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Comment by peteretep | Hacker News Reader

I have pissed in a bottle before out of expediency, but I've never spent several years stranded on a ship without power, company, etc, out of free will. Conflating the two seems weird.

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Do you piss in a bottle on a daily basis as part of your job? Comparing peeing in a bottle [a few times in your life] for expediency compared to doing it on the daily, seems to be its own conflation.

If my current workplace offered me a 15% raise in exchange for forgoing toilet breaks and pissing in a bottle for the next year, I would go for it.

I'm sure there's a number for which I'd agree to be stranded on a boat off the coast of Egypt without power, but I suspect it's closer to 15x my salary.

As I understand it, this makes the latter 100x worse than the former.

No, you'd need to compare the actual job that requires you to piss in a bottle, along with its salary, not your current job with a 15% bonus tacked on.

Also people don't sign up to be abandoned on a ship, they're not told of that possibility, until it happens. They signed up to be merchant marines or seaman, not prisoners of ghost ships.

Just because you find getting bit by a dog more palatable than falling into a pit of snakes, doesn't make getting bit by a dog okay or acceptable.

Private investigators have to do this routinely. Of course they are probably self-employed.

OSHA laws require companies allow bathroom breaks though.

I piss in bottles and on the sides of roads on road trips. Sometimes daily, depending on the length of the trip. You make it sound like some great injustice. It's just pissing in a bottle, who cares?

It's pretty offensive to compare this to being held prisoner on a ship.

Doing something freely of choice with no (or very mimial) downside risk, and doing it at the penalty of losing ones jobs, whilst the employer denies the practice, have substantial daylight between them.

I can only assume you have some very deep seated issues around urine and urination? With a totally straight face, you're comparing pissing in bottles with being imprisoned for four years. Amazon could demand full bottles at close of workday, and then pour it on your head, and this comparison would still be farcical. Recalibrate your outrage.

I'm going to blow your mind: RV toilets are just giant bottles with levers and valves.

I am comparing the case of urinating on a roadtrip as a means to save a few minutes on arrival time, with a significant labour force being obligated to do so under terms and conditions of employment whilst their employer loudly and publicly denies this fact. (The fact that the employer later retracted the denail doesn't obviate the predicate clause.)

Your reading of my statement is far from the mark, curiously so.

Please start peeing in bottles daily as part of your job, and let your co-workers know about, note their reaction. This discussion is about unacceptable work hazards, not exclusively about being imprisoned on a ship.

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