Amazon Driver Alleges He Was Sent Home For Using Bathroom 'On the Clock'

An alleged Amazon delivery driver said he was sent home for his bodily needs in a video that went viral this week.

"I got my packages, I got my van, I'm about to start my route," said the driver on Friday in a TikTok video with 587,000 views, posting anonymously as @iagtjuice3. "But I stop at the gas station, you know, get a little snack for the road, get a little beverage."

He went on, "My stomach was hurting, I really had to use the bathroom—I used the gas station bathroom."

When he exited the restroom, the driver said his supervisor was standing outside, "posted up."

"What's going on? What's up? How you doin'?" he reportedly said to his supervisor.

"Go home," his manager allegedly said.

According to the employee, his manager asked, "Why are you wasting time there? You're on the clock."

The driver allegedly answered that he needed to defecate. His supervisor asked why he hadn't defecated at the warehouse, to which the driver replied, "I didn't have to sh*t then."

"Moral of the story, I got sent home for taking a sh*t, so Jeff [Bezos], please contact me," said the employee.

Working at Amazon

Bathroom complaints have followed Amazon for years, including reports of workers being forced to urinate in bottles and push through injuries due to strict time targets.

In 2018, undercover investigator James Bloodworth reported that fears of time-wasting forced warehouse employees to use a "toilet bottle" system in Staffordshire, England.

The investigation was followed by many similar accusations across the United States. Amazon drivers have reported urinating and defecating in their vans to meet delivery goal deadlines. A warehouse worker in Staten Island, New York, said they worked 60 hours during Prime week. After one long shift, they fell asleep behind the wheel and got into a car accident.

Another ex-employee in Winchester, Kentucky, sued the company in 2019 for allegedly firing him over frequent bathroom breaks. The former Amazon call center worker said he suffers from Crohn's disease, an illness that he disclosed to Amazon during his hiring and that caused him to need more bathroom breaks than the company permitted.

After initially dismissing the "pee bottle" stories, Amazon acknowledged that delivery drivers sometimes had trouble getting to bathrooms, although it denied this problem existed in its fulfillment centers.

"We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this has been especially the case during Covid when many public restrooms have been closed," the company said in 2021.

The TikTok video from @iagtjuice3 evoked a renewed wave of anger over bathroom break policies at companies like Amazon.

"I love how jobs are like 'you have designated break times'...ok tell my stomach that [because] it has a mind of its own," one user commented.

"Why do jobs act like us grown adults can't use the bathroom when we need to? Y'all [going to] diaper me up or can I go potty?" said another viewer.

Newsweek reached out to @iagtjuice3 and Amazon for comment.