In midsummer week, the employees at an Ica Maxi store in Östersund were greeted by an email from their administrative manager. The email was emblazoned with the name “Toalett visit”.
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The email stated that it was not actually permitted to visit the toilet during working hours, but that these should be taken care of during the staff’s breaks, which Östersunds-Posten was the first to report on.
The store’s employees reacted quickly and directed criticism at the management. The upset staff must have experienced the dispatch as humiliating.
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The Ica Maxi manager: The email has been misunderstood
The administrative manager Andreas Söderström disagree with.
In an interview with P4 Jamtland he says the email has been misunderstood by the employees. According to him, the mailing was a “clarification” of the rules that already apply to those employed at Ica Maxi.
He tells the channel that he experienced problems when staff “systematically” avoided work tasks by visiting the toilet. He also means that you can never be too clear.
– The tone is degrading and I think it feels discriminatory. Then I got upset and felt that the email crossed a line, says one of the employees at the Ica Maxi store to Östersunds-Posten.
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Examples with fictitious names
In the email, Söderström has made several different examples of what is “okay” and “not okay” using fictitious names.
Two of the examples in the email are as follows:
“It’s not okay. Really not okay. Ishamael has set up a system here to get paid to sit on the toilet.”
“Egwene makes several mistakes. She works with her personal mobile phone on her, she uses it during working hours and she takes longer than she needs to go to the bathroom.”
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