NEWS: Ford Motor Company to Workers: Piss On Your Own Time, Peons

CULTURE: Ford Motor Company to Workers: Piss On Your Own Time, Peons

Management of the Ford Motor Company's Michigan Truck Plant has issued a memo directing supervisors to keep track of the time that workers spend in the crapper. Management claims that workers spending too much time hitting the head is hurting productivity and profitability.

Ford is continuing to see its market share decline, and its losses widen. So, of course, the reason for this can only be that too many workers are taking too many piss breaks. It can't have anything to do with relying too much on behemoth SUV's for your sales, and then seeing gas prices go through the roof, can it? Nah, surely not.

Boy, is Detroit fucked.

Well, surely the unions won't accep...wait...

48 minutes ... is a LOOONNNNGGG crap ... Still its all grasping at straws ... make nice cars at a good price ... not a hard concept

Well if it was me and they stopped me from going to the WC I would just piss were I worked, see how long they would stand for that.

Plus then sue them for bladder problems later in life.

don't make cars people want to buy, worry about how much time people are pissing at work?

surely "safety", "Quality", and "morale" are a higher priority?

yes, piss off the UAW, what a capital idea ford.

The company is taking hit after hit, so they start trying to cut down on problems. Taking more than 48 minutes to use the bathroom, save those with some sort of bowel disorder, seems excessive. Does this hurt moral? yes. Is this extreme? yes. Is this wrong? no.

This is business trying to save itself. It's not doing anything abusive to its employees. I'm sure there are a dozen more cost-cutting methods that they aren't mentioning in the article because they don't make the employees seem oppressed.

Uh, yeah. Some guy shits himself for nearly an hour and EVERYONE has to be scrutinized, wait for their break time to piss?! Yeah, I see how this fucks with "safety, quality, ,delivery, cost and morale." Particularly morale. I like the idea that my bladder is their business.

Why is it that managing (including crime and punishment) is a fundamental flaw of managers?

Well, duh! That's the fucking point of the article; of all the things they could be focusing on, they're gonna pain themselves over how long Rosy the Riveter is in the fucking john!?? And, yes, it is wrong. I'm sure Ford has a malingering clause or somesuch in it's contracts. That alone should be sufficient to deal with employees who might be purposely wasting time in the crapper; but to get that fucking specific, to nit-pick over someone's rather personal time, is ridiculous. Hell! I'd figured out by the time I was 12 that it was nobody's fucking business when or how I went to the john.

And:

Duuuude! I would so be fired. I'm a "toilet reader", so I could easily spend a half-hour on the crapper with the latest "Newsweek".

True.

But what if some poor guy had a nasty curry for dinner the night before.
48 minuites may not be long enough!

heh

welcome to the working mans world, some times you ain't got time to pee, you suck it up and deal

Ha ha! You'd be hard pressed to find a curry in Detroit!

I'd be willing to bet that they're spending far more researching this than they're losing in time. Most problems could be solved by getting rid of half of middle management.

So true!

Plus, what happens if you do spend too much time in the potty?
Supervisor: "Well, Bill, I see you've made 5 trips to the restroom, adding up to a total of 50 minutes in the restroom today."
Bill: (turns red) "Uhhhhhh......."
Supervisor: "Would you like to explain to me why you were spending so much time in the restroom while you were on the clock?"
Bill: "I....uhhhhh....."
Supervisor: "We have a rule here at Ford, only 48 minutes in the restroom."
Bill: "I HAVE EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA, OKAY?! WOULD YOU RATHER ME SHIT ON THE FLOOR?!"
Supervisor: "Uhmmm, carry on."

I can't say I didn't waste time in the restroom when working at the restaurant.

Mandatory daily fiber pills!

Yeah, 48 minutes is a pretty good amount of time for bathroom breaks. I mean, seriously, aside from some medical condition that should be plenty.

Besides that, I feel no sympathy for the workers on this one. You know why? The unions have negotiated themselves into bankrupting the company. They've decided that they can't just accept what the business will offer them, they've gotta screw the business, demand more, etc. Well, as part of that they negotiated how long they get to spend in the crapper each shift. Did anybody else catch that? How long they can spend in the crapper is actually in that contract. So, they got the pay they bargained for and they got the small amount of time in the toilet that they bargained for too. Deal with it.

actually, it's pretty common in manufacturing industries for workers to take excessive breaks while on the clock. it's a way for them to get paid while they smoke, pee, text message, whatever. some companies have even had problems with employees gambling in the bathrooms while on the clock (it happened at a Mervyn's I worked at - some guys had a domino ring going in the restroom!). any time you have people working for an hourly wage, there will be a few asshats trying to milk the system. seriously, if a worker needs to be in the shitter for an hour, they don't need to be collecting a paycheck for it.

Customer:

Whats the brown thing and the yellow discoloration on the floor board of the trunk of my new car.

Salesman:

Its a present from the very, I mean VERY dedicated assembly plant workers at Ford.

That's my only real motivation, not to be hassled. That, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

Where I work we get 22 min per day to include all of the time we are not actually working. If we start going over that on a regular basis, we have to start going off the clock for bathroom breaks, meaning we don't get paid for them and have to make up the time we spend there.
48 minutes per day is a helluvalot of time in the bathroom and still get paid for it.

1. Ford the company has fucked over many many people in its time.

2. Unions are fucking awesome. They prevent abuse of employee rights.

3. I'm assuming this 48 minute limit is per 8 hr work shift. That being said, crap before you leave your house and do your fucking job.

4. I might be an asshole but laziness is a massive part of the problems with this country.

2. Bingo. There's one unionized group that does what I do for my company. They get raises just about every year. We supposedly get raises based upon our performance, but it never really seems to work that way.

3. Damned straight. I'm a fucking diabetic, and even on one of my worst control days I don't spend 48 minutes in the bathroom. Some days I spend six of the eight hours driving. Generally I don't take a leak at all while I'm working (unless I have to). Granted, my bladder can probably hold more than most, been diabetic for 25 odd years. I shit before or after work.

I think workers should have to clock out before using the restroom. I also think that if they all sat down and watched the Michael Keaton film Gung Ho it would boost morale and that this plant would become an industry giant.