Ever hear of using the LOCK????

[Dips]

The cardiac ICU at Children's Hospital in Boston has two one-hole restroom for the use of families and visitors. It's a 25 bed unit and almost all the beds were full all the time we were there. Like us, most families had at least one person staying 24/7. So these two restrooms were busy all the time.

You couldn't win trying to figure out if somebody was in on one of them.

If you didn't knock, you'd end up walking in on people who forgot to lock the doors.

If you did knock, you'd get no response and try the door to find it locked. Then the occupant would come out and look at you like you were some sort of weirdo.

Or you'd knock and the occupant would scream at you.

The worst thing though, was when my daughter went to use one. She knocked and the guy in there screamed at her that he told her he was almost done. Apparently somebody else had knocked and left and he thought she was the same person?

So he sprayed urine all over the place to "get back" at her.

Real classy. And now the unit was down to one bathroom for 25 families.

[Sableonblonde]

Ugh, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't lock the door. Whenever I use a public restroom and the lock is broken, I get so flustered I almost can't even do my business.

There have been times when I was in larger bathrooms with multiple stalls, and the stall door wouldn't lock (although I'd shut it all the way) and people would barge in on me in the stall before I had a chance to scream and shut the door again. If stall door is shut I always check to see if it's occupied (usually be bending down and seeing if I can see any feet inside) before trying to open the door.

[crazylegs]

Vigin trains latest carrages (sp?) have really odd locks, the doors are electronic, operated on a push button, then another to close, (and this is the button most people don't know about) a third to lock.

Thats right, the door doesn't automatically lock.

Cue lots of incidents where someone else opens the door and because of the way the loos are orientated re the rest of the carriage, everyone else gets to see what you're doing!

[powerboy]

When I worked in the bookstore, we only had an employee restroom (we were in a mall), and the lock never stayed fixed. All of the employees knew, but we had a big sign on the door anyway, warning everyone to KNOCK FIRST! Well, the delivery truck was there one day, and I needed to use the restroom. The door was shut (it was usually propped open if unoccupied), so I knocked. No answer, but the light was on, so I knocked again (loudly) and asked if anyone was inside, just to be sure. Still no answer...so I start to open the door slowly, still asking "hello? anyone there?" The door was almost halfway open (it was a one-person room, so the toilet was nearly in view) before the truck driver bothered to yell out that he was in there.

That is how I we do it, if it is one bathroom. Plus I was always brought up to knock and check under the doors. Plus, if it has a lock, I lock it. If it doesn't, and another is not being used, then I will use the other one.

[tollbaby]

When I used to have to clean the bathrooms as part of my job, I *always* knocked on all the doors... you just never know with some people. My mama trained me to close the door. I actually used to have a BOSS who would only go with the door open *shudder*

[RedRoseSpiral]

I feel bad i scared a pregnant lady the other day. No one had warned me that the lock on the family bathroom (aka employee bathroom no one uses the regular ones they're gross) was on the fritz. You now have to push really hard to get it to lock. I'm washing my hands when I see the door start to open and call out "Sorry, I'm in here." It totally scared this poor pregnant lady. I felt bad. Wish she had knocked or something. Guess the kid was really pushing down or something. She was pretty far along.