British company creates slanted toilet to curtail long bathroom breaks

For business owners worried about office productivity going down the drain, a British company has a solution.

The company, StandardToilet, designed a toilet whose upper surface slopes down at a 13-degree angle, making it uncomfortable to sit on for more than a few minutes, the BBC reported.

The toilet’s designer, Mahabir Gill, said the sloping toilet is intended to have medical benefits. It also was designed, in part, to discourage workers from taking long bathroom breaks to read emails or browse on social media.

“In modern times, the workplace toilet has become private texting and social media usage space,” StandardToilet wrote on its website.

“It came from my personal experience where I stopped off at the motorway to go to the loo and realized there’s a huge queue,” Gill told the BBC; "I wondered what people were doing in there. Some were coming out with their mobile phones.”

The StandardToilet website claims the new toilet will “increase employee efficiency” and reduce employee use of social media. It also will reduce waiting times at public restrooms, and “improve employee well-being” by reducing the use of pelvic muscles.

The sloping design could save businesses billions of dollars in wasted hours, StandardToilet claims.

Terry Woolliscroft, who writes a blog about the history of Twyfords, which has designed toilets, said a sloping design was attempted 108 years ago.

“Twyfords tried it over a century ago, but it didn’t catch on,” Woolliscroft told the BBC.

Woolliscroft said social media is not necessarily to blame for reduced production. In fact, he said it was a wash.

“If social media and mobiles didn’t exist, then people would still spend time in the loo, probably reading the newspaper," Woolliscroft told the BBC.

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