Ugly

Now as you may have gathered I'm not a big fan of the smelly side of the job. Be it drunken folks attempting to vomit on me or urine covered toilet floors I wrinkle my face and take a step back.

Now it's not always possible to avoid having to actually do some work where the odour is high but generally the punters don't like to linger in these places any longer than they have to so we don't see too many incidents here.

One incident was brought to mind though by a scary recurrence this weekend. Thankfully the one we got a call about this weekend was a wind up at the new bar-cleaners expense. In the original situation I was working inside in a repectable bar of a decent size, spread over 3 floors with toilets on each. Thankfully the basement toilet wasn't involved in any of this as it's a small dark box a long way from fresh air.

There was a private function in the place and they had one floor whilst they dined and had almost exclusive use of the toilets on that floor. As the evening went on and they dispersed around the building for fresh air, more drink or dancing one of the doormen felt the need to use the facilities. As was typical of all folk who worked there , for reasons of ease and tradition, he used the ones on the floor this private function had been using.

Cue a radio call of the nature, "Cough...can we get Matt to the rear toilet, there's a shit on the floor"
Uh-oh, those are words you don't want to hear, especially when given in the I'm about to blow chunks voice we heard from a typically husky, robust doorman.

The offending item was small, dark, glossy and quite soft, almost runny really. It had kind of flattened itself out a bit underthe heat of the halogen spots and in the enclosed vinyl floored toilets made one hell of a nasty smell. It lay a good two feet from the toilet bowl and there was no sign of paper. It'd been landed in one go and not mucked about with since.

We were more than a little perturbed. We all see the mess drunken folk make of toilets by the end of the evening but this little jobbie was a work of deliberate defecation for distressing those who would follow. Matt got the short straw bar cleaners get and got the gloves on and had to send it on it's rightful path down the white tubing to the sewers.

After a few moments collecting ourselves from our hysterics after seeing the green and shaken Matt curse and swear through a cigarette afterwards we decided it was likely one of the folk from the function but we weren't in a position to chase it further.

My wanderings later found me checking the main toilets on my route round the premises and lo and behold another little jobbie had been left on the cubicle floor in there. These were no manly logs, more small to middle sized dog efforts. We were most perplexed. My call went out for Matt went out again as I closed off the cubicle and awaited his arrival. This time the gods of bar work smiled on him and as he was off getting ice form a nearby venue the shift manager had to do it. Gloves on, scooping and tossing down the bog, cursing and swearing all the way through.

It was looking more and more like a deliberate attempt to damamge the good name of the bar or at least cause offence to someone. All of the doormen were now watching the group of function goers very carefully. All toilet trips being followed by a quick head and nose through the door from us to see if any more little presents had been left.

None found and after an hour we surrenered it to the shit happens pile and carried on as usual. Some scuffles, some ejections and next thing I know we're sweeping through the place getting punters back out onto the streets where they belong looking forward to the swift refreshment of the afterwork pint.

All punters out, time to check the toilets, unfasten the ties, turn in the radios and settle in for a slow cool beer.
"Ladies toilets clear"
"Gent toilets, oh-oh-oh, shit..ooooffh"
That sounds like a doorman getting floored mehtinks, time to shift.
Cue three large men who thought their night was safely over flying up the stairs from the shut front door into the main toilets. To find one doorman bent at the sink seeing how colourful soda water cna get after a few hours in the stomach and one more rancid little jobbie on the floor. This one alot more pungent and runny than the previous two.
We all left that one to Matt while we descended and seemed to loose our appettites for that after work pint.
All in all, we know shit happens but we, Matt especially, don't like shit to happen to us.