Imagine finishing your work for the day and heading home via train. If you urgently needed to use the restroom before boarding the train, what would you do if an employee at the train station refused to let you through a barricade to access the restrooms?

In this story, one night shift worker is in this exact situation. Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

“Don’t ask to come through this barrier again.” Okay, I won’t.

A week or so ago I had a night shift in a different city. No big deal, it’s normal for me.

I had my route home all planned, with a train ticket that was only valid for off-peak travel (because it was literally 2/5 of the price of an “anytime” ticket), from my home station to the station nearest the store, for which I’d have to change at a major hub station. Offpeak travel starts at 9:30am.

However, I was working with a regular colleague with whom I have an okay relationship, and instead of letting me catch the bus to the further away station, he dropped me about a mile and a half from the hub station.

OP was desperate to find a restroom.

There are seating areas scattered throughout the Hub Station, but few toilets. And I’d been working all night, and drinking copious amounts of water throughout, so a toilet was a necessity.

The only ones I actually knew about were in the “lounges”, as the areas past the ticket barriers are known at that station.

So despite it only being about 8am, meaning my ticket wouldn’t work yet, I approached a set of barriers and explained my dilemma to the woman who was at the manual controls.

Here’s how the conversation went…

Woman: Can’t let you through until 20 minutes before your train.

Me: (thinking this is nonsense) It’s never been a problem before.

Woman: Other people don’t do their job right. No one gets through early.

Me: There are no toilets out here though.

Woman: Go up those escalators, keep going straight on, the toilets should be unlocked up there by now. And don’t come back before offpeak, I’m not letting you through these barriers.

The woman wasn’t wrong exactly.

So I went upstairs, to toilets that are not signposted from the ground floor and so I didn’t even know existed.

And lo and behold, the toilets are there, and they’re not locked.

What they are is completely blocked off by construction fencing covered in a mesh privacy shroud. Uh-huh, I was just sent on a wild goose chase?

OP considered McDonald’s.

Now, there is a McDonalds just outside one of the entrances to the upper floor (the street level rises up to meet the upper floor) that I had been sent to.

However, I was unsure if the upstairs seating of that establishment, where the toilets were, was open so early in the morning, or if there was a code lock to prevent misuse (due to proximity to both pubs and a train station, as well as a high homeless population in the area).

And I really, really couldn’t risk taking the time to find out.

He tried another lounge.

Now this Hub Station has 12 platforms, each with an A and a B end. The B ends are all linked by Red Lounge, 1A-5A go up to Blue Lounge, and Green Lounge gives access to 6A-12A.

There’s no barrier between A and B ends on the platforms. Each Lounge has two sets of barriers.

I prefer Red Lounge, especially when I’m too early for my train to appear on the ginormous destination board yet, but it was at Red Lounge I had been rebuffed.

So I meandered up to the customer service guy standing behind a little cart under the destination board.

This guy seemed much more understanding.

Me: Hi, sorry, but I really really badly need to go, but the woman on those Red barriers won’t let me through and sent me upstairs to the toilets there.

Man: The toilets that are completely out of service?

Me: Looked like.

Him: I’ll radio Blue, tell them to let you through there.

Then it was time to be a little malicious.

I trotted off to Blue. Well, scurried with clenched legs is more like.

And after using the toilet I exited the barriers until my train was almost due?

Don’t be silly. I went down the escalator to platform level, walked along, and went up into Red Lounge.

And the seats I chose? Well, I knew I’d be somewhere around Platform 9 to 12 (because the tracks to/from my area are on that side of the station), so I sat in the seating area at that end of Red Lounge, right where the obstructive woman could see me and do nothing but wonder which of her colleagues didn’t “do their job right”.

To be fair, the woman he talked to was misinformed. She thought there were other toilets available. I’m glad the other guy he talked to was more knowledgable and helpful.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person understand’s the first employee’s point of view.

Another person has a question.

I think the malicious part was making sure the woman knew he was through the barricade.

Here’s another question.

Sometimes it’s necessary to bend the rules.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.