On toilet etiquette, traffic lights and the mathematics of contests
15 March 2010(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 15 March 2010 issue)
Dear Kam,
Last week, I had an embarrassing and annoying incident when a male cleaner entered the toilet (a women’s toilet, of course) while I was in front of the mirror in an improper state for any man to see. The cleaner did not even knock on the door and did not apologise to me at all. I then complained (verbally) to the management and strongly urged them to allow only female cleaners to clean that very private space for ladies. For your information, this incident happened in a 4-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur, where my employer is the main tenant of their office lots.
But, just today, the same embarrassing and annoying incident happened again with another male cleaner, and this time around he said sorry.
As a man, you should understand the fact that “man is always a man”. I have read in our local newspapers about a woman who was molested by a sex-maniac male cleaner.
My questions are: If the male cleaner is not a sex-maniac or anything like that, is it not wrong for a male cleaner to clean female toilets? Is it permissible for a male cleaner to have the freedom to either accidentally or purposely stumble upon women in their embarrassing moments just like all male health workers in the world do? And how is this “toilet rule” perceived universally?
Please answer me now as I feel like stumbling into the management office and yelling at the officer there.
Embarrassed & Annoyed Lady
I don’t generally like to write about toilets. Not because I’m squeamish, but some of you are. But I think it’s an important issue, so I will.
It’s funny that you should mention your situation because I have had exactly the same problem, but in the gents toilet. Several times when I’m, er, doing my business, a female attendant has walked in and started cleaning the floor. They are never even remotely interested in me, but having a woman around makes it impossible for me to, er, proceed. On more than one occasion I’ve been desperately searching for a public toilet and when I dash in, I suddenly see women and I think, ‘oh no, I’m in the wrong place again’. They always turn out to be cleaners (except sometimes late at night in the Bukit Bintang area), but it makes me panic. I think it’s a man’s worst nightmare.
The situation you found yourself in was wrong, and the building management shouldn’t let it happen. I guess the problem is that many places do not have an equal number of female and male cleaners. Sometimes they only have male, or female. I have been to places where they put a sign outside the toilet saying that a female cleaner is inside cleaning. This is polite practice but it’s not much consolation when I’m standing outside, desperately crossing my legs. But it’s their problem if they don’t have enough staff, it’s not your problem. So you should complain, because it’s yet another example of them letting their problem become your problem. Once again, we’re supposed to be grateful that they’ve even supplied us with something as basic as toilets (or education, or a public transport system, etc).
Generally speaking, Malaysian toilets have improved recently but they are still bad. Even the good ones are knee-deep in water. Once I was in Thailand and I really needed to go. I thought, ‘oh no, it’s going to be horrible’. But the toilets in Thailand are all immaculate, and dry. For some reason they can have clean toilets, and yet we can’t. No wonder they have more tourists.
One final thing about toilets (I promise), you can tell that architects and developers are men because they make the male and female public toilets the same size. One of the great things about being male is that one can go to the toilet very quickly but women take much, much longer. Inevitably women will have to wait in a long queue. Architects and developers should know that this will happen, but they don’t care. It shows a lack of respect for their customers. Women’s toilets should be double the capacity.
Dear Kam,
Am I the only one who stops for red lights anymore?
Flabbergasted
Didn’t you know that the traffic lights are just a suggestion? They’re also there to lure pedestrians into thinking it’s safe to cross the road. Here’s a tip for Malaysian pedestrians: it’s never safe to cross the road.
Dear Kam,
I saw an advertisement that I do not understand. After I did the math, it seems to say that if I spend a minimum of RM800 I might be lucky enough to win an expensive watch worth RM11,500. If I happen to be one of the first 50 people to spend at least RM5,000 in a single transaction, maybe I will be invited to some fashion show (if there are any invitations left). I really want that watch. Do you think that I can increase my chances of winning it by 10 times if I spend RM8,000 in 10 transactions? Then I’ll get the watch but can’t go to the fashion show.
Summing it Up
This mathematical problem is one of the reasons why I failed maths. It’s like, if a train is travelling at 10kph then how many oranges does Johnny have? When I was at school doing multiple-choice exams, I was told that if you could spell your name correctly and tick A for every answer you would get at least 25%. Despite being terrible at maths, I decided that I shouldn’t leave it to chance and I actually tried to answer the questions. And I got even less than 25%! The watch advertisement seems to be designed to confuse idiots like me into spending more money than the actual prize is worth. That’s why capitalism works so well, because there are always enough idiots like me. It’s also why today’s Malaysia is perfect for me, because I can’t count past the number one.
I guess you stand a chance of winning the prize if nobody else enters the competition, but you have no way of knowing that. Who knows what they get up to. I went to a website once that said, “Congratulations, you are the 8,888,888th visitor” and it offered me a chance to win a prize. Months later I went back to the website and I was still the 8,888,888th visitor. How stupid do they think we are? I’m still waiting for my prize.
Reprinted with the kind permission of
