It was the last straw. Mary Robinson's predecessor as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had just discovered his second-in-command had a bigger executive bathroom.
Throats were being slit in Algeria and refugees shot in Zaire, but the world's main defender of human rights was demanding golden faucets for his bathroom in Geneva.
For months, the battle raged at the top of the organisation. Meetings were cancelled because the two men refused to be in the same room. Human rights atrocities multiplied around the world, but UNHCHR ground to a halt.
This is the kind of disaster zone Mrs Robinson has inherited - a high-ego, low-output organisation at war with itself. No wonder Mrs Robinson this week said the UN had "lost the plot".
In Dublin for President McAleese's inauguration, Mrs Robinson looked tired and even thinner than usual. In her public statements, she has been more outspoken than for years, with much of the criticism directed at the UN.
Some observers have taken her comments as a sign that all is not well. She faces a mountain of opposition - internal and external - before she can push through her agenda. So has she taken on more than she can handle?
The first two months have certainly been busy. This week, for example, she flew from Dublin to meet Queen Elizabeth in London, dropping by the House of Commons before hurrying for a transatlantic flight.
"Until now, I have been preoccupied with learning and doing, while recognising that there was insufficient time to step back a little and think," she said in her first major address in Oxford last Tuesday.
She has met all her staff and makes the effort to address them by name. Those linked to the ancien regime are looking for transfers; others were sacked before she arrived.
Field projects have been put on hold until the internal housekeeping has been sorted out. A deputy commissioner, probably from a Third World country, will be appointed soon.
So far, she's getting mixed reviews among diplomatic circles in Geneva. "There's a perception that she's doing a good job. Her instinct is to speak her mind when an issue arises, but this has led to accusations that she doesn't listen," says one observer.
This week's Oxford speech is an example of Mrs Robinson "speaking her mind". Next year's 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was no cause for celebration, she said. "Count up the results of 50 years of human rights mechanisms, 30 years of multi-million dollar development programmes and endless high-level rhetoric and the global impact is quite underwhelming.
"So much effort, money and hopes have produced such modest results," she continued, adding that UN staff could do with some basic training in human rights.
She says she wants to be a "moral voice" for the victims of human rights violations. "The means at my disposal are modest, the tools being mainly advocacy and persuasion."
But can she do anything more?
Algeria, where the brutality of Islamic militants has been matched by government atrocities, is the first major test of her diplomatic skills.
Mrs Robinson is learning quickly about the gulf in understanding between the West and the developing world. While western diplomats have praised her performance on Algeria, one Arab journalist claims she has made "gaffe after gaffe" on the issue.
Mrs Robinson herself admits the gap in perceptions of what is meant by human rights is "even wider than I thought". In an effort to synthesise these two approaches, Mrs Robinson says she will give economic and social rights the same priority as civil and political rights.
Iraq presents her with an opportunity to win her spurs with the developing countries. She has already ruffled US feathers by expressing her concern about the suffering among ordinary civilians caused by the UN embargo.
Good relations with the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, will be crucial if she is to achieve her aim to "recapture the lost purpose of the UN".
Mr Annan's reform package for the organisation was given further approval at the General Assembly in New York this week. Mrs Robinson's aides say he has "come on board for human rights almost to a surprising extent" and by all accounts the two have an excellent working relationship.
But as one observer of the murky world of UN politics puts it: "Either they hang together or they'll hang separately."