Why do we need to be told how to behave in the loo?

Dear Aunty B,

I visit many businesses in my line of work and on the occasion I need to use their toilets (the women’s’ toilets) I am constantly bemused at the range of instructions on the back of the toilet doors instructing, demanding or pleading with people how to use the toilets properly and how to keep the toilet facilities clean.

In almost every toilet I have been in there are these messages ranging from poetry to fascist demands. Besides these messages giving me hints about their culture I am amazed that we even need these signs at all. What is wrong with people if they cannot keep the toilet clean and need to be reminded of how to use a toilet? I can understand helping small children come to grips with toilet etiquette, but grown adults? I recommend we insert a ‘maturity clause’ here now please. Does this happen in the men’s as well?

Your thoughts Aunty B would be most helpful.

Bemused,
Melbourne

Dear Bemused,

Well, you obviously don’t have a lot to think about. You see, when I go to the bathroom it is usually to sit in a slump on the toilet and think of my monthly management reports. How the hell am I going to make it look good this month? Why the hell can’t the team sell more? Why is it taking that staff member so long to finish that flipping project?

By the time I have dried my hands I have usually decided on a course of action: to move that iffy expense to the next month, yell at my ad team and finish the flipping project myself.

In fact the only notices in toilets I have ever read are those racy ones at the airport that bang on about unsafe sex and drugs, which always make me feel like a bore who lives under a rock.

And that is the point. These toilet etiquette notices are not aimed at us. They are aimed at those children parading as adults – better known as Gen Ys – who enter the workforce unable to change a toilet roll and are too distracted by SMSing to aim straight.

But from little things, big things come. You are outraged and so must act. Go home and take your frustration out on your children. Show them how to aim straight, flush properly, not leave bits of paper on the floor and wipe the bench down after they spray water everywhere.

As for what happens in the men’s, I am not venturing in to find out. Anyone?

Good luck!
Your Aunty B

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