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Gig Workers Have Nowhere to Pee (2020)

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Re: Gig Workers Have Nowhere to Pee (2020)

#31

Post by castratikron »

technofiend wrote: post #29
whoknew1122 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked at grocery stores and gas stations. A lot of people stopped just to use the restroom. We also had homeless people use restrooms to bathe, and drug addicts use the bathroom as a place to quickly take a hit. Also had people defecate on the floor, write messages on the wall with feces, etc. Because of this, multiple places I worked didn't provide restroom access to the public. It sucks for people who simply and r…

This is one of those things in Europe that in my anecdotal experience works better: pay toilets. For some reason all the bathrooms I had to pay for in England, Germany and Belgium were clean. The larger ones at Christmas Markets even had bathroom attendants, so any problems or cleanup were immediately addeseed. It's unfortunately the base level of civility has fallen to the point where you can't just walk in most pub…

Pay toilets were common in the US up until the 70s

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets...

Re: Gig Workers Have Nowhere to Pee (2020)

#32

Post by ruined »

a friend of mine recently moved. there’s a shed in the backyard that’s not included in the rental. inside the shed is a bucket with a toilet seat on it. apparently their landlord is somehow connected to a local produce delivery business, and provides the location for drivers to relieve themselves.

i’m not sure why they didn’t just build a composting toilet, or rent a portapotty. this doesn’t seem like a great solution, and i wonder if it’s legal.

despite how gross and disgusting it is, consider that even this shows way more empathy and concern for the basic human needs of workers than the large gig apps have been able to express.

Re: Gig Workers Have Nowhere to Pee (2020)

#33

Post by malyk »

cma wrote: post #28
bradknowles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrubHub and DoorDash are adversarial extractive operations, and it is not in the best interest of any restaurant to deliver through them. They already squeeze all or most of the profit out of anything they pickup and deliver. Sadly, many restaurants don’t have a choice, in these days of COVID-19. They work with GrubHub and DoorDash at zero profit or even a loss, or they go completely out of business. Those are the on…

> Sadly, many restaurants don’t have a choice, in these days of COVID-19. They work with GrubHub and DoorDash at zero profit or even a loss, or they go completely out of business. Those are the only two options. Is that true? Are restaurants charged separately from grubhub's breakdowns of the fees? They also say the restarant can charge more than their normal menu price if they choose.

Grain of salt and all, but a year or so ago a local deli owner said caviar charged 17% of the bill as a fee.

Re: Gig Workers Have Nowhere to Pee (2020)

#34

Post by eigenvector »

simplestman wrote: post #5

Worked in gas station, tons of people stop just to use restrooms.

For a long time this sort of worked for both sides as the bathroom foot traffic would often buy some small item in the store and most items sold at gas stations have a hefty markup. Buying a Coke for $3 might net as much profit for the gas station as buying $30 of gas. Besides, the gas station can never tell if you're going to buy gas and just want to pee first.

Since the pandemic, a lot of gas stations summarily closed their bathrooms - even to customers. It sucks.

Re: Gig Workers Have Nowhere to Pee (2020)

#37

Post by cgriswald »

technofiend wrote: post #29
whoknew1122 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worked at grocery stores and gas stations. A lot of people stopped just to use the restroom. We also had homeless people use restrooms to bathe, and drug addicts use the bathroom as a place to quickly take a hit. Also had people defecate on the floor, write messages on the wall with feces, etc. Because of this, multiple places I worked didn't provide restroom access to the public. It sucks for people who simply and r…

This is one of those things in Europe that in my anecdotal experience works better: pay toilets. For some reason all the bathrooms I had to pay for in England, Germany and Belgium were clean. The larger ones at Christmas Markets even had bathroom attendants, so any problems or cleanup were immediately addeseed. It's unfortunately the base level of civility has fallen to the point where you can't just walk in most pub…

If someone proposed pay toilets in my town vocal citizens who have never done a thing for the homeless except express “compassion” from afar would be up in arms because of how unfair that would be to the homeless; as if the presence of pay toilets would somehow be more unfair to the homeless who are already various levels of creative in dealing with the problem. So the status quo remains because we haven’t solved homelessness.

Re: Gig Workers Have Nowhere to Pee (2020)

#38

Post by tomjen3 »

wiseleo wrote: post #16

To make things worse, gyms are shutdown. They were a reliable 24/7 location if the driver had membership. There needs to be infrastructure for true public restrooms in urban areas. Uber et al needs to make mandatory access to its drivers a condition of doing business with the food service.

The infrastructure can easily be created by not outlawing pay toilets. As a bonus, and unlike what you see with free toilets, those tend to be kept clean.

Re: Gig Workers Have Nowhere to Pee (2020)

#39

Post by Doxin »

One partial solution to the problem would be introducing the style of public toilet you see in Amsterdam.[1] They amount to little more than a sewer grate with a privacy shield. There's no real need for cleaning these other than how you'd clean the street already, and it's a better alternative than pissing in a bush.

Of course it leaves the problem unresolved for women, and I'm unsure how you'd go about tackling that.

[1] http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oNPlqgm_lXc/UZ7-2rB3arI/AAAAAAAANY...

Re: Gig Workers Have Nowhere to Pee (2020)

#40

Post by Clampower »

Doxin wrote: post #39

One partial solution to the problem would be introducing the style of public toilet you see in Amsterdam.[1] They amount to little more than a sewer grate with a privacy shield. There's no real need for cleaning these other than how you'd clean the street already, and it's a better alternative than pissing in a bush. Of course it leaves the problem unresolved for women, and I'm unsure how you'd go about tackling that…

Unfortunately these are all being removed and I find it super sad :(
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