Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#31

Post by pi-err »

I remember having been immediately struck by differences in office bathrooms between California and UK/France/Germany (where I worked).

The offices were usually nicer overall in the US (roomier, more recent), except for the bathrooms. Small, low quality, like 2 stalls in a 600 persons building. Usually pretty far away from work stations.

Turns out labor code enforces much higher standard for bathrooms in most Europe countries. IIRC for France: 1 stall for 10 person minimum, with a top value somewhere (maybe 10 stalls max), with adequate AC, lighting, water-saving systems, etc. There's a maximum walking distance to workspace. I believe it also now requires full-size partitions (or maybe in mixed toilets only if there's not enough room for separate). It should also now be 100% accessible in new office constructions and redevelopments. An architect friend told me those costs do add up, so the money doesn't go in fancier paint or lighting. It can also limit growth in team size if there are not enough stalls in the building.

I suppose it doesn't change in the US as a perfect "dark design": shitty bathrooms means people will use them less.

So bathrooms sum up the pros/cons of market regulation.

Also speaking of regulation, I like that the german labor code requires that all employees should have permanent access to daily light (with precise lumen values).

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#32

Post by fluxquanta »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #29
fluxquanta wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Irrelevantly, they were marked Male and Female. Anecdotally, my office has about 60 employees and 8 individual bathrooms. They're fully enclosed with sinks and their own heavy closing doors. They also are all equipped with a white noise machine that's connected to the ceiling light switch. I guess we're pretty lucky to have this setup. About two years ago, however, someone complained that all of the bathrooms were b…

60 employees, weekly cleanings ?! Should be every night.

Maybe it is? I really don't know, but I've only ever seen cleaning staff the few times I've come in on weekends, and only ever seen noticeable improvement on Mondays.

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#33

Post by mattmanser »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

Everything about the stall door was irrelevant. They are made so cheap and with such gaps because, they are cheaper that way. They won't go down to the floor because, that would be 12" more material cost. They won't ever fit closely because, they sag and bend because they're cheaply installed. All the blather about how they could be different is ignoring the cost factor, which would be large. ON a different note, I v…

Are you saying the cost of 12" of chipboard is expensive? Because it's not. Especially not at trade prices.

It's not blather, I'm not sure where you buy wood, but if you think the wood of bathroom door even makes up 1% of the cost of building a bathroom... And 0.01% of the cost of losing an employee to something so trivial as a horrid bathroom.

Honestly, this sounds like a US-specific problem, in the UK none of the offices I've worked in have had a 'gap' in the cubicals. Nor the schools or public buildings or public toilets.

Reading these comments are comical at how a whole country can collectively do something so simple so wrong. No judgement, every country has silly quirks like that!

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#34

Post by elthran »

dominotw wrote: post #25
Someone1234 wrote: post #2

> it's unease around the gap between the door and the partition Why is this a thing in the US? I legitimately don't understand it. As to the article overall: This is an interesting topic that is rarely discussed. I often see embarrassed bathroom patrons utilise the disabled-accessible bathroom because it is it's own room (i.e. not stall-separate, wall-separate). I have no issue with gender neutral bathrooms, but from…

>Why is this a thing in the US? I legitimately don't understand it. People are less ashamed of such mundane things. US being a new country is not bound to the same social taboos that you see everywhere else. Also practical reasons like, easier to see when its empty, ease of cleaning, ventilation ect.

> easier to see when its empty

Is a little dial connected to the lock saying "engaged/vacant" or green/red that difficult to see?

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#35

Post by JoeAltmaier »

mattmanser wrote: post #33
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

Everything about the stall door was irrelevant. They are made so cheap and with such gaps because, they are cheaper that way. They won't go down to the floor because, that would be 12" more material cost. They won't ever fit closely because, they sag and bend because they're cheaply installed. All the blather about how they could be different is ignoring the cost factor, which would be large. ON a different note, I v…

Are you saying the cost of 12" of chipboard is expensive? Because it's not. Especially not at trade prices. It's not blather, I'm not sure where you buy wood, but if you think the wood of bathroom door even makes up 1% of the cost of building a bathroom... And 0.01% of the cost of losing an employee to something so trivial as a horrid bathroom. Honestly, this sounds like a US-specific problem, in the UK none of the o…

It only matters, what is the marginal cost to the door vendor. Their profit margin is razor thin. They make those doors by the millions and sell them as a commodity. So yes even a few cents is too much.

