I been very tempted,
To grab it from the till,
I been very hungry,
But not enough to kill.
-The Clash

Somebody took a dump in the urinal at work. It was not the kind of thing I expected to see, not in the restroom of a Silicon Valley tech giant. Since this was not my doing, I can only conjecture as to its when, how, or why.

Of these three questions, when it happened is the least up in the air. Barring any “Future Poo” scenario, I do know for a fact the defecation occurred prior to August 15, 2018 at 8:16 am. I know this because I took a picture and that was the tinestamp.

“Fight the power” was the caption when I sent the pic to Becca via Facebook Messenger.

“Whoever did this, urinal lot of trouble,” I later mused.

Lacking forensic expertise, I cannot be sure if it occurred late in the day of August 14 or in the wee hours of August 15. That’s a big time window and I am curious who else knew about it. Let’s see. There’s me, the perp, and the poor bastard who had to clean it up. Who else? Was it ever reported and if so, is the Poo Division of HR conducting some kind of investigation? If requested, I would be more than willing to cooperate. I would also be willing to speak to the media as an eyewitness.

“It was like a movie,” I would say.

The how is not without its mystery either. The mechanics of taking a shit are pretty straightforward and the urinal is at a height to allow any non-dwarf to accomplish the task with relative ease. The question is not how it was done, but rather how it was done without detection.

The restroom sits between two parallel walkways with an entrance on either side. To pull off this urinal pooping without someone walking in on you, you need to get in, pinch clean, and get out with Ocean’s Eleven precision. I managed to get away with pisser shitting when I was 10, but that was at summer camp with the other kids and counselors gathered around a campfire singing insipid songs.

Now comes the biggest question: why? What would possess someone to do such a thing? Anger and frustration seems the most likely answer. After all, large corporations do create their own dystopias and although you’re technically free to leave anytime you like, financial realities dictate otherwise. So you hold it all in for as long as you can. Some people eventually snap. If you have no regard for other people’s lives, you show up to work with a gun and start blasting away. If you’re less murderous, but have no qualms about ruining a toilet cleaner’s day, you shit in the urinal.

Of course, there could be any number of other reasons. It’s not like the person left a note. I can only guess what would have motivated me if I were at my worst (i.e. what I was like around 30 years ago). These days, there is little appeal to joining the dumpenproletariat with such a garbage move.

So yeah, a job can be infuriating. I get that. I just don’t want to take it out on someone who had nothing to do with souring my mood. If I want to incorporate poo into coping with the prison of the workplace, I’ll stick to elective turtling on the toilet, enjoying an intimate moment with my cellmate Mister Bran.