Sorry, No More Long Bathroom Breaks at Work Because of This Toilet

Everyone knows how it feels to take a long bathroom break at work. The ones that last for 20 minutes or maybe longer, and if someone asks, well, you had spicy food for lunch.

But it's actually a time for employees to relax, free their minds, maybe go through their phones, maybe play Candy Crush... It seems like employers realized that this is becoming a habit among employees and have come up with a quite intricate solution that won't let any employee sit at a stool for more than five minutes. 

A start-up company called "StandardToilet" created a toilet design. What's so special about it is the fact that it is sloped about 13 degrees forward, which makes it unbearable to sit on after 5 minutes as it increases the strain on the legs. Cruel, huh? 

Mahabir Gill, the founder of the company said to Wired that it comes with health benefits, like improved posture. According to the company's website, these toilets combine intelligent design with uniquely engineered gradient slope to minimize time spent on the toilet for improving your health and wellbeing, all the while keeping the user in mind.

Slanty the toilet offers to reduce painful hemorrhoids and weakening pelvic muscles, increase employee wellness and productivity in the workplace, reduce the germs and viruses spread through smartphones by reducing the time spent on the toilet. 

But, according to Gill, "Its main benefit is to the employers, not the employees. It saves the employer money." 

BREAKING NEWS: Say goodbye to comfort breaks! New downward-tilting toilets are designed to become unbearable to sit on after five minutes. They say the main benefit is to employees in improved employee productivity. pic.twitter.com/lfDbeXJdCX

— Dave Vescio (@DaveVescio) December 17, 2019

While it may sound a bit extreme, there are actually some solid reasons behind this design. According to the results of a survey conducted by Protecting in July 2019 across 8 UK cities, the "average" bathroom break in London was 28 minutes and 35 seconds. This implies that companies may be losing up to two and a half hours of working time per week for each employee. 

While the harm spending longer periods of time at the stool can do to a company is obvious, how smart is it to take away the most private time off of people at work?