomfort to that degree. How does that impact overall flexibility & resilience? How does it impact baseline stress?

    6. I should really pick a name*

      Quick note: One of the commenting rules is: Don’t make comments like “I think I know what company you work for

      1. Mental Lentil*

        They did follow up with “Kind of. I mean, probably not. But I know someone who used to do this exact thing.”

        We’re fine here.

        1. Batgirl*

          I really think we are. It probably isn’t the same person, but no behavior is truly unique. It’s still pretty wild that there’s another random sex whisperer out there, and even more intriguing that it might have something to do with her sense of “real world” norms.

    7. hmmmmmmmmmmmm*

      This is…so much. Is it me or is it creepier that she herself was the daughter of a celebrity? She probably has *a lot* more access to celebrities than the average human being. I’m wondering if she’s ever met any of these people in person…and what she said then…

  27. KP*

    I feel like being in the bathroom for two hours at a time every day could be dealt with as its own issue! That does not seem reasonable in any way, irrespective of potential phone sex situations.

  28. Jean*

    Go out to your car, people. No one wants or needs to hear that except for whoever is on the other end of the phone.

  29. middlemgmt*

    if the whisperer didn’t cut it out immediately, I would start singing or talking directly to them or otherwise being extremely loud.

    1. SMH*

      We had an employee regularly sleeping in the bathroom and one coworker intentionally slammed the stall door to wake them up. Sleeping seems really mild now.

  31. CBB*

    Is it possible the coworker had a reason to make sounds that sounded sexual but were actually not?

    I had a coworker who (I gathered) experienced pain or difficulty when using the bathroom, and apparently needed to talk himself through the ordeal. It would have sounded suspicious if he’d been out-of-site in a stall rather than at a urinal.

    2. OP*

      At the time, I truly, truly wished this was the case (although obviously I’d never wish pain on someone) and was part of why I waited to say something until I was absolutely certain it was completely sexual in nature. I would hate to get someone in trouble for legitimate bathroom issues.

  32. The Smiling Pug*

    My face after reading this: o.o
    I’ve been in some bananacrackers workplaces, but I don’t think phone sex in the bathroom was going on. This takes the cake for WTFery.

    1. Hannah Lee*

      I found it troubling enough when a senior employee would go to the reception area, grab that day’s newspaper WSJ usually, and disappear into the front office 1 stall bathroom, for a while.
      Which was bad enough.

      But then he’d come out, go back to reception area and put the newspaper right back where he found it!
      (The receptionist would toss it soon after … and then go wash her hands because … ew!)

    2. Nodramalama*

      I mean it sounds like they were basically dirty talking, not making sex noises. I can’t imagine someone inadvertently whispering a sexual narrative.

  34. Phony Genius*

    The only valid excuse I can think of for HR is that somebody felt this could be seen as “spying” on somebody in the bathroom, and didn’t want to deal with that.

    1. The Smiling Pug*

      Either that, or this lady held some serious scandalous dirt on those higher-up in the company. Firing her would expose some of those details, I’m guessing.

  35. oh no*

    aam coming back from vacation like that gif of gpa simpson taking off his hat and immediately putting it back on

  36. Coast East*

    I have never seen a letter that just begged to become comment fanfic before. But this….? The theories are flowing. This is its own league of “what could this person (or persons) be thinking? Or Writing? Or narrarating? Or doing?”

    1. Xena*

      Someone on AO3 has written a Marvel fanfic based on the AAM “Worst Holiday Date of All Time” post. Unfortunately I don’t have the link on me–I think it was somewhere in mortification week? I can confirm it’s SFW and also hysterical.

  37. Cobol*

    From what I’ve heard from one Me
    Shock G, a Burger King bathroom is the exact wrong place to go if you don’t want to hear those kind of sounds.

    (I tried really hard not to make a Digital Underground reference. I really did.)

  38. WellRed*

    This reminds me: I’m still waiting on the update about the newly divorced coworker who was taking nude photos of herself in the office and posting them online.

  39. CW*

    Oh my yikes! I hope you got out of there. And the fact she spent two hours in the bathroom every day is not only creepy, it’s suspicious. Good grief.

