Catering workers

[Brian]

When we were in our twenties and still living in the UK, my partner and I both at some point had stop-gap jobs working in busy catering establishments. I worked at a roadside fast-food restaurant which stretched me and my young colleagues to the limit sometimes, all of us charging around setting up tables, taking customers' orders, cooking their snacks and making their drinks, washing up, often with little opportunity to relieve ourselves. I have various memories of some of my male colleagues getting caught short and not being able to go for a pee because they were too busy.

But the most interesting experience was by my partner who worked at a similarly busy burger joint at a city centre train station. (He's not into male pee issues, but he knows that I am so he told me.)

Basically, and I know this is hard to believe but it is absolutely true, my partner's place of work had no toilet on site for the staff. To go for a pee there were two options. You could use the public station toilets a little way away - but then you first had to change out of your uniform (a red shirt, red linen trousers/slacks) and back into the civilian clothes in which you came to work because it was strictly forbidden to use the public toilets while in uniform, and then you had to change back again afterwards. Or you could go to a private toilet for railway staff in your uniform, but that was on a distant platform which took more than five minutes to reach and the same time to come back afterwards. So going to the toilet while on duty was a major operation, whichever option you chose, and the accepted practice was that the staff had to wait for their single half-hour break during their 8-hour shift and go then (just once). I guess that the management considered that its mostly young (early to mid twenties) staff should be able to last out with just one toilet visit per 8 hour shift.

The girls on duty quite often had to ask the supervisor for an extra break for necessary functions, and they were generally allowed if it was not too busy. The guys on the other hand tended to grit their teeth and hold on until their break time if they possibly could - partly because asking to be allowed to go to the toilet was a most un-macho thing to have to do, and partly because in those sexist days the supervisors were more likely to allow the girls to go than the guys, and being denied such a request was pretty humiliating.

Anyway my partner, who was himself a shift supervisor later on during his time there, recounted to me various instances of his young male colleagues having held on until they could not hold it any longer, then having to ask him to be relieved from their posts. Sometimes he could let them go, but sometimes he would have to say that they were too busy.

The most amazing incident which he told me about had actually occurred during the morning shift just before my partner started for his late shift. The unit manager's attention had been drawn to the laundry bag in which the staff who were finishing their shifts had to deposit the uniform which they had worn - uniforms were washed after each use and kept on the premises. On this occasion there was already a pair of red male uniform trousers which had been deposited in the bag despite the fact that the guys on duty had not yet finished. The manager fished this pair of red trousers out, observed that they were soaking wet over the crotch and streaked down the legs, held it up in front of the guys from the early shift and asked accusingly "Who did this?" No-one answered him. Clearly they all knew which unfortunate guy had had an accident while trying to hold on until his relief would take over so that he could go on his break, but no-one was going to tell him who it was.

[Lee]

Wow! What an amazing thing to have happened?

I wonder how he managed to wet himself so badly and yet presumably avoided a puddle or at least some wetness on the floor? Unless his colleagues dealt with that for him?

Also makes me wonder what he did with his pants/briefs? And other items would have been wet or damp too?

Great story.

[Brian]

Yes, I wish I knew more details, but that's all I know. I guess a puddle on the floor would have been mopped up, either by the poor bloke himself or by his sympathetic colleagues. (They were definitely sympathetic, at least after any initial hilarity following the mishap, because none of them told the manager who it was.) And that's a good point about his underpants. They would definitely have been wet, and I suppose he couldn't very well have put on a spare uniform over them without some sort of protection. Socks and shoes would have likely been a problem too.

[Fred]

The scenario is entirely plausible, as I have also seen food service kiosks that did not have their own toilet facilities. I also had a friend in a fast-food place who told me that they were forbidden to be outside the restaurant while wearing their uniform. Even nowadays, I'm sure there are managers who would be amenable to letting female workers leave to use the facilities but would discourage male workers from doing so. (As I would. )

As for the lad who had the accident, his underpants might have been thrown into the trash (which, presumably, would not be inspected). Or, perhaps, he wasn't wearing any to begin with.

[bodgyuk]

I thought half hour lunch breaks were only an antipodean thing, though I know many hospitals only allow nurses 20 minutes in the UK which I thought was a bad thing.

[Fred]

Regarding lunch breaks, until relatively recently in some places, teachers often had only 20 minutes of duty-free lunch. Then they wonder why teachers thought it necessary to unionize! There are other occupations which may theoretically comply with labor laws regarding breaks, but in practice it doesn't work that way. If the worker complains, he's likely to get a poor evaluation and find himself unemployed. Years ago, I had an office job, and on Fridays there was a big push to get everything completed by 5:00PM - which usually meant taking no breaks and eating at your desk while working. Work not completed had to be done on Saturday morning, and that overtime pay was taken directly from the funds for our Christmas bonuses. Missing our breaks on Fridays was considered "voluntary".

[zsrh2002]

Did you guys hear about the London Tube strike over toilet breaks? Apparently there have been many cases of supervisors standing outside the toilets with timers.

Heres a link:

http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/wes ... r-11893315

[Adrian6970]

Thanks for sharing that Brian. I'm glad the workers pulled rank and wouldn't let on who was responsible for the wet uniform!

[Fred]

I'm sure that for the staff in some restaurants that experience a three or four hour dinnertime rush, there is an incentive to avoid taking the time for using the toilet, or to be seen using the toilet when the only facilities are shared with the dining public.

[burstingguys]

Likewise @fred have also seen workers go on their break taken aback to discover a long line a patrons for the establishments toilets. Most have been calm (even after clearly making an urgent beeline for the facilities) but i've seen a few frantic studs who've clearly been moments away from having accidents.