this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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There genuinely is no drama quite like workplace drama.
Used to work with a really diligent and thorough dude doing Data Analysis around overall Ops performance metrics, we got along really well in terms of work ethics, so we became work buddies pretty fast. Trouble was, the higher-ups set up the original databases in Google Spreadsheets and the people who worked on those docs before us botched them beyond belief. We kept trying to convince Management to let us redo all databases in SQL, link them with our tools to make things dynamic, and pull them through Power BI to get some nice visuals going, but they realised their asses would be on the line if the data started showing accurate values (plus they were too cheap to actually pay for viable software), so they kept stonewalling.
One day my guy gets fed up with our manager and decides to go nuclear. Thing is, the dude had a very, very nasty case of IBS (no wonder, honestly...). So he started taking advantage of it. He'd come in, tell me to keep an eye on him, and if I saw him getting red and sweaty I should use the facilities within the next 30 minutes then stay away from them. I can tell you that I made the mistake of not heeding his words only once. The dude literally bio-bombed every washroom in that building (small office, start-up type deal), and it would linger for hours due to poor ventilation. He did this without a predictable pattern, so that nobody would figure out who was to blame. This happened for several months. I cannot begin to tell you how much respect I had for the guy.
IBS was the most humiliating thing to have in a workplace. As a woman it's even worst. I would feel sick for hours and the only thing stoping the bomb to.go off was the humiliating smell. The sound is quick so you can avoid people around, but the smell... omg how.
Crohn's here. You would not believe what my body can produce. The other side of it as well is when you really need to go, and somebody has thoroughly destroyed the only available cubicle(s). I once just walked out the state of the loos was so bad. It's ok to touch the toilet brush to sort out your own stuff people 😭
I'm genuinely sorry you had to go through that, it really seemed to be a very unpleasant time for my buddy, to say the least... I mean, I have an apparently milder form of IBS (primarily diet and stress-based) and it's bad enough as-is...
But, truthfully, I don't think there's anything of which to be ashamed. I mean, we're being fed crap, we're stressed out more often than we're not, and we're living in environments fit more for industrial equipment than for biological life. It's no wonder our digestive systems are going haywire.
If anything, I think what my former colleague did was 100% reasonable, it's just a repercussion of the conditions in which we're meant to exist. Pairing that up with this social contract of "Thou shall not fart because it's, like, awkward for the rest of us" is pure hypocrisy. Farting, thus, is an act of justified rebellion!