It’s time to put away that yoga mat, cancel your lunch reservations and say goodbye to those work emails, pull up a pew at the church of loo and just do you for a while.
According to findings from a study conducted in the UK, the work toilet cubicle is the hip new place to be, with 3.7 million Britons seeing the toilet as a place to “find solitude”. Something to do with the space being clean, (mostly) silent and far removed from your boss.
Here, we’re paying tribute to some of the amazing activities women have undertaken on their loo breaks. And remember, just because the cubicle walls are small doesn’t mean your imagination has to be.
1. Netflix and chilling
“I sat there for about 40 minutes watching an episode of The Good Wife on Netflix” one woman told The Telegraph. I had my iPad with me, so just plugged my headphones in. I felt a bit guilty for not working but it was a quiet day in the office and, to be honest, I just wanted to know what happened in the next episode.”
Listen: There’s a new design trend doing the rounds: toilets in the bedroom. Problematic or convenient? The Mamamia Out Loud team discuss. Post continues after audio.
2. Pampering your pointers
When it comes to a mani-pedi, there’s no time like the present.
“Sometimes at my old job I would take a nail kit into the bathroom and give myself a manicure and pedicure,” a friend recently told me.
“Nail polish takes quite a while to dry so I would be in there for a good 30 minutes, but no one ever seemed to notice. Sometimes my boss would walk past my desk after and actually comment on how great my nails looked.”
3. Sleeping on the job
Showing up to work seriously under-slept for whatever reason – we’ve all been there, and Rebecca Reid is no different. Rather than flooding her system with caffeine or going home early, Reid said, “I used to nap. A lot.”
When pressed by The Telegraph for further details on how she managed it Reid continued, “I tried several variations. At Harrods I could have a full lie down because it was so clean.”
Disclaimer: The author of this post may or may not have had a few hungover bathroom naps in her earlier years (usually lasting for no longer than 10 minutes).
4. Considering world domination
When asked what people’s favourite time-passing toilet activities were on a Reddit forum, one user had the best answer of all time. “I think about how much chaos I could create for fun if I had Voldemort level power.”
Admittedly most of us had never given a moment to this idea, but we definitely are now.
5. Vogueing with style
Don’t let an inconvenience like small spaces get in your way. According to psychologist Amy Cuddy, toilets are the perfect place to get in the zone and vogue your way into an important meeting. After studying the relationship between people’s body language and personal perceptions of themselves, Cuddy found that taking a couple of minutes to dash to the toilet and pump yourself up physically before an important meeting or job interview can be well worth it.
Please excuse me for a minute; I just need to run to the bathroom.
Top Comments
I have not spent protracted periods of time in the bathroom at work, but probably that 5 minutes to think through a work problem in peace, calm myself if I felt anxious or most just be quiet for a minute or two away from the noise/public space of the open plan office. I get why many offices now have mediation rooms and mediation classes for staff, I suppose the bathroom sometimes forms that use..
This kind of thing is a luxury for people who work in offices and probably not even for a lot of them.
Personally, I just go to the toilet and get back to what I was doing before. Teachers don't have 40 minutes to waste in the toilets watching Netflix, doing their nails or having a nap. I'm lucky if I get to go to the toilet at all some days.
It is a luxury. For years I've worked 12 hour factory shifts with only one half hour break to eat and then 3 15 minutes tea breaks where you keep up with the production line or lose your job and your toilet breaks are all recorded. Articles like this shit me to tears in how they have no idea about other peoples lives and show how cloistered some people are.
Lol same!
Also our toilets are right next to the staffroom so all the kids waiting there for teachers, or on detention, watch as you go in and come out again...not really the relaxing escepe described here!