Let’s suppose you’re in the can at work, dropping a deuce. Not just any deuce, but the Queen Mary of bowl bricks. Titanic in dimension and ponderous in pace, you’re glad you brought your Blackberry into the john with you, because you’re gonna have to re-schedule that 2:00 meeting around this event and, you think, your subsequent hospitalization for ass-related tear trauma. You wish you had a match, and something more interesting than the free trial version of Bejewelled, but you’ve got a few minutes of privacy in the middle of your work day, and you’ll feel much, much better when all this is out of your system.
There are two other people in the bathroom. You see their shoes as they walk past your stall (you always sit in the one closest to the door, as it is statistically the cleanest), and you hear one open the farthest door from you, and the second opens the next over. Thinking nothing of it, you grab the handicapped rail on the side of the stall and brace yourself for another big push.
All the blood rushes to your head, and your face turns red – dear god, is this thing ever going to end? You’re thinking that this ethereal single-ply TP here at the office isn’t going to cut it when the time comes to grab a handful, so you don’t notice that the two people in the bathroom with you have been opening stall doors all the way down the row until they are now standing outside your little pepto-bismol pink painted sheet metal door. For a good time call Nancy, it says.
One of the two people tries the door, and you say “Occupado!”
In response, one of the people says something about being a member of the Workplace Health and Safety Office, and tells you that they need to see what’s going on in there.
“Um, I’m taking a shit,” you say, and then you try to settle back down into your little constitutional, but with a massive kick, the door flies back in towards you, just missing your bare knees.
One of the people grabs you and tells you that they are authorized under some act or code or statute to seize all contents of said cubicle, table, or stall, that you are not to interfere with this process, nor are you entitled to any motion of complaint or redress of grievance. You’re ordered to remove your clothing and stand at least two meters away from the inspection team.
In the meantime, the other person is poking around the toilet with a stick. “There’s a lot of crap in here – gonna be hard to sort out,” he says, and then produces a ladle and a plastic bag, into which he doles in what you just doled out.
You ask what all this is about, and the first person reminds you that you are not allowed to make any sort of inquiry into these proceedings. To reinforce the point, he brandishes a taser. As an aside, he says, “don’t worry – if you haven’t done anything wrong then there won’t be any trouble.”
Your boss comes in, accompanied by that real cutie from HR you’ve been flirting with. Neither of them makes eye contact with you. Your boss taps his foot impatiently and asks what the inspection team has found.
“Nothing yet – we’re gonna have to confiscate this apparatus and take it all back to the lab,” the second inspector says.
“Larry, what the hell is going on?” you ask your boss, trying to cover yourself up as the first inspector goes through your pockets, but your boss doesn’t acknowledge you, nor does the cutie from HR who is now marking a bag or your excrement with a sticker marked “biohazard.”
You are given a pair of orange coveralls and told to go back to your desk. You are not to leave your desk until the end of the day, at which time you will begin a two week suspension as your activities are investigated.
At your desk, your computer has been confiscated, as have all your paper files. Your phone is unplugged, and when you go to reconnect it you find an iron hasp over the jack. While you were gone, someone replaced your chair with one very much like it, but this one doesn’t recline.
Of course, that was probably just Linda from accounting being a complete bitch again.
You start your suspension. For two weeks you sit at home, doing not much of anything. Your phone and internet have been disconnected. The TV only shows Judge Judy re-runs.
When your suspension ends, you go back to work. Your computer is there, but it’s not your computer. Same with your phone – there are recording devices attached to each. You are given a five-page document from HR instructing you where and at what time you may use the restroom.
Your boss comes over to your desk.
“These things are routine, don’t feel bad. They didn’t find anything on your computer, or your phone, or in your stool. Like I always say – if you don’t do anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of, am I right?”
Your boss leaves. You turn on your computer – your wallpaper has been replaced with a corporate mascot. Most of your third-party apps and downloads are gone. You open up your desk drawer and find a crap-filled plastic bag, and attached to the bag is an orange sticker that marks your feces as “conforming,” and thanks you for your compliance.
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