Work Stories: Episode 48: A Little Bit of Toilet Trouble

Previously on Work Stories, I relayed a tale of the time when I saw the lamp post in front of my work being repaired because someone had knocked it over.  I wasn’t there for the tipping of the pole, but I definitely saw the aftermath of it.  It was like seeing a tree that was uprooted, except it was a lamp post instead of a tree.  What will I write about this time in this week’s Work Story?  I don’t know yet.  Let’s see what I can think of.

I’ve got it.  Let’s go back to years ago when I worked at the hotel that I worked at for about three years.  As you already know, I did a lot of things.  Mostly I was in the parking lot and in the dining room.  This story starts with a time that I was the parking lot attendant.  Like most shifts in the parking lot, it was a long and boring day that involved listening to music and reading books.  That’s about all that I ever did in the parking lot.  The day I’m thinking of, though, was about to get more exciting.

It was during the couple hours between housekeeping and the maintenance guys going home, and the nighttime caretaker arriving for the night.  If something went wrong in the hotel, they would get me to go deal with it.  That’s what happened that day.  During those two or three hours, I was brought down into the hotel to deal with an issue that had occurred in one of the hotel rooms.  I had no idea what I was in for.  I would soon discover that it was something which I didn’t want to deal with, but something that I’ve dealt with many times since.

When I walked into the room, I heard the manager yell “Get some towels.”  The manager was already in there.  This wasn’t good.  I ran down the hall, unlocked the storage room, and grabbed some towels.  Then I ran back to the hotel room.  Why were the towels needed?  It’s not as bad as you might think.  It was just a clogged toilet.  But it was still a nasty situation.  There was water all over the floor and it was still pouring out of the toilet.  I’m not sure what had happened in there, but the end result was a lot of water all over the place.  I stood with my mouth agape for a moment while the manager began mopping up the floor with the towels while water continued to spill out onto the floor.

Eventually I snapped back to myself and started using towels to soak up the water.  For the next ten minutes or so, the two of us were cleaning up the bathroom and trying to fix the toilet so that it wasn’t clogged and wasn’t leaking.  It was mayhem.

Eventually we got everything back to normal in the room.  The toilet was no longer an explosion of water.  The floor was beginning to dry up.  My manager left to get back to the front desk work that he was supposed to be doing.  I was left behind to finish the cleanup.  I forget what I did with the towels.  Clearly, the laundry people were done for the day, and I know I never went into the laundry room.  That’s one of the few things I never did there.  What I do know is that after I finished there, I went home.  The bathroom cleanup was the end of my workday.

I’ve cleaned toilets before, sometimes messier than that.  I’ve written about the kid who pissed all over the floor outside of the bathroom door at the museum I currently work at.  But for some reason, this one also stuck in my mind.  Maybe it’s because it was the first time I had to clean a bathroom that wasn’t in my house.  That could have something to do with it.  The first time leaves a mark on you.

That’s it for this week’s Work Story.  Wasn’t that exciting?  Maybe not.  Why are all of my final paragraphs me going “That wasn’t that good?”  I’m not sure.  I like to beat myself up after writing the Work Stories.  Anyway, next week is a good time for another story, so next week I’ll be back with another Work Story.  Okay?  Okay.

Until then, I met him, fifteen years ago; I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding; and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil.