Management Tactic #58: A Modest Proposal

I have a proposal for maximizing efficiency and productivity. I would suggest that all workplaces enact this policy, effective immediately.

The average American worker spends 27 minutes in the bathroom a day (Stegmaier 2011). Not only are workers moving bowels and excreting liquids, they are washing hands, examining blemishes in the mirror, and adjusting their hair so it looks like they didn’t just adjust it. Some even choose to spray air cleansers immediately preceding their exit, which serves to make the bathroom smell like freshly shampooed poop.

I don’t know about you, but I find that the primary time that my coworkers page my desk phone is when I’m in the bathroom. My bathroom is attached to my office, so I can hear my coworkers calling, and yet I cannot answer. Sometimes I’m so desperate to answer that I text the coworker in question from the commode: “In the bathroom! Indian food LOL :P.”

(Sidenote: Should punctuation follow emoticons? It seems that emoticons effectively end the sentence. Perhaps someday all punctuation will be replaced with emoticons.)

Thus I propose the following:

Henceforth, all employees will be required to wear adult diapers while at work.

Think of the hike in productivity! Rather than waste time walking to the bathroom every hour, workers can simply to their business at their desk while doing business. Instead of missing valuable time at meetings by taking bathroom breaks, employees can break the seal right there at the conference table. Companies could spend their discretionary funds on executive bonuses instead of the endless sinkhole that is toilet paper (I mean, what’s the ROI on toilet paper? I don’t see “clean butts” on the Fortune 500 criteria).

The advantages are endless.

I’ll run this by my coworkers tomorrow. I’m sure the response will be overwhelmingly positive.

10 thoughts on “Management Tactic #58: A Modest Proposal”

  1. First, ew…

    Second, punctuation then emoticon in my opinion.

    Third, I don’t see the men changing themselves as often as would be needed.

    What about space underwear in which the waste gets vacuumed into a little backpack that gets emptied at the end of the day?

    Very weird post, Jamey. 🙂

    Reply
    • Emma–True, that is a messy topic. I think the type of diapers depends on how eco-friendly the company is. At my office, we try to use disposal products as little as possible, so I guess we’ll be washing our cloth diapers at home every night.

      Reply
  2. Last Friday I was staring at the empty back wall of my cubicle, and decided to give it a little more character. I’ve read and saved excerpts from several different books on business tactics and innovation in the last few years. I chose certain short passages, copied them into Microsoft Word, and printed them out for my cube wall to see if it would help motivate me, my employees, and stimulate conversation amongst us. I had some extra space to fill, so I went to your blog, Jamey, and chose a few of your Management Tactic posts to join my board of wisdom (hopefully this is ok with you—I’m giving you full credit, I promise!). Some of my favorite posts like Fingerpointing, The Value of Facetime, I Am Responsible, Don’t Make Lemonade and Make Yourself Obsolete are now present for everyone in my department to read and comment on.

    I checked the blog this morning, and as the page was loading, I noticed it was another post Management Tactic category. I was so excited! Would this be another gem to add to the wall? Before I read any of the text, I noticed the photo, and a few questions immediately sprang to mind. “What is going on here? Are those urinals? What do urinals have to do with business management? Is that Ben Stiller?” So I eagerly read the post, looking for enlightenment and answers to these nagging questions.

    I think I can now confidently say that today’s post is not going to join the “wall of wisdom”, unless I’m looking for a reason to get HR to schedule a meeting with me! 😛 (another vote for emoticon after punctuation)

    P.S. Please tell me the part about texting people to tell them you’re in the bathroom was a joke as well!

    Reply
    • Katie–I’m extremely honored to make it onto your Wall of Wisdom! And I agree, this post most certainly does not belong. 🙂 Back when I started the “Management Tactics,” I thought I’d make them all tongue in cheek. There was still wisdom in the posts, but often the reader was supposed to do the opposite of what I was saying. After a while I decided to give actual leadership advice in a more straightforward way while still adding a little humor here and there.

      But every once in a while I have to hearken back to the good ole days. 🙂

      Reply
  3. Ok, practical reasons why this is silly.
    1) Cost of TP + Cost of bowl water < Cost of any diaper + cleaning or disposal.
    2) Time spent to wipe bunghole 1x/poop 0).
    3) Increase in Sick leave and health benefits, due to lack of un-hygenous atmosphere
    Finally, I already put up with too much of your shit. Now we’re all having to stew gaseous pools of each other’s dung. It makes that freshly shampooed poop smell, seem like a summer meadow.

    Emoticons have evolved from punctuation as Homo Sapien from Neandertal. But more like the relationship between letters and the words they create, punctuation alone rarely communicate meaning, where the combination of punctions into a recognizable emoticon can express some meaning, usually an emotion. The completion of that meaning may then need to be punctuated. I’d say yes, punctuation is needed after emoticons.

    Reply

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