Toilet Tales
With the end of ‘Working from Home’ announced, I reckon it will mark the return of one of the biggest hidden sources of work-based stress – staff toilets. Homeworkers have had months, sometimes years, being able to go when they want, in the comfort of their own surroundings. And now they’ll have to readjust to fitting in with the patterns of their management and colleagues in an alien environment. There are three main Toilet problems: engineering, intrapersonal and managerial. Engineering: Architects and engineers always underestimate the demands of the great British public. Think of the magnificent art galleries and museums you’ve visited. The toilets never match up. They used to be just scruffy and inadequate, but since the millennium they’ve been ‘cool’ and inadequate (e.g. wash basins shaped like a clam shell that spray water all over you as soon as you trigger the high powered faucet). HMRC used to have a large estate made up of a hodgepodge of buildings, built in different ...