People Who Knock on Public Single-occupancy Bathroom Doors

I happen to have worked in two large buildings that have single-occupancy bathrooms for public use with a lock on the door. Despite being separated by thousands of miles and my experience with them separated by years, there are a significant number of people that approach the doors of these bathrooms and nearly simultaneously knock and turn the knob of the door. These people are possibly mad. Let's think about the expected outcomes...

  1. Door opens and it's empty - hurray! I can use it!

  2. Door opens because you didn't wait to turn knob and it's occupied - oh no! (Unless you're into that sort of thing I guess.)

  3. Door doesn't open because people lock these doors when using the bathroom

  4. Door doesn't open and someone answers back "I'm in here," which is information you should have gleaned because... the door doesn't open.

So did you need to knock and send a momentary shiver of panic into the occupant to end up with the end result in any of the above scenarios? No. Unless you are one of the fetishists mentioned in scenario #2 who also enjoys scaring people while peeping them pooping.

In summary:

  1. Don't knock on single occupancy bathroom doors. You gain nothing by it except sending a small scare into the occupant.

  2. Building managers should consider adding the "OCC/VAC" red/green visuals to the door locks so people know and don't even have to try the knob.

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