  40. Not Dave*

    Another reason I am glad that my work has almost exclusively single-stall toilets. Just not a reason I actually wanted to consider.

    1. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

      and I am very glad to work from home where all the bathrooms belong to me and me alone. (Well, and the cats, but they do not whisper anything.)

        1. Seven hobbits are highly effective, people*

          My dog will do some loud, excited barking from right outside the door. He has correctly ascertained that I will use the bathroom right before taking him for a walk, and has decided that means every bathroom visit needs Excited Imminent Walkies Celebrations even though he has ample evidence to the contrary.

          At least it’s not sexy barking. As far as I know.

      3. Not Dave*

        My cats will just decide “hey, human isn’t busy I can get pets” and then jump on my lap while I’m using the facilities. Still better than the sexual whisperer.

  41. Sunrise Ruby*

    Work bathroom telephone sex operator (or whatever she was) was gross, but she’s still not as bad as Praying Sally.

    1. quill*

      They’re tied for amount of “how did this happen in the real world” but definitely not for harm caused.

  42. FD*

    This is a crazy story and I hope you know we all REALLY appreciate you sharing it.

    That said, however, it sounds like you’re also blaming yourself for not handling it better.

    You were in one of your first jobs and at a messed up organization, so you weren’t getting a chance to see healthy workplace behavior modeled. On top of that, you had an INSANE thing happen to you, so far out on the bell curve of ‘did that really happen’ that you couldn’t possibly have practiced what to do in advance.

    In addition, because you were new, you didn’t have that much clout that you could have used to push the issue. It’s easy for us to say you should have pushed it, but in all honesty, I don’t know if I would have done any better at that stage. I mean, at my first post-college job, I had a manager tell me that another manager hadn’t promoted me because I was a woman, and I never pushed that issue either. Sometimes, you aren’t in a position where you can risk your job to handle a situation the ‘right’ way.

    1. American Job Venter*

      This is an excellent comment. Many of us were too distracted by the Stall Whisperer to lay out this wise advice for the LW, but FD was not.

    3. CW*

      I was thinking the same thing. OP was a first job after college and didn’t get to see what a normal, healthy workplace was supposed to be like. It’s sad, since situations like these tend to warp people’s sense of what is normal vs. what is not. And this was not normal by any means.

    4. Not So NewReader*

      Yes to all this.
      And adding, we can’t help people/businesses that do not want to be helped and this is a variation on that rule.
      You went to proper channels and then nothing happened. This is not a failing on your part. It is however an epic failing on the company’s part.

      I think the reason you can’t shake it off is because there was so much wrong there and this story here is a great example of how toxic the place was. But there were many other things going awry. Back to not being able to help those who do not want help. The company was perfectly content to be a toxic mess. One person will not fix this because the first thing that has to happen is TPTB have to decide that something might be wrong. If that decision does not happen (which it didn’t in your post here) then that IS the answer. There isn’t anything further you can do.

  43. Flying Fish*

    “ She also seemed to immediately have an idea of who it was. ”

    I want to know why HR immediately had an idea of who it was. There’s an unturned stone there!!

    2. OP*

      This has intrigued me for years too!

      I didn’t include this to keep the letter concise, but I did confide in one coworker who I was friends with literally the day before I left the job. She worked in another building across the city so had never experienced the exact situation. Based on a brief description of the woman, my friend knew instantly who it was and told me she was widely disliked for numerous other (comparatively quite benign) behaviors and everyone steered clear of her as much as possible.

  44. Julia*

    My money’s on a compulsion/disorder. The word “whisper” makes me think she wasn’t talking on the phone; it’s actually pretty hard to whisper to someone on the phone and have them understand you. And it would explain the regularity of the incidents and the fact that they all occurred in the bathroom. It would also explain HR’s reaction, though of course they’re still wrong about the law. Plus it just makes sense to me on a personal level; I’ve sometimes felt compelled to say inappropriate stuff to myself out loud (not sexual, but still). I can imagine someone struggling with mental demons that make them say the very things they’d least want to be heard saying.

