There is a small retail park on the outskirts of Abingdon which has a Homebase, Argos, and a few other shops. A few weeks ago, while buying some things in Homebase to fix up the house, I found myself in a situation I always find myself in.
I had a trolley full of items, and one of my kids had to go to the bathroom?RIGHT NOW! We rush through the aisles to one of the tills?my boy dancing around behind me — and I ask the kids behind the counter if we can use the toilet. We get the typical response?”We don’t have toilets here, I’m afraid.”
“Where can we find the nearest toilet?” I ask?trying to convey my sense of urgency.
“There aren’t any in any of the other shops in this shopping centre. You have to cross the road and go over to Tesco”, he says. In other words, I have to abandon the trolley I’ve collected, rush the kids across the Homebase car park, cross a busy road with two traffic lights, cross the vast Tesco car park, and then try to find their toilet. And then, they assume I’ll return to Homebase to finish my shopping.
I can’t understand how a huge chain would spend so much money on purchasing products, setting up store space, and hiring staff and then keep me from making purchases because they don’t have a toilet.
But, or course they have a toilet. None of the kids working at Homebase are working with full bladders. They have a toilet, I just can’t use it.
And why? Why can’t I, as a lowly customer, use their toilet? Because someone somewhere fears I will piss on the seat!
Even if I did make a mess in their toilet and not clean it up (which I wouldn’t!), even if I urinated like I was doing it through a shower head, it would still make sense to hire someone to clean toilets once in a while than to lose business because they send everyone to Tesco. I’ve had jobs where cleaning toilets was occasionally called for. Everyone has to do it sometimes.
I would rant more about this, but I’ve got to go to the bathroom.
