Thread by @Iansmithcomedy

7 years ago I worked in the bath mat department at John Lewis Oxford Street. It was the strangest period of my life. Here are some true stories from my time there...

Repeatedly, a woman in a suit with a John Lewis name tag would tell me, “there’s no such thing as a bath mat department” and ask me to leave the shop.

They put a picture of my face at the entrance with a sign under it saying, ‘Do not allow this man inside’ - but the security guards thought I’d won employee of the week and would congratulate me as I came in.

A customer told me they were actually a secret shopper and this was their first assignment and I threw them off the first floor on to a Paco Rabanne display because I decided early on that I wouldn’t tolerate snitches in my department.

The same man would come in every week and put the bath mats up against himself, walk over to a mirror and look at them - like he was trying to see if they would suit him to wear.

We had some memory foam bath mats come in, but whenever a customer would buy one, within a week they’d have found their way back home to the shelves.

When I tried to live in the shop at night I had to sleep perfectly still or a motion-sensor alarm would go off and four police cars would arrive outside and the whole shop would be searched.

A customer once told me his name was Matthew Bath, or Matt Bath - the opposite of ‘bath mat’. I sort of found it funny, but he was laughing for ages & came in the next day cos he was still giggling. He said that it'd be like someone looking at a bean bag being called Mr Bag Bean

Whenever I went to the canteen for lunch there’d be a man asking for ‘egg a l’orange’
The cook at the counter would say, ‘We’ve just run out, sorry love’ & then wink at me & roll her eyes. Then she’d open the big pocket on her apron & there’d be tons of egg a l’orange inside.

Another man asked me if you could cut a hole in the bath mat and wear it like a poncho and when I said, “I don’t think that’s what they’re for” he screamed at me, “I didn’t ask you what you think they’re for - I asked if I COULD!” and spat at me.

Behind one bath mat was a portal to the 1940s and Nicholas Lyndhurst would sometimes come along and go in and out. He told me Goodnight Sweetheart was a documentary but no one at the BBC would believe him.

I was taken to court and told I legally wasn’t allowed in any John Lewis stores and that I must stop “pretending to work there”. Over the following three months I grew a moustache and changed my hair style and carried on working there for another two months.

When I was back at work with my new moustache disguise, one of the store managers complained to me about a "weirdo, who used to think he worked in the bath mat department". I laughed and when she left I carried on arranging the bath mats.

One staff member was sacked after being accused of pooing into wellington boots because they got a thrill from watching people's shocked expressions when they tried them on. Only evidence against him was a huge bag of human excrement and a book on wellington boots in his locker

There was a regular customer who would buy a new bath mat every week. I said, 'You must have a lot of bath mats now?' and they started to cry. I said, 'I didn't mean anything by it mate' and they looked at me, just really sad, and said, "You meant something by it."

To get to work I would fly in using one of the magic bath mats and honestly the amount of weird looks I got made me feel really self-conscious.

After 16 months the manager gave me a John Lewis uniform & name tag with the following conditions:
1. "You're not getting paid"
2. "You have to have this sign on your back & you can't look at what it says"
3. "Stop shouting 'It's bath mat o'clock' on the hour, every hour"

Anyway, I did go over to the mirror department where one of my few friends at John Lewis worked (A girl named Hannah - even her name is perfectly reflected)...
I saw that the sign on my back said, "This man does not actually work here, please accept our apologies"

One man bought all of the bath mats in the store in one go - he said he was going to use them to spell out “will you marry me?” in a field so when he flew over it with his fiancé he could propose.
Some boys rearranged them to say, “you’re a prick Gina” and his fiancé left him.

One customer asked if I thought the bath mat would suit his bathroom - he showed me a picture but hadn’t cropped out the man that was handcuffed to the radiator by the bath. He quickly put his phone away and looked VERY sheepish.

A woman once pointed at me and said to her child, “This is why you need to work hard at school. Otherwise you’ll be working in the bath mat department at John Lewis”
The kid started crying and immediately pulled a maths textbook out of his bag to read.

Someone from Debenhams tried to poach me to work in their bath mat department.
I was tempted, but didn’t like that when he asked me to come to Debenhams canteen for a chat and some food he said “A chin-wag and some Deb-nom-noms”.

Steven, from the doormat department, would sometimes touch the bath mats and say how soft they were. I could see his palms were red raw from having touched the doormats too much.