Office etiquette question

[prog]

Seriously: could there exist any medical reason why someone would need to spit very noisily -- that is, putting great vocal effort into creating and then and expectorating a significant phlegm-ball -- every time they visit the bathroom, with multiple loogie-hawkings per visit?

I am pondering leaving a note for this person, whose identity I have yet to verify, since it outgrosses my colleagues and I, who sit next to the bathroom, very much, but I don't want to seem insensitive if there's a chance that this person has a condition of some sort...

Comments

this is an office mgt problem, not an interpersonal problem

[jadelennox]

Speaking as the first priest of Miss Manners, around here...

Leave your coworker alone. A person has the right to a reasonable expectation of privacy in the bathroom, and nothing is more likely to humiliate someone -- who may well have a serious medical condition of which he or she is aware, and which is under treatement, but which nonetheless require loogie-hawkings -- than the knowledge that others are listening to and noticing his or her bathroom gurgles. Just the thought of someone doing that to me makes me never want to show myself in public again. We have plenty of little lies that allow our society to function; one of them is that publically tabooed bodily functions which occur in prescribed areas are invisible and inaudible to everyone.

That being said, Gentle Reader, you do have a recourse. Go to you office manager and express that your work is frequently disturbed by bathroom sounds, and if it is impossible to move you elsewhere, perhaps it would be possible to add an inexpensive layer of insulation to the bathroom door, given its proximity to workspaces.

Re: this is an office mgt problem, not an interpersonal problem

[prog.livejournal.com]

Sage advice. Thank you for lessening the world's potential of embarrassment and regret.

(In my own defense I found I could ignore the spitting OK, but multiple orkers have said "Ew!!" at it, and I found that more disruptive. Interesting.)