This. The toilet stalls in US are the worst. No privacy whatsoever. Seems like their design is meant to oppress. Hurry you back to work, grunt!
In WeWork I can go to a quiet dark room, with moody music, and take a shit, in peace.
Aside from all the other myriad god-awful decisions that someone didn't think through, this one weirds me out the most. I know it's hard to see these things on blueprints, but it's as if these people never shit.
(I know, I know - the correct answer is, "this is the cheap best-practice way of installing toilet stalls". Fuck you; I'm glad I have a private unisex bathroom I can typically use to handle private bodily functions.)
It's very weird that someone would design something like that.
The only place I've seen adult toilets like this is in a prison tour.
And here I thought that urinals without a divider were awkward.
Anyway, brings an old SNL skit to mind – the love toilet. Look it up.
I have been in quite a few countries, everyone poorer than the US , yet somehow , as cheap as they made their bathrooms, it isn't possible to look into peoples stalls.
Which is annoying, because there are only a fixed number of stalls (in my WeWork there are 7 total stalls for all the men in a 7 story building). I hate going from to floor looking for a place to take a shit. Unless you had something really sickening for breakfast or lunch, taking a shit should not take more than 2 minutes. I don't know what people are doing in the bathroom that takes them so long, but I suspect it's people taking a break from their work in privacy.
TLDR technology has a downside
The problem here is not enough restrooms.
... What genius thought of the idea to automatically unlock bathroom stalls?
Do these buildings do this for security? I'll never understand. In my current office we share a few bathrooms with one other company but there's no key at least.
Yes. One building we were in had a problem where people would walk in off the street, then hide in the bathroom to attack or mug people. The hope with the key protocol is that potential attackers would enter, try the bathroom door, see it was locked, then leave.
Cheaper than having a security guard 24/7.
Visit the Hopkins medical campus sometime (but during the day). There are guards with long guns on every street corner.
Then there were client bathrooms on a different floor. At one workplace, it was twice the size of the normal bathroom with the same amenities (2 stalls, 2 urinals), quieter, music, and air spray. The other workplace also had 'client' bathrooms which were two private bathrooms.
Both of the latter were a mainstay for people going off to take private dumps.
Do female toilets have these kind of stalls too?