Pregnant and Entitled.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Yes, the pregnant bit IS relevant. This happened a little while ago, during a particularly busy time when we were slammed with customers. This woman came into the petrol station and just stood there, occasionally tutting with impatience; my collegue Stephen eventually went over to her to ask her what she wanted. She replied, "I'm pregnant and I need to use your toilet."

Stephen replied that we couldn't allow that, she glared at him and said, "Yes you can. I'm pregnant and I need to use it now!"

He came to my till and asked me what we ought to do. Now, the policy is as follows: we are not allowed, under any circumstances whatsoever, to allow a member of the public out back. This is for two reasons; firstly, we have the stockroom round the back and the safe, and theft might occur; secondly, members of the public are not covered by our insurance round the back so if a customer was allowed out back then injured themselves, we could be in trouble. Also, the staff member who allowed this could lose their job.

I said that we would have to call over the manager as we could not make this decision cuz of the risk of losing our jobs if we just let her go out back; the shop was busy too so it would be causing problems for the customers there if one of us, probably me, escorted the pregnant woman to the loo. Stephen then told P&E that he would have to call the manager.

Now, I did feel a bit sorry for her; I have never been in that position myself, being childfree, but friends of mine have told me of the agony of having a fetus tap dancing on their bladder while pregnant, but all my sympathy evaporated on seeing her reaction. She started swearing at Stephen, saying he was a selfish bastard and obviously hated women. I signalled to him to return to the till and I went out back to call the manager over myself.

The manager, Craig, duly arrived five minutes later and was immediately hit with abuse by P&E, who said that the policy was a stupid one and that it was obvious that all the men who worked here were sexist pigs. Referring to me, she said that the girl was a traitor to her sex, as I was also refusing to allow her to use the toilet!

Craig at first tried to reason with P&E, but she wasn't having anything of it and started swearing at him, too. At this moment, he'd had enough and told her to leave. At first, she refused to do so, saying that she needed the loo and wasn't going to leave til we let her use ours, but he told her firmly that if she didn't leave by herself, he'd call security. She then left, after a final comment that she'd be calling the local paper to report us.

Basically, the entire exchange took around twenty minutes... so she couldn't have been that desperate. If she'd just walked over the road when told she couldn't use our loo, she could have been done in what, five minutes? I'm sorry, but when someone stays for ages to argue the toss, I begin to disbelieve their story of being desperate.

[roxtar]

relevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbTB3ASkdOo

[The Hurting]

What a bitch! Good for you for not giving in to her, "entitled" is right. Is it me or have many parents and parents to be adopted an entitlement complex at a bigger rate than in the past?

And you a "traitor"? I would have laughed and then walked off. She's deluded.

[cleorose]

I have been pregnant five times with three live births and two miscarriages. Yes she was probably unconfortable trying to hold it. But its possible to hold it regardless of what they tell you. I have a disdain for public restrooms in general and I went on several long car trips and was able to hold it for 8+ hours at a time.

BTW next time someone asks for the restroom make up the grossest story you can.

I have a sister in law who works grave yard for wall of mart. She had to clean the restrooms. She had some entitled heffer try to push past her. She gave the excuse that some midgets had a fight with poop and toliet paper in the large stall. Needless to say they went away. And did not ask to use the restroom again that night. lol.

Be creative.

[mathnerd]

I've been pregnant 6 times. Three live births (but preemies delivered at 36, 32 and 24 weeks), one late term pregnancy loss (22 weeks), on mid term miscarriage (14 weeks, twins) and one ectopic pregnancy discovered at around 4 weeks. Trust me, I know just how uncomfortable pregnancy can be. There's still no excuse to treat people badly. There's lots of reasons a public place might not have toilets available to the public. It's best to just move along and find another place.

On another point, I think that her being pregnant is relevant to the story. She was trying to use being pregnant as an excuse to break the rules. That's not okay.

[XCashier]

Now, the policy is as follows: we are not allowed, under any circumstances whatsoever, to allow a member of the public out back. This is for two reasons; firstly, we have the stockroom round the back and the safe, and theft might occur; secondly, members of the public are not covered by our insurance round the back so if a customer was allowed out back then injured themselves, we could be in trouble. Also, the staff member who allowed this could lose their job.