    1. Not So NewReader*

      Audio quality is so lousy on phones now anyway, at least around here. If someone whispers to me on the phone I probably will not even know they are talking, the connections are that poor.

    2. OP*

      I would tend to agree with you. You could certainly pick out what she was saying, but it was very whispery and breathy.

  45. WorkInProgress*

    OK I have to ask. It was the accessible stall, which is generally larger.
    Are we sure she was alone in there? And who might have been in there with her.

    1. James*

      Well….yeah. I mean, I can provide a bunch of lines of evidence from anthropology and paleontology that show that yeah, that’s the way a lot of humans are wired. This doesn’t even rank on the “Weird Bedroom Habits” meter for anyone who’s studied that stuff. I mean, just look at recent studies about human DNA, and how many other species we’ve mixed with.

      It’s also partially cultural, I’d imagine. Americans spend a huge amount of our lives at work. Where else are you going to find a partner when you’re spending 60 hours a week on the job? And when you’re working closely with someone, day in and day out, late nights, having dinner together because it’s too late to go home….Yeah, it happens. And then continues to happen.

      It’s one of the reasons I’m religious about wearing my wedding ring. My ring is a stainless steel Mobius strip (lots of symbolism there, for two nerds at least), and is a not-insignificant risk given the work I do–it’s harder than the stuff EMTs use to cut rings, so if my ring gets caught they’re cutting my finger off. But I consider that less significant than the risks of NOT wearing it. Seen a lot of marriages tanked because one spouse or the other forgot that they were supposed to be monogamous. I’ve nothing against open relationships–but if you agree to monogamy you’re supposed to stick with it.

      Please bear in mind, I’m not saying it’s GOOD to do this at work. I’m merely saying that given what we know of human nature and the workplace, it’s going to happen.

      1. banoffee pie*

        A wedding ring attracts a certain type of person. The type who wants a challenge. So you might not be as safe as you think ;) You’ve also scared me with that lovely thought about getting your ring caught in something, thanks for that lol. That’s why I don’t wear jewellery, I’m way too clumsy.

        1. allathian*

          Yeah, same here. I’ve gained weight in recent years and my wedding ring no longer fits me. I haven’t bothered to have it expanded, because when I got used to my married status, I stopped wearing it on a daily basis anyway, and just wore it when I went to professional conferences and the like. That said, I’m in a very female-dominated field, so even at those conferences, where women outnumber men by 20:1 at least, the risk of getting unwelcome attention from men is tiny to non-existent. So next year, when we’ll hopefully be able to have our conference in person again, I’m not wearing the ring.

          I’m actually quite happy to be almost 50 and obese. I’m invisible now and I haven’t been hit on for years. I can’t actually remember when it happened last, but sometime after I’d met my husband, certainly (early 30s).

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Hostile workplace includes behavior that’s based on your race, sex, religious, disability, or other protected characteristics, but it also includes being subjected to unwelcome sexual behavior. Having to listen to sexually explicit talk in order to use the bathroom and having HR tell you they won’t do anything about it would fall under that last one.

  49. Rufus Bumblesplat*

    The immature part of my brain would want to download sound clips and play fart noises at high volume in response. I’m sorry HR was so ineffectual and I’m glad you’re out of there.

  50. Can't unhear that*

    It would have been awesome if this was recorded and played at that year’s Christmas Party-anonymously of course. Totally HR approved and they can go to the Christmas Party down the street if it makes them uncomfortable.

  51. Cake or Death?*

    As someone who has no issues with confrontation, there’s no way I wouldn’t have just started banging my hands on the stall until she shut up or came out to see what’s going on, and just yelled over and over “I can hheeeeeaaarrrr yoooouuuuu, pervert!”
    The first time it happened, I would have watched that bathroom door like a hawk to see who came out. The second time, I would have recruited some witnesses and would’ve just stood in the bathroom loudly shaming them.

    2. Can't think of something clever.*

      Oh, I would have loved to watch this! I cannot imagine letting this go on without saying something or finding out who it was, the curiosity would be too much.

