They just couldn’t go with the flow.
A former computer executive who suffers from serious bladder issues insists his ex-company wrongly fired him for peeing in the lobby of a Times Square hotel after a business meeting and getting spotted by a horrified higher-up, according to a new lawsuit.
Richard Becker, a former salesman at Lenovo, claims in his $1.5 million lawsuit that he couldn’t make it back to his room at the Westin New York, and instead had no choice but to “discreetly urinate on the ground” in the hotel’s “vestibule”
The 66-year-old said he had visited a bathroom five times during the business meal, but became “overwhelmed” with his bladder condition on the walk back to the hotel and had to do his other business in public on the Westin floor.
He wasn’t “discreet” enough, however, and was spotted doing number one by another Lenovo employee — who reported what he did to company brass, a move Becker says was done “out of spite and malice.”
Four days later, Becker was booted — without notice or severance — despite the company having full knowledge of his longtime bladder condition.
Now he’s suing Lenovo for discriminating against him because of his disability, according to court documents filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“With knowledge of Becker’s bladder condition (a disability under the law),” the lawsuit reads, “Lenovo summarily terminated Becker because he suffers from that condition, following an incident that had no impact on Becker’s job performance or Lenovo’s business.”
In court documents, Becker paints himself as a veteran of the computer sales industry, and, since being hired in 2022, excelled as Lenovo’s Global Account Sales Executive, winning awards — including a trip to Costa Rica — and claiming a 200 percent growth in business.
And since 2016, he’s also suffered a chronic medical condition which causes him to frequently pee, and regularly receives treatment from a urologist. Becker’s suit says his co-workers were so aware of the issue, they “poked fun at him for how frequently he needed to use the bathroom.”
But during a work trip that put him and colleagues up at the Times Square Westin last February, that bladder condition beat him in the race back to the hotel from a restaurant 12 blocks away, he claims.
Becker only made it “as far as the hotel vestibule,” his suit reads, “a deserted area located on a different floor from the lobby.”
“At that point, embarrassed, panicked, and faced with an emergency, Becker had no choice but to discreetly urinate on the ground behind a column in the vestibule.”
He claims to have not seen anyone. But a Lenovo vice president watched him pee and quickly informed the computer Human Resources department.
Four days later, the suit claims, Becker was fired without even being asked about his side of the story.
A worker at the Westin, however, told The Post that no space is known as “the vestibule” and that the only public spaces in the hotel with columns were either the first-floor entrance or the concierge desk on the second floor.
Additionally, the employee said, the lobby has bathrooms.
Becker or his attorney could not be reached despite multiple efforts,
His suit also claims that his pee problem, which “Lenovo understood to have been caused by his disability,” pales in comparison to “far worse conduct” he cites, like when drunk Lenovo salespeople stuffed a work colleague inside a “toy vending machine” in an infamous 2021 event.
Since his termination, Becker says he hasn’t found a new job. His suit is seeking damages of at least $1.5 million.
Lenovo did not respond to a request for comment.
