Using the toilet at work is one of the greatest dilemmas in the history of humankind. Fraught with peril, the most insidious and disastrous of outcomes occurs when an employee clogs the workplace toilet.
For the offending member of staff, this can cause a sense of panic. Many employees guilty of this will flee the scene in distress and hide in a cupboard.
As such, it's good business practice to establish a clogged toilet at work policy, which you can keep in your company handbook for reference. Read on for further details on how to manage this toilet-based workplace outcome.
Employment Laws Regarding Clogged Toilets
The Clogging the Toilet at Work Act 1974 legislates employees clogging toilets. On page 456 of 2,312 across section 12 (c), the Act states:
"It is inevitable your workplace toilet will be clogged by an employee. While this may drive CEOs into a fit of rage, keep in mind how your employee will feel following on from such an unfortunate incident:
a) Embarrassed.
b) Ashamed.
c) Guilty.
d) Vengeful.
e) Seeking a scapegoat (or a cupboard to hide in).
Most employees who have clogged the toilet will hide in a cupboard to avoid any shameful retribution. As such, you should run a daily cupboard monitoring procedure across your business to ensure large sects of your workforce do not end up quaking within an enclosed space.
However, some employees will try to blame their colleagues.
It's common for serial toilet clogging offenders to try and blame the office apprentice, who tend to be young, naïve, hapless, and an easy target. Keep this in mind when dealing out disciplinary charges for a backed up bog."
It's good business practice to press the important of not clogging workplace toilets on interviewees for new roles within your business.
Ask pertinent interview questions to try and out serial offenders, such as:
- "Are you prone to clogging toilets?"
- "How many toilets do you see yourself having clogged in the next five years?"
- "How would you react if you clogged the workplace toilet?"
- "Have you ever hid in a cupboard. If so, why?"
- "What's your diet like?"
Although it's not stated in the Equality Act 2010 you can reject job applicants, or fire staff, for clogging a toilet, you may want to do so anyway.
It's not uncommon for entire business empires to come crashing down due to a series of rogue employees incapable of stopping their clogging behaviours.
If you don't want to be bankrupt and homeless before Christmas, we advise you take a draconian approach to workplace toilet clogging. Treat it as the nefarious, nae, Satanic behaviour it well and truly is.
Hiring Janitors to Deal With Workplace Clogs
You should hire a talented janitor to manage workplace toilet clogs. The official title of this employee can be "janitor", or you can provide the full titles of "toilet unclogger".
Many janitors may find the latter title undesirable and embarrassing.
But you should press on them the importance of their duties. And then proudly proclaim to the world, across your website and social media profiles, you have an employee solely in your business to ensure no bog is backed up for more than 30 minutes at a time.
Provide your official toilet unclogger with all the tools he/she needs to get the job done. We recommend items such as:
- Plungers.
- Chainsaws.
- Full hazmat suits.
- A pair of rubber gloves.
- Wellingtons.
- Bottles of gin.
The gin is for Dutch courage, so the toilet unclogger can down some of the gin prior to dealing with another clog.
Additionally, you should monitor the wellbeing of your toilet unclogger. This is because the very nature of their role, alongside the heavy drinking, may result in existential fits of depression regarding their purpose in this Universe.
If this occurs, perhaps give the employee a friendly pat on the back, words of casual encouragement, and a reminder they'll be sacked unless they do their job properly.
How to Name and Shame Workplace Toilet Cloggers
It's good business practice to name and shame employees caught clogging the toilets at work. As with your Employee of the Month wall of fame, you should look to instigate a Clogger of the Month wall of shame.
Each month, post a picture of the worst offender onto a wall.
Encourage everyone to gather around the winner's desk. Point at the individual, laugh derisively, and call this person "poopy pants" (or some such). To ramp up the sense of malicious ridicule, place a Dump Cap on the winner's head (this is essentially a dunce cap, but with wordplay on toilet-based antics).
This should induce fits of sobbing into that month's winner.
This is excellent. Such level of shame should induce far greater levels of toilet-based behaviour in future, ensuring less company time is lost to clogged toilets.
Techniques to Use at Work to Ensure Fewer Blocked Toilets
You may wish to install interactive urinals at work to encourage employees to have a more productive time of it when in the workplace bathroom. Other tactics can include:
- Adjusting your canteen menu: Serve only curry, or partially off foods, to ensure nothing solid goes down toilet u bends in future.
- Introducing Medieval toilets: Remove your fancy modern toilets and introduce a hole in the floor to encourage fewer clogs and better functioning bogs.
- Encouraging constipation: Serve only gut-clogging foods in your canteen, such as masses of haggis. This'll encourage far fewer trips to the toilet (and far fewer backed up bogs).
- Making a mandatory workplace nappy scheme: Lead by example. Wear a nappy to work, force your employees to do the same, and this problem will be no more.
The sky's the limit when it comes to clogged toilets. With a bit of savvy meddling, you can banish blocked bogs as a thing of the past!
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