Invasion of Privacy

In addition to your run-of-the-mill men's and women's bathrooms with stalls, we have a private bathroom in the office, where employees can go to poop, cry, take drugs or call potential employers on their cell phones. Me, I always check the private bathroom first before heading into the shared one, because I like my alone time.

When I moved into the new office last month, I was excited about three things; a more balanced guy-to-girl ratio, the private bathroom, and sharing an office with Miss Tanya again. We had a private bathroom in the old office, and I sat close enough to make it my default toilet but not close enough to smell what activities my co-workers engaged in while they were in there. In theory, this should have been a good thing. In practice, being the only girl in an office full of guys, and disgusting ones at that, made for pee on the seat, a general state of mess and boys trying to bang down the door every time I was in there, putting a serious cramp in my solitude. I also never discovered the perpetrator of the "if it's yellow, let it mellow" philosophy of bathroom visitation, but I'm pretty sure I hated him, provided he was not the super cute blond with the body piercings.

Anyway, the private bathroom in the new office has a feature the private bathroom in the old office did not have: a Vacant/Occupied sign on the outside, that is triggered by the deadbolt on the inside, airport-bathroom style. Which means no people attempting to barge in on you. Except that it doesn't. And it rattles me, because no one should be trying to barge in on me. It clearly says "Occupied" while I'm in there. In red capital letters. I work for a giant media company, where everyone can presumably read. I have never attempted to barge in on anyone -- I see OCCUPIED and keep on walking, either to the shared bathroom if my bathroom business is business that I care to share, or back to my desk so I can try again later.

Also, there is at least one girl who will wait outside of the private bathroom for whoever is in there to exit. And I don't know about you, but I know what most people are doing in said bathroom, and I'd like some air-out time before entering. What is wrong with people?