TIRED

Hold onto your hats folks. This is going to be long and ugly.

The Manager Who Must Be Obeyed is back from vacation and
company business and the long calm period of grace is over. And
something happened last night that I'm still fuming over.

We have restrooms at the store and I'm about the only male
employeewho bothers to check the guys room to clean up the
paper towels, tp, magazines and newspapers that the customers
leave lying all over the floor in there. (It seems the American people
can program their cell phones in a breeze, but deciphering how to
step on a pedal to open the trash can lid is beyond their ken.
Ironically (and you'll see why in a moment) I had just returned to
the salesfloor after making a bathroom call and cleanup when one
of the AMs, (we'll call this one X) told me that TMWMBO
wanted to see me in the office.

Right away, I knew this didn't bode well, most likely.

I entered the office and TMWMBO had an email on the computer
screen.It seems that a customer had complained about the state of the
restroom to the home office. Said complaint was from March 2_th.
TMWBO asked if I recalled an incident from gee..only a month ago.
Customer said that the faucet he tried to use didn't work and that an
employee "whose nametag said Bill" told him it didn't work. Also that
the restroom was littered with paper towels that I kicked into a pile
and then left.

Now, the faucets in the restrooms are motion detector or heat detector
activated. I'm not sure which. No one ever fully explained them to me, and
frankly, I'm a bookseller, not a plumber. However, the left hand faucet has
always been erratic and I've mentioned it many times over the oh..two
freaking years..to those in management. Customers tend to get angry standing
there with liquid soap on their hands and it's quicker just to tell them
(If I am there when this happens) to just use the right hand faucet instead.

As for the paper towels, if it was one particular day I can recall a few weeks
back, there were paper towels all over the place. I moved them all into the empty
corner of the guys room with my foot so that no one would trip or slip on them
before I could return from getting the broom and long handle dustpan. (We only
have one set for use between the two bathrooms because one of the two we had
was stolen. I cannot figure out how they could have been snuck out of the store
other than in the trash bags dumped by the contracted janitorial crew in the early
morning. No doubt they needed equipment for another job and took ours.)

Also, I won't pick up stuff in the restroom barehanded. Call me silly, but it's a
cleanliness thing.

So, I tell this to TMWMBO.

TMWMBO: "Did you tell the customer you were going to get a dustpan?"

ME:"No, he hadn't commented about the paper towels. I normally don't
discuss them with customers. I just go get the broom and dustpan and
sweep them up."
TMW etc.: "Did you report the faucet to a manager?"

ME: "I've told people several times.

TMW: "Who?"

ME: "I don't keep a log in my head of who I tell about these things. And this was
over a month ago."

TMW: "Then you didn't tell anyone. (flat statement, in effect calling me a liar.)

Aside here..Look at the conversation above. The reason I never give her a
name is because then those people will be exposed to this, and then angry
with me for putting them into this position. For the record, it was another
manager, who we will call Y.

TMW: "Are you sure the faucet doesn't work?"

ME: "Yes"

TMWMBO: "Let's go look at it."

And so, dear reader, we walked to the guy's room and after checking to make
sure it was empty, I showed TMW that when I waved my hand under the
faucet, nothing came out.

Since I am obviously incompetent, TMWMBO then did it herself.

We then left the lavatory laboratory. More discussion ensued, during
which I might have become a little more heated and pointed out to her
that I was the only male staff member who ever checks the damn guys room
and that I do my best for the store only to get this sort of grief.

Discussion ended there. A little while later, TMWMBO approached me
again about two other points in the letter. Was one of the stall doors not able
to be locked? (No. The lock on it is a replacement for one broken nearly
three years ago. It's a bolt lock instead of the dial lock built into the door
and the door now opens in and out of the stall instead of just in, but it
does lock)

How bad is the grafitti in the room? (Not much grafitti. There had been some
small writing over the tp dispenser in the stall in question but someone had
covered it over with black marker)

So, I spent the final two hours of my shift fuming. Upshot of all this is that
TMWMBO hopes I see the importance of engaging customers in positive
comments in the restroom ("Hey,gosh, I AM going to clean that right up!")
and that more female staffmembers will check the guys room because after
all, they do outnumber us guys on the staff. I'm sure the male sustomers will
be surprised.

I'm tired. I'm tired of being the only person who pays attention to the rules
and getting shit on as a consequence. I'm tired of being the one to soldier
on and getting nothing but grief for it.

I'm tired.