Before I had made my mind up about pursuing further education, I decided to have a year free of studying, my father knew I would use this opportunity or better yet not use this opportunity to do something meaningful with the time I had to myself so I essentially had no choice but to work in his shop, it was a internet cafe which also focused on computer and mobile phone repair. I hated working in my dad's shop but looking back I understood it was probably infinitely better and character building than being a completely idle teenager.
One day this pair of siblings walked into the shop. It was a girl who was probably around 14 years old and her younger brother who was around 8 years old. They were there to print off a set of boarding passes, around 5 minutes in their task the sister says her brother really needs to use the toilet, I told her it was the company policy that we don’t allow people to use the bathroom unless they were employees, people usually understand and carry on with what they're doing, this was no different. I carried on playing Hotline Miami on the computer minding my own business until another 5 minutes passed. The girl had called me again but this time it was different, the boy was crying hysterically on the shop floor, I got up from my chair to see in my surprise and disgust that this boy had pissed himself, frozen standing in his own urine. I was shocked. I grabbed the boy and ushered him into the back to let him use the toilet, to try and defuse the situation and let him clean himself up but obviously he didn't need to use the toilet anymore because he decided that the shop floor was a more adequate environment instead.
I grabbed a mop and bucket and filled it with hot water and soap and cleaned up the boy's piss. It was at that moment I felt a wave of sadness, In my absence of my humanity and in the pursuit of following “company policy” I had completely humiliated this young boy who only needed to fulfil a basic human process and now I’m here mopping up his piss when this whole situation could have been avoided.