Every day, it seems like a new boss finds new and innovative ways to be the worst boss ever. Some limit the organization to micromanagement, others treat their employees like subordinates, and still others simply dehumanize their employees.
But one man on Reddit has a boss who somehow managed to combine all three things into one package, which in turn caused him to seek revenge from other employees and prompt him to look for a new job.
A janitor’s boss told him that he was only allowed to use certain toilets at work.
Right off the bat, we’re off to a really bad start! The 35-year-old janitor wrote in a Reddit post that he works in a large medical facility. His job, of course, includes taking care of the bathrooms, which is no easy task in a building of this size. “I clean maybe 20, 25 bathrooms a day,” he wrote.
It’s certainly not a glamorous job, but it’s an important one nonetheless. They keep a facility running, although they’re often paid as if they had no say at all.
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As if that wasn’t insulting enough, this janitor’s boss decided to make matters worse by monitoring him in a way that was both snobbish and completely inhumane.
His boss made a rule that he was only allowed to use the dirtiest and most used bathroom.
On the third floor of the building where he works, there is a large laboratory that, unlike the rest of the building, operates 24 hours a day. A steady stream of people pick up samples from the lab and bring them back, so this part of the building is constantly busy.
“There are two bathrooms next to the elevator right next to the main entrance that are used perhaps as often as a gas station bathroom,” the janitor wrote.
“It’s always a mess,” he added, probably because he would have to be constantly stationed in those bathrooms to keep them in order instead of taking care of the 24 others for which he is also responsible.
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Imagine how he felt when his boss came to him one day and wanted to know which toilets he used for his own needs. “I was completely taken aback and speechless,” he said. It’s a strange and intrusive question to ask anyone.
But things got worse from there. “She then told me to use the toilets next to the elevators from now on because they were always getting dirty anyway,” he said. “I’m a 35-year-old who was just told what I can and can’t do in the toilets I clean.”
People were shocked at his boss’s attitude and the janitor said he would look for a new job.
It’s difficult to fully decipher all the levels of offensive weirdness in this interaction.
First, it’s implied that a guy who cleans toilets for a living doesn’t deserve access to clean toilets – which is abhorrent on multiple levels. The sneering disdain for him and his work may not have been expressed overtly, but you can certainly smell it in the subtext.
And then there’s the implicit punishment. Did his boss make this rule to reprimand him for not being able to keep the most used restrooms in the building as clean as the other 24 he’s responsible for?
And perhaps most importantly of all: who cares which bathroom someone uses?! Don’t you have more important things to do?
On Reddit, people were shocked by his boss’s attitude and urged him to retaliate by turning her desk into his private bathroom. While that would be hilarious, it would likely land him in jail. Instead, he plans to look for another job.
He enjoys working as a janitor because the solitude helps him deal with his mental illness. However, he is paid very little for his area and is also monitored down to the smallest detail and treated inhumanely. No one deserves that.
And if he quits, his boss might realize that janitors are more than just servants doing the nasty work they would never stoop to – unless they are forced to do it when their janitors quit.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human issues.
