4 ms·
Here's one I don't know how to solve: at work some folks take meetings in the bathroom. They're on their phone, they walk to a stall, do their... business whil
by dekhn 9mo ago
Here's one I don't know how to solve: at work some folks take meetings in the bathroom. They're on their phone, they walk to a stall, do their... business while doing their business, all the while talking and listening, while toilets flush in the background.
I understand cultural differences but taking business meetings in the bathroom seems inappropriate under effectively all circumstances.
- sublinear 9mo agoReport it to HR
- pelagicAustral 9mo agoUnder what punishable figure, pissing while working?
- sublinear 9mo agoHR is not merely about punitive measures. This would be escalated to upper management to find out why people are under so much time pressure that they need to take calls in the bathroom, and at the very least doing so would be made some kind of violation of new policy. These are the kinds of reports the organization needs as ammunition in order to fix what sound like bigger problems with the organization and work culture. There's very little chance this hasn't been noticed and isn't a symptom of something more going on.
- closewith 9mo ago> This would be escalated to upper management to find out why people are under so much time pressure that they need to take calls in the bathroom, and at the very least doing so would be made some kind of violation of new policy. Or why there are people so idle that they can defecate without working. Remember, HR protects the company, and complaints about heavy hitters because they work on porcelain aren't going to reflect well on the complainant.
- sublinear 9mo agoYes, that old chestnut. It's such insanely toxic advice too. You're correct that HR is there to protect the company. The original post did not specify "heavy hitters", nor did I ever say to make an accusatory report. HR doesn't have to specifically know who is taking their calls this way. I'm sorry if you or others have had such bad experiences with the most basic of HR interactions, though if I assume you're taking your own advice I doubt you've ever tried. There's the tactful way to do this, and then there's whining to HR. I would be very careful taking advice from whiners because they're the ones who keep propagating this bad faith myth about HR. All I'm saying to do is notify them about ongoing behavior with an emphasis on how it probably makes the company look bad and that it's done by many. They don't care who is doing it and it's not personal. I'd honestly be very surprised if this behavior doesn't already fall under some existing policy.
- closewith 9mo ago> I'm sorry if you or others have had such bad experiences with the most basic of HR interactions, though if I assume you're taking your own advice I doubt you've ever tried I use HR to protect my company from people like you.
- sublinear 9mo agoAnd there it is. It's exactly as I suspected. The only people spreading the toxic advice about HR are the ones who benefit most from making the workplace suck for everyone else. I can only hope you just think HR is there to insulate you this way and haven't had to test it, because it simply isn't. You really don't want to be on the losing end of a wrongful termination suit. It's only because people rarely bother that you may not have come across one of those. Then it then escalates to worse when all of HR spills their guts about the pressure they were under to protect higher ups. There is no loyalty after all. It's just a job to everyone else.
- closewith 9mo agoHR insulates me and the rest of the heavy hitters from people like you. It's a Godsend, obviously. Surveilling co-workers in the bathroom is more than sufficient grounds for dismissal - gross misconduct.
- chasd00 9mo agoIf the Supreme Court can do it then why not Jan in backend dev? https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/politics/toilet-flush-supreme-court-oral-arguments https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/politics/toilet-flush-supreme...
- keeganpoppen 9mo agothis is, and forgive me the lowering of quality discourse here, what ripping one’s loudest farts and triple flushing is for. if they are so important that they can live through the embarrassment that i would assume 99.9% of people would feel in that situation, then good on ‘em.
- Henchman21 9mo agoBeing unable to feel embarrassment is not a "good on 'em" situation. The inability to feel shame is a serious impairment of one's faculties. It is literal brain damage.
- HendrikHensen 9mo agoGo to the stall next door, play pooping and farting noises on your phone, very loudly.
- dekhn 9mo agoI really don't need a phone to do that. That's what I'm in there for already.
- RomanPushkin 9mo agoHave you thought it could be because of the pressure they're getting at work? Today you're forced to work when you're sick, to do your business while doing your business... I agree that flushing toilets could have been muted, but isn't it a Zoom/Google-Meets issue when they're supposed to remove the noise?
- Tempest1981 9mo agoCrushing it! And flushing it.
- jlarocco 9mo agoA previous CTO at my company would do this and it always weirded me out. Standing at the urinal, and suddenly hear him talking to a customer over in the stall. Very strange and uncomfortable. I won't lie, though, I secretly enjoyed timing flushes to match when he was talking.
- rootusrootus 9mo ago> timing flushes Or porcelain-shattering dumps. Such a liberating experience by itself in a public bathroom, doing it to someone on the phone would give me a memory that would bring a smile to my lips for many years.
- mc32 9mo agoAgree that this is very annoying and I can’t imagine taking calls much less having discussions while on the toilet.
- logicx24 9mo agoRobert Caro, in the LBJ series, wrote about how LBJ would use the discomfort of being the bathroom as a negotiating technique and a show of dominance. He would drag senators into the bathroom and force them to listen to him talk as he used the urinal, or force his staffers to take dictation as he took a shit.
- darth_avocado 9mo agoI have seen more than one CEOs of big companies do this. The number VPs is probably a lot more.
- jasonwatkinspdx 9mo agoApparently he urinated on the shoes of a secret service agent just as a flex.
- tyleo 9mo agoCrazily enough, I’ve also heard he pulled his Johnson out in meetings.
- lostlogin 9mo agoThere is a joke here somewhere.
- treetalker 9mo agoToobin would like a word.
- abalashov 9mo agoI understand the overwhelming opposition to this, and I wouldn't do it myself. However, I lead a life of very few meetings (I'd actually appreciate more--this stance puts me in a very small company, to be sure), so it's easy for me to say that one should be more judicious with one's timing. I can emphathise with someone stuck in meetings all day in a predominantly listening role, that they consider perfunctory or mostly pointless, or maybe in a very active role that has them stressfully bouncing from meeting to meeting. I can easily envision how this would lead to a kind of nihilistic resignation and a determination to just do normal life stuff with a headset on one's head.
