Who pooped in the Breakroom?

I wanted to post more light-hearted faire today as yesterday's post, I now realize, contained a depth of existential angst that could cause depression in a reader. Therefore I will recount an episode that occurred a couple weeks ago while at my current position of "team leader" on a document review project. Behold: the mystery of

Who Pooped in the Breakroom?


Lawyers live in a world of shit. We talk shit to each other, we shuffle shit around on our desks and on our computers, and often times, we get treated like shit (and in turn, treat other people like shit.) It's one big happy shitfest and sooner of later, you are either getting your face shoved in shit or more hopefully, doing the shoving yourself. Perhaps the shit that we deal with as attorney seeps into our subconscious mind and causes some of us to yield to our inner scato-phile. I once heard a story about an Of Counsel at a Big NY Law Firm who liked to work late and then take dumps in the hallway of the firm. Apparently, this scatologically-challenged attorney would also create huge pyramids of toilet paper on the top of the shits he took. Every morning, some poor slob custodian would have to come clean up the turds and the turd edifices he made. The punchline of the story is that the firm in question did not fire this guy even though they had it on tape that this guy was defecating in their hallways. I guess his billables were good.

Ironically enough, the person who told me this story worked for the same firm as the mad-shitter and got laid off last winter. Prior to getting the boot, she had been told that she had no chance of getting fired, because, after all, this was the same firm that kept on a guy that was taking dumps on the firm carpet. I can only guess that her work-product was not as good as the mad-shitter's was.

My "law shit" story is far more mundane and prosiac. A couple weeks ago, I was making my hourly trip to the coffee room to maintain my caffeine levels when I noticed that there were five guys milling around the elevator lobby waving their arms around and talking loudly to each other. Being in my own little world as usual, I ignored the commoition and headed straight for the break-room. However, I was rudely interrupted from my reverie when one of the fellows, who I think works in the mail room, shouted "Pay Attention!." I looked down at the floor and noticed that I had narrowly escaped the fate of stepping in a turd. This particular turn was about 3-4 inches, more long than narrow, and rather brown. From the length of the turd, my guess was that it came from a medium size dog or a very large cat. (It was clear that this piece of shit had not come from a rodent.)

Studying the stinkard from a closer distance, however, I was struck by the possibility that this dookie might have had human origins. There was a certain curvature to the voidance that indicated that it was not animal-borne. Had the mad-shitter returned and was he now targeting plaintiff's law firms and document review caserooms? Had a document reviewer become so fed up with the endless and tedious task of coding and reviewing documents that he (or she) felt the only way to express themselves was to defecate in the elevator lobby and thus, demonstrate to the world, his (or her) opinion of life as a temporary attorney?

These and other pressing questions I pondered while the five men in question argued loudly as to who had made this crap and, more practically speaking, who has responsible for cleaning up said crap. Having analyzed the situation and realizing that I couldnt do much to help, I continued on to the case room, making sure to check that my shoes had not been stained by the Texan. Returning back through the elevator lobby 5 minutes later, I saw that the men had gone their way. The dung, however, remained. I returned back to the room and reported my findings to the rest of the team, politely warning them to please watch their step while walking through the lobby. Collective gasps of disgust greeted the news. There was some ameteur detective work regarding who had made the stinker in question. Eventually, the issue was dropped and some time later, we learned that the poop had been cleaned up.

A week later, rumours started flying around that somone had pooped in the breakroom. Having not seen the turd in the breakroom, at first, I wasn't entirely sure whether this was a new shit or the same old shit. It is, of course, entirely possible that the mad-shitter had struck again, this time, his target was closer to home as the breakroom is where many a weary coder goes to relax, watch ESPN, and bill hours while doing nothing. However, given that the breakroom is almost never empty, I found it hard to believe that the opportunity would have arisen to take a meanie in the room , unless of course, our mysterious defecator had dropped this grumpy in public; but then, this would have surely been noticed. A more likely explanation is that the poop in the breakroom was the same poop as that in the elevator and through the rumour mill, the story had evolved from a simple dingleberry in the elevator room to a massive jake in the breakroom. It was agreed by all that whomever was doing these do-dos was a twisted individual who should be sent home immediately with the instructions to learn how to evacuate their bowels in the proper place. Or alternatively, whoever was bringing their dog to work and letting it release its filth all over the workpace should stop doing so immediately.

As of today, no further turdballs, dingleberries, craps, jakes, shits, or likewise have been found at the worksite. The search for the mad-shitter, however, continues.