How does sound work?

I've been working in the outpatients clinic this week. Which in some ways has been good: working similar hours to the rest of the world and having little involvement with the faeces of others, for instance. In other ways though, it has been bad: having to cope with change and discover the pros and cons of which toilet to use. On the ward there are a few toilets for staff use, one of which is tucked away behind several closed doors, offering privacy and quiet. In the clinic I do my blood-taking and responding to requests with blank expressions in a little room off a corridor. The room I work in is two doors away from the toilet and I never, ever hear what people are up to in there. Off the same corridor there is a large waiting room with a telly in the corner. And the telly is always turned on. Although I never hear people on the toilet, when I go to the toilet I can actually hear a person sighing in the waiting room. I don't understand it. I don't think they can hear me, even though I can hear them. I assume they can't hear me on the toilet. I hope they can't hear me on the toilet.

Unfortunately, I think they probably could hear when I had to flush the toilet three times. Ah! So, that's why the little sign was stuck on the engaged symbol! Because it was broken. Perhaps 'out of order' might have been a less subtle way of saying 'do not use the toilet'. Do you think you would want to receive a vaccination or have your blood taken by someone who, in your mistaken view, has enormously large, three flush poohs?