ihatemyjob

How do you solve the problem of having to pee more often than you are allowed time for at your corporate job?

Depends.

No, seriously. I recently read that adult diapers are becoming necessary supplies for employees across America who work for large corporations that quantify potty time.

I myself worked for a multinational corporation that had a 3 minute a day average limit on potty time. At this job, I was required to hit a  ‘potty code’ on my computer if I left my work station to use the restroom. If we were caught going to the restroom without hitting the potty code, we were formally disciplined. (Verbal warning, written warning, probation, blah, blah, blah…) So there was real negative incentive to comply with the whole potty code thing, invasive as it was.

I worked there for five years exactly. Out of sixty months, I complied with the potty code part of my review for 59, but there was one month in which my average potty code time for the month was three minutes and 7 seconds, and that month my supervisor reprimanded me and told me I was  going to have to watch that.

Here’s how I responded:

I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. By that time I’d been there over four years and I was beyond fed up with their management style. I was making good money, yes. But I had someone half my age telling me I use the bathroom too much at a formal review–because I spend seven seconds over three minutes there in a single month of 8 hour days.

I said, “I’ve had three kids. I’m old. If I need to pee, I’m gonna pee. Try and stop me.”

After that, I quit using the potty code. If I had to pee, I went to the rest room. The end.

Every time I see that TV commercial about the middle-aged woman who has a private chat with the female logo on the restroom door about her potty habit and how there’s a drug that can help her pee less often, I think about my own experience and I get mad. Since when are there rules about how often it is acceptable to pee? What’s wrong with just going to the bathroom when you need to go however many times that is?

I strongly suspect that these drugs have become popular because quantifying bathroom habits has become popular in corporate America, and that requirement is an issue for women over 50. But maybe the answer isn’t to take a drug or wear a diaper. Maybe the right answer is to tell your 25 year old supervisor where to get off.

As in, “You seriously want to police my bathroom habits? You’re on, bitch! Now we’re gonna have some real fun!”

Corporate potty rules are the ultimate ‘human resource’ degradation, and if we can’t draw the line there, where do we draw the line? What will it take for cubicle slaves everywhere to get mad enough to unite and (like our new Prez) finally say, “Enough!”

Efforts to organize Verizon failed.

But it ain’t over until it’s over; until we finally flush that busybody, drug-pushing bathroom logo down the toilet.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS