Sitting comfortably

It brings a whole new meaning to the boss letting you go. A new sloping toilet, for which a patent application has been filed in Britain, is designed to increase workplace productivity by reducing the time workers spend on the loo.

The StandardToilet slopes forwards at an angle of 13 degrees, making it too uncomfortable to sit on for longer than about five minutes. That means an average time saving to employers of up to 21⁄2 minutes per nature break, according to StandardToilet founder Mahabir Gill, which would deposit an extra £4 billion a year into British companies’ coffers.

As with so many of the ills of modern society, time-wasting on the toilet is being blamed on technology. The theory goes that it’s all too tempting to sit there texting or scrolling through social media when we could be doing something more productive, such as scrolling through 1000 emails, only five of which will have any relevance to the job we’re meant to be doing.

What all this ergonomic navel-gazing fails to take into account is that time out to oneself, in the privacy of a toilet cubicle, can be a spur to creative thinking. Who has not occasionally gone into the bathroom with competing thoughts racing through their head and not emerged after several minutes’ contemplation with clearer thoughts as well as clearer bowels?

Greater productivity is an admirable goal, but it should not come at the cost of enforced discomfort for staff. There’s got to be a better way to flush out the workers from the shirkers.