Slacking Issue III: The Bathroom Break

Over the years I have had many different jobs and worked with many different people which have given me much insight into my current theme of "Slacking at work."  Because I am sharing many of these techniques doesn't necessarily mean that I, myself, have employed them.  I am just giving you my observational point of view, which leads me to my next topic, the bathroom break.

The bathroom break is similar to the smoke break in that if you work at a place where you won't get into trouble for taking as many bathroom breaks for as long as you need to without getting into trouble, some employees make sure to take full advantage of that workplace policy.  Now before we go much further I will let everyone know that I have never been comfortable taking a dump in a public place and doing so at the workplace was a very rare occurrence for me and would depend on the circumstances but I have a couple of examples of people that I worked with that had no inhibitions about using the toilet and would almost brag about their adventures in the bathroom ... "Boy you should have seen that last one, it about made me cry...had to flush twice and it still left streaks" a proud coworker would share with me without asking.

My first example was a coworker of mine about 10 years ago and let's call him Carl.  For some reason Carl thought it was absolutely outrageous if the first thing you didn't do when you got to work was grab the paper and go into the bathroom to spend the next 20 minutes emptying your bowels.  Then, before you left work that process should be repeated.  He took great pleasure in making sure that anytime he needed to take a dump it was done on company time.  I almost thought he would force himself not to shit all weekend so that when he came in on Monday it could be done while he was getting paid.  By setting this type of schedule, and making it known amongst your coworkers, you have essentially bought yourself at least a half hour, if not longer, per work day of "alone time".  Of course you need to be comfortable sitting on a toilet in the bathroom for the duration you don't want to appear working.

The second example was probably 20 years ago, damn has it been that long, but I digress.  I worked at a business where we would be fairly busy the first thing in the morning and then again in the late afternoon.  Well, when times were exceptionally slow, our managers/bosses would want us to do some sort of work around the place...sweep, mop, inventory, whatever.  Well, it didn't take long for me to catch onto the trick this one coworker employed and that was, as soon as it began to taper off they would have to go to the bathroom and sure enough wouldn't emerge from the restroom until the manager has assigned most everyone with some sort of menial task.  He would just "get lost in the shuffle" and end up basically doing nothing ... and apparently at no fault of his own for he was in the bathroom when duties would be assigned and then right when you think he would get some menial task assigned it would be lunch break and/or work would pick up and we would all resume our regular duties.  And what I would like to use this example for is to illustrate how the restroom, in most places, is still a sanctuary for people.  Would it be that difficult for a manager to walk to the restroom open the door and yell, "Hey Bob, after you are done how about sweeping up front?"  But managers are just like everyone else, trying to get by with doing less...its so much easier to assign that task to Joe who is just standing here...but I guess he is waiting to go to the bathroom...