We proposed putting a fuzzy-logic controller into a Maytag washer. Maytag said, any controls had to come in under 75 cents including sensors and actuators, for them to make it up in pricing. We couldn't manage that back then (the processor chip was several dollars) so no deal. Because washers are a commodity from the manufacturer viewpoint.

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#36

Post by Someone1234 »

mc32 wrote: post #22
Someone1234 wrote: post #2

> it's unease around the gap between the door and the partition Why is this a thing in the US? I legitimately don't understand it. As to the article overall: This is an interesting topic that is rarely discussed. I often see embarrassed bathroom patrons utilise the disabled-accessible bathroom because it is it's own room (i.e. not stall-separate, wall-separate). I have no issue with gender neutral bathrooms, but from…

Just make them all unisex. What's wrong with unisex bathrooms, so long as they have partitions and not troughs or heads out in the open and have the urinals sectioned off at one end.

I answered this in my post...

> I have no issue with gender neutral bathrooms, but from what I hear around the watercooler, women's bathrooms are a LOT nastier than men's (or at least that's how women tell it). Too many women trying to hover and getting it wrong.

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#37

Post by nzmsv »

Someone1234 wrote: post #2

> it's unease around the gap between the door and the partition Why is this a thing in the US? I legitimately don't understand it. As to the article overall: This is an interesting topic that is rarely discussed. I often see embarrassed bathroom patrons utilise the disabled-accessible bathroom because it is it's own room (i.e. not stall-separate, wall-separate). I have no issue with gender neutral bathrooms, but from…

ArtLebedev in Moscow did have "designer" single bathrooms as a perk: http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/toilets/

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#38

Post by samstave »

At my current work, we have a completely separate bathroom with a shower - in addition to "normal" bathrooms with a urinal and a stall toilet.

It's wonderful actually.

At Facebook there was one bathroom on the second floor of building 15 with a shower as well. That was the best bathroom I found there.

It's great to have a nice bathroom and full privacy, it just makes it more comfortable.

At sales force at fifty Fremont there is a guest bathroom adjacent to the main reception on 36 that is individual and private - best restroom in that building.

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#39

Post by CWuestefeld »

ssharp wrote: post #13

The University I used to work for had started the practice of building several small one-person bathrooms next to one another, so the would be a block of three or four bathrooms by each other. I found this to a nice setup but I'm sure this would cost far more than a men's bathroom with toilet stall, urinal and sink and a women's bathroom with two stalls and a sink. I used to go to night classes after working all day…

At a resort I've been to a few times, the nightclub area had a cool design. It was a largish round room with sink in the middle. The perimeter was individual tiny rooms with just a toilet. These were all gender-neutral, I guess that's OK because they were actual rooms, having walls and doors.

It seems like that gender neutrality would allow for extra efficiency, so that the dense-pack around the perimeter of a single restroom can handle more potential guests.

I never asked about how it affects cleaning effort, though.

In any case, the original article points out specific OSHA regulations. So it doesn't really matter if there are alternate designs that could work better; you're still stuck in the traditional paradigm, as regulation always acts as a drag on innovation.

Re: The Office of the Future Will Still Have a Terrible Bathroom

#40

Post by singron »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #24
zimpenfish wrote: post #12

We have two (2) cubicles and two (2) urinals for probably 200 males. One cubicle currently has a broken seat and the other is frequently (at least once a week) blocked with toilet paper and filth (properly splattered all over, of course). It's the worst office bathroom situation I've ever encountered.

That is grossly out of code [0]. With only two urinals, there should be a minimum of six full toilets. Management should be alerted to the violation ASAP so that they can take immediate corrective action, followed up by a complaint to OSHA. [0] https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_tab...

Our office has the same issue. The problem is, the code only talks about number of employees but not proportional allocation between genders. It's possible that they have 200 men but less than 230 employees. This means they need 8 waterclosets, but naturally the builders made 4 for women and 4 for men. It's up to code, but don't expect to always be able to use the bathroom at work.
Post reply on HN