So Much For Privacy: Doing A Different Kind Of Business In The Office Bathroom
Posted October 27, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Syndicated columnist Judith Martin, a.k.a. Miss Manners, recently answered an eye-popping question from a reader: what is the proper way to behave in the office washroom when a co-worker is in there at the same time talking on a cellphone? “I may make noise, especially if it is after a lunch of lentil soup,” he wrote. Not to mention, “May I flush?”
Miss Manners sided with the reader, although she objected to the detail. “You are using the room for its correct purpose, even if you explained this more clearly than Miss Manners would have liked,” she sniffed. “Those who use it for other purposes must take their chances.”
Across corporate North America, there is a feeling that office washrooms are indeed being used for other purposes, specifically business-oriented business. Never mind the old complaints – leaving a cloud of hairspray in the air, for example, or flooding the sink. Now, not only are employees talking on their phones, they are messaging on their BlackBerries and working on their laptops. Perhaps people have deluded themselves into thinking that bathrooms offer more privacy than open-concept offices.
To read the rest of the Maclean’s article, click here.