- gouggoug 9mo agoThere’s a difference between passively listening to a meeting and actively participating, while being in the bathroom. I would never do either. But one is less weird than the other.
- array_key_first 9mo agoAnd if you're going to be playing audio in the bathroom, any audio, wear some god damn headphones. I don't want to listen to your standup or your tiktok.
- rootusrootus 9mo agoExactly. If you’re just listening on a headset and are muted, then it’s way less obnoxious.
- krick 9mo agoAs a matter of fact, I do NOT understand the overwhelming opposition to this. What's your deal if a guy is good at multitasking and people on the other end of the wire don't mind it? It isn't like he is desecrating a temple, or intruding into your home and using your toilet, or jerking off in the public... Wait, actually I'd say even the latter shouldn't be your business, unless he stains something. Why cannot people mind their own business?
- 9mo ago
- mmmlinux 9mo agoJust join in the conversation. People hate that for some reason.
- mystifyingpoi 9mo agoI regularly engage in meetings when taking a dump, but only when I'm working from home, and of course flushing only on mute. I don't have a problem with that, the other side has no idea where I am anyway.
- closewith 9mo agoEveryone knows you're in a toilet due to the acoustics, but no-one is going to bring it up out of courtesy. Everyone also thinks less of you for it.
- RussianCow 9mo agoI highly doubt it. Most people are in rooms with bad acoustics to begin with.
- closewith 9mo agoI'm not sure if you're serious, but everyone knows.
- 7bit 9mo agoNo one knows.
- NamlchakKhandro 9mo agoWe know now
- riversflow 9mo agoYeah this whole thread is absolutely filled with prudes as far as I'm concerned. Everybody poops, get over it.
- NamlchakKhandro 9mo agoI think you're mistaken sir. I myself, me... Am descendant from a long line of arms that ascend from misty lakes depensing royalty on the form of moist scimitars.
- NoSalt 9mo agoThis ... is disgusting and appalling.
- m463 9mo ago> I understand cultural differences These are not cultural differences. This behavior is across-all-cultures lack of decency. I would say the answer is education, but like the law doesn't even prevent all speeding, maybe the answer is speed bumps (this app?)
- throw310822 9mo agoLet me guess: Ireland?
- Pxtl 9mo agoIn 1-on-1 it would be awkward to call it out but in a group meeting where I wouldn't be singling a person out it'd be pretty easy to just ask "could whoever's in the bathroom please mute?" without any kind of confrontation.
- shevy-java 9mo ago> but taking business meetings in the bathroom seems inappropriate under effectively all circumstances. Now, now ... if she is pretty ...
- 7bit 9mo agoOnce you took a meeting while taking a shit, you will see things differently. It just makes problems look insignificant, when you're pumping one out while you listen to someone explain how the issue is company critical. Of course, disable your camera and mute your mic while dropping or flushing. And how to deal with it becomes vastly different when you've done it. It's just human. Just ignore it.
- joecool1029 9mo ago> Here's one I don't know how to solve: at work some folks take meetings in the bathroom. Not legal but there’s a technical solution that’s worked in the past: pocket cell jammer. Range isn’t very far but it’ll work to boot callers a stall away or a booth away at a diner, etc. Only need to run it a few seconds to drop a call. Do want to stress these do see enforcement now (in the US at least) but a low power pocket one used occasionally is unlikely to attract attention. It will be noticed if it’s higher power or runs in a regular location. Fines are severe and risk jailtime but hey it’s your life.
- matthewfcarlson 9mo agoI wonder if there’s a jammer out there that also sends WiFi deauth packets
- joecool1029 9mo agoPlenty, this is something off the shelf consumer hardware can be modified to do. However it's not super effective anymore as 802.11w (protected management frames) is a thing and mandatory for WPA3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11w-2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11w-2009
- matthewfcarlson 9mo agoAh I’m a few years out of date but I’ll admit I don’t see many WPA3 APs in homes
- amelius 9mo agoQuestion: if two people are caught having SDR units that could cause the jamming, how do they know who is guilty?
- linohh 9mo agoBoth. It's not who caused the jam. Operating these things isn't legal to begin with.
- not_a_bot_4sho 9mo agoTangentially, I did this once years ago. I had consumed a large amount of spicy food the day prior, and it pulled the fire alarm right in the middle of a phone screen. I foolishly thought I could silently and secretly handle both tasks at once. These were the days before background noise filters. The poor candidate obviously heard unpleasant things but neither of us acknowledged it directly. He accepted the job though. But this still bothers me decades later. Never again!
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- linohh 9mo agoOh, I had that in my old office building, everyone but me was buying and selling fruit and they were dealing while shitting in the communal bathrooms. Really weird when you just want to defecate and suddenly someone yells into their phone YES I'LL BUY EVERYTHING.
- alsetmusic 9mo agoMy previous employer was a twenty-something person shop and the owner would do this while speaking with clients. Granted, it was a single-person bathroom, but it still drove me mad. There’s no way people couldn’t hear what was happening while he spoke and flushed the toilet. Maybe that’s part of why we weren’t getting new clients.
- morkalork 9mo agoI worked in a building that shared the floor with a small law office, the number of lawyers that would cruise on in to take a piss while chatting away on their Bluetooth earphones was too high. They would be talking about their client's cases too, no respect for privacy at all.
- tsoukase 9mo agoDuring toilet and all other breaks between my patients' visits I always call back the numbers had reached me. During the flush moment I increase my voice volume. I don't know how it's heard on the other side. There is no other way I return home on time.