"Minutes from finishing my retail shift, we found a poo in the change rooms."

Service staff – like retail and hospitality workers – cop a lot of sh*t.

Most of the time this looks like a rude and entitled customer taking their bad day out on someone who is unlucky enough to utter the phrase, “I’m sorry but we’ve sold out of that sandal in a size 8,” but other times, this can take on a much more literal meaning.

Sometimes adult humans will – for reasons unknown – decide to leave their mark on the world by doing a poo in a fitting room, scarring these poor and unfortunate employees who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In case you missed it: This is how retailers are tricking us into spending more.

Luckily, said employees can take solace in the fact that they will forever have a story to tell unwitting members of the public and watch as their eyes fill with confusion and horror, because until you’re confronted with a human turd in the public domain, you just don’t know how bad it can get.

For example, like many people before me, my first job from the ages of 17-20 was working the front registers at my local department store. Among anecdotes of someone returning ‘worn underwear,’ and a toddler who had a thing for making ‘little vomits’ all around our sizeable store, there was the time someone did a poo in the women’s change room. And make no mistake, it was apparent from the (errr) girth of the excrement, that it once belong in the bowels of an adult, or post-pubescent teenager.

One night, five minutes before our 10pm closing time, the evening manager ran up to the front desk to inform me that somebody had left a poo in the change rooms. She was visibly grossed out and I tried to hold back an audible gag. It was a quiet night and of the dozen or so customers who had entered and left in the past half hour, I had probably greeted all of them. Unknown to me, I had made eye contact with the poo fiend. By the time we got to the change rooms, it turned out that one of the apparel staff, Lydia, had already “disposed” of the mess, with the offending matter safely contained in many layers of plastic bags.

We all left work that night with an unparalleled respect for Lydia. As they say, not all heroes wear capes. Some grab a plastic bag glove and plunge themselves straight into the depths of excrement-tainted danger.

However, I know I'm not the only poo-scarred ex-retail employee out there. Far from it.

Former comrade and retail employee, Emily, can also relate.

"I worked in the fitting room and people are arse holes so a lot of them never brought the clothes back out so I would have to go in there, pick them up and re hang them," she tells Mamamia.

"Once I went into one fitting room and it smelt so bad but I just thought someone had farted because IT COULDN'T POSSIBLY BE ANYTHING ELSE!"

Side note: Of course she did, because poo belongs in toilets, not change rooms.

"But I was wrong and I ended up picking up more than clothes that day."

"I had to wash my arm and they gave me a new top to wear and a $20 voucher."

This doesn't only happen to fitting room staff. Former casino worker, Claire, once witnessed a man do a number two in a pot plant and we have no words.

"It's amazing what people will do to not lose site of a winning pokie machine. When I was younger I worked in a casino which had these giant gold look plant pots scattered throughout the building. Punters used them like a giant rubbish bins or a spot to dump an empty glass but one night we watched in horror as a man backed away from a poker machine, never breaking eye contact with the auto spin, to undo his pants and then 'lean' on the side of the pot plant like he was just taking a rest," she began, and oh please god no...

"He then casually pulled his pants back up and went back to the machine. We called security who not only had to escort the man from the premises but had to organise someone to remove the poo and clean out the pot.

"It's not an isolated incident.. casinos are a hot bed of stories about poorly released bodily fluids!!"

And we will never look at a pot plant in the same way ever again.

Worse off was cafe worker Amy, who was tasked with cleaning up... the situation.

"At the cafe where I worked, the bathrooms were around the back where anyone could wander in and do their business," she said... and we've identified their first mistake: trusting people.

"One day, in the middle of the lunch rush, a horrified looking woman came in to inform me there was a situation in the women's bathroom. I entered the stall to see sloppy poo smeared all over the toilet seat, toilet roll holder and the flush button. But it gets worse.

"I turned to see the poo was also smeared on the tiles of the walls and all over the back of the door. It was like something out of a horror film."

Has this happened to you? Can you relate? Group therapy is open in the comments.