The last few weeks have been a whirlwind on the work front as I’ve done a mad scramble to conduct Year End Business Reviews with some of our key clients in the Midwest. It’s meant a lot of travel and preparation, hence the absence on PithyPants for a few days.
This week I was onsite at a client from 9am-4pm in back-to-back meetings with different buyers and stakeholders from that company. The day was productive but taxing – especially because my normal eating schedule was disrupted. I tried to discreetly sip on a Diet Mt. Dew during my first meeting, but I felt decidedly W.T. so I abandoned the 20 oz bottle under the table and switched to water.
Interestingly, if you are craving caffeine and substitute your beverage with water, you end up pounding it by the gallon because you’re subconsciously not sated. So every time we had a 10-minute intermission between meetings, I bolted for the bathroom.
This wasn’t a big deal until my primary client – the woman who had coordinated the day of meetings and who is leading the charge on negotiating aggressive contract terms – ALSO needed to use the restroom.
You sit at a table and have formal conversations about ROI, cost-effectiveness, partnership. Then you hit the bathroom and continue the business talk, but with the odd accompaniment of bladders emptying.
Sitting on the toilet, I got a silent case of the giggles, thinking how funny it would be to have an “Austin Powers” moment in which I just kept peeing and peeing and peeing, leaving her to awkwardly stand by the sink and wait. Or how it would be awesome if she concluded her business by ripping an audible fart.
Maybe I’m blowing this out of proportion, but I just think there’s just something odd about taking a business conversation into a bathroom.
I suppose it could be worse. At least we weren’t using urinals. And we both washed our hands.
pithypants 
That is awesome. In the next set of negotiations, you could let her get into her points and just sit back making subtle fart noises. Business heckling.