Well today at work was a bit of a shock for me.

I had to go over to the medical records archives section today. Like many London hospitals, the hospital I work at has been around since the 1700s, so is now scattered over about 40 buildings, most of which are purely administrative areas (makes more space in the main hospital for patient stuff).

One of these admin areas houses the medical records archive, the phlebotomy clinic (where they do the blood tests) and the specimen drop off (for those of you have ever had to drop off a urine or stool sample at a hospital, you'll know the kind of thing I mean). So, naturally, during the week, it's a busy hub of activity, however on the weekend, it's like a ghost town; you could literally drop dead from a heart attack on Saturday in some of these smaller buildings, and not be found until everyone returns to work on Monday morning. Bloody scary thought.

Now usually because of just that, if we are working on the weekend and need to go the archives for anything, we go in pairs; today, I had to go on my own as we didn't have someone to spare. It's about a twenty minute walk there, and then a twenty minute walk back, so when we're short staffed having two people off the ward for an hour can be a bitch.

Now bad enough as it is being a ghost town, in order to save money, on the weekends, the heating gets turned off; fair enough, since there is usually nobody there from 5PM on Friday until 8AM on Monday. However, not fair enough when yours truly felt that pressure on his bladder and needed to pee. Now I hate using the toilets in the archives building for a whole host of reasons on the weekend, least of which is that they are public toilets (not staff toilets), so they are not security-only access; meaning that Joe Public can come and go as they please. When this building is busy, it's not really a problem, but when you are the only person there, if something happened, quite literally, nobody would hear you scream.

Anyway, thankfully today turned out not to be a concern so much about my physical safety as my mental well being. I walked into the toilet freezing my jacksie off, what with there being no heating on and the windows being wide open, and I heard what can only be described as two people having a hell of a lot of fun in one of the cubicles.

Now, there's me with full pressure on my bladder, feeling like a camel who hasn't pee'd in a month, and two (I presume and hope) consenting adults going at it like bunnies in one of the stalls.

So, just what do you do in that kind of SNAFU?

Well, I immediately came up with four alternatives:

1. Pee, wash my hands, and then calmly and casually leave as though nothing was wrong

2. Enjoy the sound of it for a while, take care of new business, pee, wash my hands, and then calmly and casually leave as though nothing was wrong, hoping I'd finish before they did

3. Knock on the door of the cubicle and ask if they were interested in a third

4. Run like the proverbial wind and alert one of the security staff

Well, I opted for number 4. Followed very quickly by number 1; in the comfort and safety of the staff toilets on my ward.

I've been told security will pull the CCTV footage on Monday and try to identify the cottagers (I believe that is the correct term).

So in that kind of SNAFU, what would you, my fellow GA'ers do?