I recently had to move my office from an old building (built in 1960s?) To a new building (about 5 years old). The first thing I noticed were the bathrooms. Both buildings have individual bathrooms. No stalls or urinals. The old building had slightly larger bathrooms but the toilet was comfortable and the rooms were well ventilated and so on. Very nice bathrooms.
Now, the new building has bathrooms that look very nice. Slightly smaller but that's fine. But they seem designed to make people uncomfortable. They are hotter and more humid than the rest of the building. The light is an uncomfortable color temperature compared to the rest of the building. The toilets are too low and slightly slanted – very uncomfortable. And the relationship between toilet paper dispenser and toilet makes it impossible for anyone to sit on the toilet without being rotated and even more uncomfortable.
So now I have started paying attention to bathrooms in various places. I'm noting differences in older bathrooms compared to new bathrooms in both home and business settings. I think that newer business bathrooms are purposefully being designed to make people uncomfortable so they spend as little time “on the clock” in the bathroom as possible.
Thoughts? Have others noticed this? I shouldn't have to be afraid I will need to use the bathroom at work because it will hurt.