    3. Crabby Pants*

      This is my reaction as well. A bathroom built for more than one person is not a place for anyone’s personal/intimate/private ANYTHING except using the facilities.

      The first time, I’d be shocked into silence and leave immediately (and also likely curious to see who exited).
      The second time, I’d be hammering on the walls and shouting “ARE YOU OK? I’M CALLING 911 for you!” And then follow through — right then and there unless they stopped me. At that point, I’d address them directly to have the convo. that it is inappropriate to infringe on other’s rights to use the facilities for its intended purpose. And if it happened again, I’d just start screaming to drown out their sound/interrupt their call each and every time.

  52. OfficePro*

    Huh. Well I’m petty so after being told to buzz off by HR I’d just take my IBS-y stomach and have a seat in the stall next door. That’d kill the mood pretty quickly..

  53. MicroManagered*

    I worked with a woman who had something similar going on. She would have very intense angry conversations with herself in the bathroom and sometimes on a pay phone in the hall. (It was a job in a large call center in the late 90s so she was definitely not on a cell phone call. You could tell she was not talking to anyone one the pay phone because she would hang up one pay phone and immediately pick up another and continue. Really sad stuff in hindsight…)

    I reported it to HR because I got written up one day for being late because she was yelling to herself near the sink and I was in the stall, afraid to come out. Nothing came of it because she did her actual call center job just fine.

  54. Eve*

    I’m sorry, but I am going to call bull on this. The letter writer says that there is another bathroom for women that has three stalls. The other bathroom has only one stall. So you notice that this woman uses the one stall bathroom and you are watching and timing her just enough to know that she stays in there for 1-2 hours. You follow her into the restroom and you hang around, eavesdropping long enough to hear her whispering and you’re pretty sure that she’s talking about something of a sexual nature.

    If you need to use the restroom, why would you follow behind someone who is using the one stall bathroom, when you can just use the bathroom that has three stalls. If you heard someone talking why wouldn’t you just leave that particular bathroom. If it were me, I would have just said, “oops this one is occupied, I’ll just run over to the other restroom”. No reason to linger listening in on what someone is talking about.

    1. Keyboard Jockey*

      Where did it say the second bathroom only had one stall? It said she was using the accessible stall.

    2. OfficePro*

      You mis-read. The deviant co-worker is not using the one-stall (and presumably more private) bathroom to make these calls. That’s the whole issue. She is using the main bathroom that has multiple stalls, is occupying the accessible stall for long periods of time, and is conducting herself in a manner that isn’t appropriate for a workplace.

  55. Ray Gillette*

    If LW were writing about a present situation rather than reflecting on a past one, I’d recommend getting a Bluetooth speaker to pair to your phone and blast “Baby Shark” at full volume whenever you go to the bathroom. That’ll drown out any dirty talk.

  57. raida7*

    She was on the phone either to a significant other or she was moonlighting on a phone sex line, or she was talking to herself. The first is unacceptable, the second is unacceptable, and the third is unacceptable.

    I would have, after no action being taken, started singing along to music in the toilet. “Well it’s just so uncomfortable! I have to block out that completely unacceptable behaviour!

    I’d be drinking SO MUCH WATER from lunchtime just so I’d need to pee frequently.

  58. GreenDoor*

    Their solution was that you should walk down to the Burger King? They’d prefer that employees leave the worksite and go to a completely different business to use the toilet….than to just deal with the perv in Stall 4??

  60. Paul Pearson*

    I’m going to vote for phone sex in the bathroom stall, possibly with someone higher up in the company

  61. RebelwithMouseyHair*

    I’m really shocked at the suggestion that women go to Burger King to pee! OK there were other loos but if they added that suggestion it’s presumably because the other stalls weren’t enough. Is there not a requirement that the employer provide toilets?

  62. Jennifer Juniper*

    Never mind what the employee says in the bathroom.

    The fact that she’s tying up the accessible stall for hours at a time daily is a big problem. That could cause a medical issue for someone who needs that bathroom and can’t use it. This could even be a legal issue for the company.

Comments are closed.