I used to work in a high-paced, stressful environment. I often worked 50-60 hours per week, juggled multiple priorities a day, and with a constantly changing schedule. Travel was sometimes required on top of all of that.
Sometimes it was hard to find time for lunch.
Sometimes it was even harder to find time to go to the bathroom.
In this prior career, I used to have to be onsite with my company’s customers. I enjoyed this for the most part.
When you’re face-to-face with a customer, it’s harder to steal away for personal needs. Although most people would understand if you have to take a bio break, the truth is you’re cut less slack. You’re responsible for a group of people. There is no time for anything else but them.
Several years before quarantine, I found myself in this exact situation. This was a classroom setting and I was at a lectern. I was expected to be front and center for 7 hours in a room full of 30+ people. On this day I would get one break - one hour for lunch.
This day was more stressful than usual. I had several things to accomplish during the lunch break:
find and grab lunch
get a drug screening for a new, upcoming customer
eat lunch
drive to all locations
Any normal human would look at the above and shake their head. As logic would predict, things did not work out.
Luckily, I had a plan of where I wanted to go for lunch already. I was going to go pick up some Mediterranean food, drive to my scheduled drug screening appointment, then eat on the drive back.
Everything was going as planned until the drug screening ran behind schedule. I mean, who adheres to scheduled appointments, right? That’s crazy talk in today’s age. I was told the appointment would take 15 total minutes. I got there 10 minutes early.
Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to bring any food or drink in with us just in case there was any “cheating”. We also couldn’t leave the area once we checked in. So lunch would have to wait for the car ride back.
I ended up waiting 20 minutes for my appointment. By the time I was finally able to pee into the required cup, I had 10 minutes left of my lunch hour to return to my customer.
With it being only an 8-minute drive back, it should’ve worked out, right?
I rushed back to the customer and, as I was walking in, felt the sensation in my stomach we all don’t want to feel.
Pain, gas, and immediate discomfort.
Since I had just started eating my lunch in the car, this wasn’t food poisoning. It doesn’t work that fast.
It was the wrong place and the wrong time.
I rushed into the customer building and made a beeline for the restroom. While I was on the toilet I fired off a “sorry, I’ll be late” email to the customer, although I was only a few doors down.
I was in the toilet for 15 god-awful minutes. It was bad. Luckily, no one else was in there with me. My stomach pain never let up. I waited until it subsided long enough for me to be comfortable standing in front of the customer for 4 more hours.
I returned to the class. I apologized to my students. The main customer contact looked annoyed.
What to do? So I texted the sales rep responsible for this customer and let them know that I was late, the main customer contact wasn’t happy, and that “it couldn’t be helped”. The sales rep asked why I was late. I just repeated, “it couldn’t be helped”.
The rest of the training day went fine. I took advantage of the mid-afternoon break to return to the restroom. Then I powered through the rest of the day.
I look back on it and laugh now. But, sadly, we’re in a society where we feel embarrassed to admit the truth about common issues like stomach bugs.
I once had a friend from another country tell me he was going to be late for dinner with me because he was having stomach cramps and diarrhea. I was shocked when he shared that but kept my composure long enough to finish the conversation. I’ve always remembered that and wondered why I can’t be more like him.