Toilet Breakdown

This was simply not our week. The toilet had broken down on 2 consecutive days already. This was no laughing matter!

An average office worker spent at least 9 hours a day for 5 days a week in office. The office was tantamount to a second home. In fact, if you count the number of waking hours we spent in office relating to in our home, I was pretty sure that the time we spent in office far surpassed the time at home. Hence, it would not be difficult to imagine how a broken toilet could take its toll on the serendipity of our working lives.

On the first day, it was the toilet bowl in one of the cubicles that flooded. With the flood, the toilet became out of bounds to all female employees. We did contemplate using the male toilet since the number of females far outweighed the males in a typical finance department. Although the males were in the minority, we reckoned we should still treat them with due respect instead of tyrannically took over their toilets. What to do? We had to use the toilets on other floors. It was a temporary inconvenience that we could still tolerate.

After the repair, we thought peace would resume.

There were only 3 cubicles serving at least 60 females on the floor. I guessed the toilets were staging a protest of being overused for a while. The toilets became flooded again on the second day. This time round, it was the sink which flooded. Not only was the toilet wet, it also started to smell.

Again, we had to travel to other floors to use the toilets while the toilet on our floor was closed for repairs. Many had chosen to go to the toilets one floor down as the floor below was also part of Finance. It was deemed less intrusive and embarrassing to go to the toilets of Finance Department than to another Department. For some reason, I went to the one above our floor instead to avoid the crowd. What a lucky choice that was.

With everyone flocking to the toilets one floor down, the toilet at the lower floor suddenly had to serve twice the population. Moreover, the flooding sink was connected to the on below. Soon, the toilet at the lower floor started to show signs of breakdown too.

One colleague who went to the lower toilet commented that she saw water dripping down from th ceiling above the sink area. Another colleague who went down later added that she started to see brown liquid dripping down form the ceiling above the sinks. We were horrified! Could the dripping liquid contain faeces and thus the brown colour? Soon, the toilet below also had to be closed for repairs. Now, everyone had to venture to other places in search of toilets.

Fortunately, the repairs were completed the following day. I could not imagine another day of travelling to another floor just to use the toilets especially with our hectic schedule. Sigh!