This T-Shirt Sums Up Busy Season

You may remember way back in January when we told you about Ernst & Young’s Jericho office putting the clamps down on its water closets. The long/short of it was that the firm made them only accessible by key like some flithy gas station shithouse.

As bad as that is, some businesses in Norway are taking things a bit further:

A boss in Norway has ordered all female staff to wear red bracelets during their periods – to explain why they are using the toilet more often.

The astonishing demand was revealed in report by a workers’ union into ‘tyrannical’ toilet rules in Norwegian companies. The study claimed businesses were becoming obsessed with lost productivity due to employees spending too much time answering the call of nature. It found 66 per cent of managers made staff ask them for an electronic key card to gain access to the toilets so they could monitor breaks. Toilets in one in three companies were placed under video-surveillance, while other firms made staff sign a toilet ‘visitors book’, the report by the Parat union said. It added: ‘But the most extreme action was taken by one manager who made women having their period wear a red bracelet to justify more frequent trips to the loo. ‘Women quite justifiably feel humiliated by being tagged in this way, so that all their colleagues are aware of this intimate detail of their private life.’

Now we don’t know if the key system is still in place in Jericho (residents can let us know) but this should give you pause.

Boss orders female staff to wear red bracelets when they are on their periods [Telegraph via DB]