Memos from Bear Cave: Bathroom Crisis

This article is part of the Memos from Bear Cave series.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: Wednesday, March 28, 1979
SUBJECT: Bathroom Maintenance

Some gentlemen will be in the offices this morning removing extra toilets, urinals, and sinks from the bathrooms. In an effort to save money and discourage you from taking care of personal bowel movements and indulging in excessive urination on my dime, I'm selling the superfluous toilets, urinals and sinks. I need to reclaim some of the losses I've incurred as a result of overzealous bathroom use and high water bills.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: Thursday, March 29, 1979
SUBJECT: Bathroom Lines

Employees are not to form lines for the bathroom. If you want to stand in lines, do so on your own time and not in my office. The carpeting I installed in the hallways outside the bathrooms at great personal expense does not need the additional wear and tear of mindless loitering.

In regards to bathroom use, we will be utilizing a tier system. One-year employees must yield bathroom priority to two-year employees, and they must yield to three-year employees. And so on. I have, however, given special permission to the following people to use the bathroom whenever they please:

Manuel Rodriguez
Tall Charlie
My idiot rockabilly son.

If you are in the bathroom and one of these people wants to use it, you need to wrap up your business immediately and get the hell out.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: Thursday, March 29, 1979
SUBJECT: Gender Bending

This is a place of business and not the god-awful pervert film "Rocky Horrible Picture Show." Under no circumstances are women to use the men's restroom, or vice versa. There are any number of diseases and infections men can catch from sharing a toilet with a broad, and there are things no woman should ever see in the men's restroom.

If you are a man, you do not conduct your business where a lady conducts hers.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: Thursday, March 29, 1979
SUBJECT: Bathrooms Closed

According to my eyes and ears in the Bear Cave Soup Co. sanitation world, Manuel, the two remaining toilets aren't holding up to demand. Until further notice the bathrooms are closed. If you absolutely cannot hold it, please use the unused #5 vat in the soupyards. I'm sick of wasting hard-earned money so you can flush away a little tinkle.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: Thursday, March 29, 1979
SUBJECT: "Hand Slapping"

I just caught wind of a new trend spreading around the office that I do not approve of. "Hand Slapping" as it is called is not to be done on my property. If you want to slap your hand against another person's hand, do so somewhere far away and outside of work. I don't tolerate sex perverts and inappropriate touching in my office.

TO: The Women of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: Thursday, March 29, 1979
SUBJECT: Clarification on inappropriate touching

Some of you took my last memo the wrong way. I am the owner of this company, and reserve the right to touch employees as I see fit. Because you work for me, I own your body. If that fact bothers you, you can pack up your desk and find new work. I have as much right to touch or inspect the humans I employ as I do the tools and machines I own. That's just smart business, and I am a smart businessman.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: Thursday, March 29, 1979
SUBJECT: Correction

There was a typo in today's " Bathrooms Closed" closed memo. Please use the #6 vat. The #5 is used for our Triple Asparagus.

Stop using #5 at once. I will know if it has been defiled again. I swim in those vats nightly and know the exact formulas with every pore of my skin. If that formula is even a little off, there will be hell to pay.

TO: All Employees of Bear Cave Soup Co.
DATE: Friday, March 30, 1979
SUBJECT: Business Excellence

I noticed some rotten odors wafting around the office this morning. According to Manuel, many of you are "diaping up" as a way of getting around the lack of bathrooms. Let me just say that this is exactly the kind of forward thinking I respect and admire here. For the first time in a long time I am proud of my employees.

Those awful odors are the smell of business getting done. It's a strong, bold, and defiant smell. It stings the nostrils and pays no heed to doors, walls or personal space. That's what good business should do. It should hurt a little and feel dirty. You can't make an omelet without dropping a few eggs on the floor and then scooping them up and putting them back in the omelet before somebody notices.

P.S. Somebody needs to clean up the #6 vat because it is full of raw sewage and overflowing into the nearby vats. Because you guys did such a great job, I'll leave it up to you to bully the weakest person into doing it.

– Josh "Livestock" Boruff (@Livestock)