Oh, boy, I remember those days back at the old store. We couldn't let customers use our restrooms either, for very similar reasons. Just try explaining that to a SC, though, they'll rip you several new ones.

I know most newer stores have restrooms. But many older stores do not. People need to accept this and plan ahead, and have a plan B. Instead, they stand there and bitch and moan and whine and complain, and in the time they spend throwing their little tantrum, they could've walked to the nearest public restroom, used it, and come back. I will never understand it.

[Pixilated]

Never been pregnant myself, but I would think that as the months wore on, the person would come to realize what's what in terms of "having a fetus tap dancing on their bladder" (LOVE the image, LOL) and BE PREPARED. In other words, KNOW when they're going to need a public washroom (every hour? every 30 minutes? Oftener?) and make sure they're near one around that time. Not just expect the whole world to accommodate them.

Sorry you had to deal with this. We had the same situation for virtually the same reasons in Little Thrift Shop That I Volunteered At, and occasionally had customers ask to use the washroom. We had to always say no, and point across the street to the city hall complex (which includes a public library which most definitely has a public washroom); luckily, most people took it well.

And yeah, if she can stand around arguing for 20 minutes, she didn't have to go that badly.

[Lace Neil Singer]

We normally would have used the "We don't have a loo" excuse, but she'd been around long enough to hear the loo flushing and wouldn't have bought that.

One thing I don't understand, there's a McDonalds literally just round the corner from where we are. She wasn't buying petrol; so why not just go there? The people working there don't care a damn if someone rushes in to use their loo.

I suspect now that she was just looking for a fight to use her greatest weapon ever; ie, being up the duff. Oh yeah, and the local paper came out without any mention of the terrible deed we did to her. Funny that.

[taxguykarl]

No doubt she was spoiling for some kind of confrontation, LNS...or casing the place for an upcoming theft

[Snowbird]

I worked in a mall setting, so there were plenty of public bathrooms in a few minutes walk. We had expensive stock up to our eyeballs in the employee bathroom, so customers were not allowed to use it, period. We got to the point that we told people we didn't have a public bathroom, and before they could say more, we'd point out which were the closest to the store in the mall.

Had some screamers who tried to argue the point that we did have a bathroom, but argued so long, as with the OP, they could have walked to the nearest public restroom. Frankly, they wouldn't have wanted to use our bathroom, it was a challenge to do your stuff without knocking half the stock over.

[raudf]

Either she just wanted a reason to complain/unleash the inner brat or she just wasn't lazy enough. IIRC, OP's petrol station is one of those that is in the parking lot/attached to a store, so there really isn't a need for that sort of station to have public bathrooms.

In the time she spent ranting and playing the pregnancy card, she could have hiked her behind to the store and used the toilets there. Chances are, they'd have bigger stalls, (I'm assuming the loo is the size of a coat closet) and the handicap stall has the hand rails to help with levering oneself back into the upright position. (I was very grateful for those during my second pregnancy!)

For the record, at 8 months pregnant, I sat through The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Afterwards, a race horse couldn't have beaten me to the bathroom.

[The Hurting]

I just remembered this, but I did overhear a parent use her daughter (4 year old to be exact) to get out of giving an ID/Driver's license in exchange for the bathroom key. The kid did have to use the bathroom, but the mom didn't want to comply to our rule. Of course, the desk person didn't give into her.

[cindybubbles]

I remember being let into the staff washroom at Dominion (now Metro). I saw the back room, and to be honest, I was scared. Scared because I could be caught and the employee who let me back there could lose his job, and scared because, well, the back room isn't meant for customers, which made me feel that the place was a bit too dangerous. After I finished my business, I was glad to be back on the grocery sales floor.

[Cia]

-holds out hand- "$500 non-refundable deposit plus picture ID which you don't get back until we check the bathroom over in case you suddenly forget you're toilet trained."

[Talasar]

Lucky at my store we have a public restroom...most of the day. From 10pm to 6am it closes, corp rules not mine. But try and tell customers this? I'm sure everyone here can guess what happens.
I once had a guy offer me a 100usd to use it. I wisely did not take it, not worth potentially losing my job over. There are no exceptions to this rule, well Cops and Taxi drivers are but again that's corps' call not mine.