Who Needs Dignity When You Have a Job?

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

The company installed a tracking system early this year that requires workers to swipe their ID cards to enter the bathroom so their time can be closely monitored.

-- New York Daily News

Comments

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

They take that "water saver" stuff pretty seriously.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Where is a guy supposed to wank?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Averages from your sex video suggest six minutes should be sufficient.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Small business owners can be such idiots about these kinds of things. Finding a good discrimination/non-accommodation claim here would be almost trivially easy.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

They understand that ruthlessness is the key, but are still learning how to focus.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Small business owners, despite their constant valorization in the media and in our politics, are still basically just flawed human beings with delusions of grandeur and limited competence. There's a reason they fail so frequently, and it isn't just luck or markets proving too difficult.

I have to imagine that, here, a company that's trying to squeeze additional productivity out of "restroom time" can't be one that's doing well; and, also, a company with this kind of thought going on at the top can't be bound for lasting success. If your workers find their working experience so unpleasant that they're trying to grab unscheduled "break time" by taking a "breather" in the restroom, maybe you should address that, holistically speaking, rather than trying to carrot-and-stick your way to profit.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I worked for an advert tracking agency, that required a lot of computer use. They were using time stamps on all their employees and using the activity log to see who was goofing off. Anything over six minutes generated a separate event log for the dept manager to review. I was asked about a 20 minute flag that went up on a Sunday I worked (I told them truthfully it was my lunch break).

[spamwarrior.livejournal.com]

How do you go to the bathroom when you're not on shift, then? Before and after work? This is insane. I can understand asking an employee to go home if they're spending upward of maybe 30 minutes in the bathroom, since they're clearly unwell, but man....

[oslo.livejournal.com]

It makes one wonder how the owner might respond were he to learn how many calories his employees burn just breathing and maintaining their internal body temperature. All that lost productivity!

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

That's 30 minutes for the week. Is that really excessive? Six minutes for the day seems close to right, so that I'd think a lot of people would be hitting that limit, so that they should at least bump that a bit - to maybe 10 minutes.

But I don't know. I usually don't time myself, but six minutes for the work day doesn't sound excessive to me. I like to wash my hands and everything.

[ladyelysium.livejournal.com]

What are they going to ask next? Women to give them their menstrual cycles to ensure they're not penalized for using the bathroom for 'too long' during that time of the month? So ridiculous.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I haven't even thought of that angle! That sounds like what Oslo was talking about, in terms of running into some legal trouble and discrimination.

[beyondfake-0.livejournal.com]

I wish I could haha.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

So if I have colitis, Crohn's or numerous other conditions that might necessitate longer or more frequent bathroom breaks then I'm just shit out of luck. Sounds like an ADA lawsuit just waiting to happen.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Is the company going to implement Mandatory Prunes for anyone with constipation?

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I suspect they are doing what they can to weed out such people from their work pool, or maybe it is against their religion to have them. ;)

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

"shit out of luck."

I get jokes.

[jom-art.livejournal.com]

worse part of the whole thing, is money that employees are making probably is just enough do not qualify for the welfare. I guess now they understand why unions are matter.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I think employees understood that unions mattered; it's the employers who thought they mattered too much and made them disappear.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Heh, they shouldn't underestimate the ingenuity of the American worker.

[blackdwarv.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking breaking the lock or wedging a pebble into the doorway...

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

The solution is to leave the building to go to the bathroom. Or go to another floor, if they can, if they share the building with another company. Maybe the lobby-adjacent bathrooms, which I assume would be open for public use?

Good thing they manufacture sinks, and not toilets.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

If they are this uptight about using the bathroom, I don't think
they are going to be happy about people traveling around!

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

That's for regular hires. Temps and contractors can wear diapers, I'm sure.