Employee asks to work remotely while office bathroom is out of order, boss denies request: 'I’ve been skipping food and water from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on office days'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
May 26, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

One of the hallmarks of an unnecessarily harsh work environment is when your concerns as an employee are not taken seriously. This can manifest itself in a variety of scenarios. For instance, you could raise serious questions about how a process is handled and have your opinions be completely disregarded. You could pose questions about unfair or even unsafe working conditions and have those valid ideas ignored or even rejected. 

This case, which primarily centers on the latter scenario, involves an employee whose health condition requires her to have quick and easy access to a bathroom should the need arise. This, of course, seems pretty easy to work around. However, when the women's bathroom on her floor was out of order, her needs were entirely rejected based on the fact that her condition wasn't "serious" or "visible." Talk about an easy avenue to jeopardize your legal standing as an employer! Keep scrolling below for the full saga and for the best reactions from members of the online community!

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    Cheezburger Image 10509425408
    via Tim Mossholder

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • To make matters even worse, when the employee requested to work remotely while the bathroom was out of order, her supervisor told her that she could make it work for one day. She even went so far as to threaten the author by saying that if productivity should plummet during this time, they may need to re-evaluate her performance abilities. Again, talk about an easy way to get sued!

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    TL;DR: Boss denied my request to work fully remote temporarily while the only accessible bathroom is broken, despite a chronic health condition. Said it
    via Shiveria
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    should be "manageable" and hinted at evaluating my performance if it's not. Now I have to go without food or water from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. once a
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    week just to avoid flare-ups while commuting and working in-office. Documenting everything to escalate once I close on a house.
    via Shiveria
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    I work a remote-hybrid job where we're in-office one day per week. The problem? For the last three weeks, the upstairs
    via Shiveria
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    women's bathroom at the office has been out of order, and I have a chronic health condition that requires quick restroom access. The
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    only other bathroom is down a floor and across the building. I've been trying to manage it quietly, but it's caused a lot of stress and a few near-emergencies.
    via Shiveria
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    So, I emailed my boss. asking to work from home fully (5 days a week) until the bathroom is fixed. We already work from home most of the time anyway,
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    so I didn't think it was a huge ask. Her response? "I understand it can be inconvenient, however I think it can be manageable for one day a
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    week, especially with the amount of NAs and rescheduling that happens. That said, if you feel like your health conditions are prohibiting
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    CLOSED
    via Matthew Feeney

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    your performance, that may be something we need to evaluate."
    via Shiveria
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    So... basically: Sk it up, and if it gets in the way, we'll "evaluate" whether you should even be here.
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    Meanwhile, they've made accommodations for other people, like pregnant coworkers (which I fully support, for
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    the record)-but somehow my condition isn't seen as valid because I "look fine" on Zoom?
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    Because of this, I've been skipping food and water from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on office days-not by choice, but because I take public transportation
    via Shiveria
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    and can't risk needing the bathroom during the commute, at work, or when there's no quick access. I literally starve
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    and dehydrate myself once a week just to stay compliant. I've started documenting everything, and once I'm in a safer position (I'm currently in the middle of closing on a house), I
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    plan to escalate. But right now? I'm exhausted. Just needed to say it out loud.
    via Shiveria
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    eossfound... . 6h ago It's not your health condition prohibiting your performance, it's the out of commission bathroom that is.
    via Shiveria
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    OhmHome... 5h ago • Don't skip meals, make your chronic condition their problem and also report this to HR and ADA. You are being denied reasonable accommodation.
    via Shiveria
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    Apprehen... 4h ago Was your boss dumb enough to put that in writing? If so, I recommend speaking with an employment/discrimi nation attorney asap. It's a free consultation.
    via Shiveria

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work from home workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace job work toxic-boss Horrible Bosses bad bosses company toxic-work-environment
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