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by lobotryas 1838 days ago
Did you seriously just suggest that Amazon time the individualistic liquid consumption and bladders of their drivers? Do you have any idea how much outrage that would cause?

At least you could suggest retrofitting each truck with a urinal. That would make more sense despite being equally untenable.

2 comments

I'm suggesting they have a bathroom and time to use it at the package pickup location, and if that's going to be the main bathroom drivers use then the delivery segments shouldn't be longer than 2-3 hours or so. And if that's not going to be the main bathroom then it should be Amazon's responsibility to make sure something is available, not the driver's.

How did you get anything about tracking fluid intake from "regular good opportunities"? I'm really curious.

If you've got to go, you've got to go. Holding in your pee for up to 2-3 hours isn't very healthy; that's the kind of thing Amazon got in trouble for demanding in their warehouses.

So yeah, obviously they should have bathrooms at the warehouses that drivers can use. I'm earnestly surprised they don't already, it's common sense. But I don't think it will stop drivers from peeing in bottles.

Edit:

> 2-3 hours since the last bathroom break shouldn't be unhealthy.

That assumes you chose to avail yourself at that time. If didn't feel like you had to use the bathroom at that time, you might neglect to do so anyway. Maybe because you were walking around outside your truck, and walking around somewhat suppresses that full-bladder sensation. Then you sit down in your truck and half an hour later, after a cup of coffee, you realize you have to piss. You're still 2 hours away from your next bathroom break, so what do you do? Is this a consequence of poor planning on the part of the driver? Maybe. But that's inevitably going to happen anyway.

Okay, awkward second reply to your edit.

> That assumes you chose to avail yourself at that time. If didn't feel like you had to use the bathroom at that time, you might neglect to do so anyway. Maybe because you were walking around outside your truck, and walking around somewhat suppresses that full-bladder sensation. Then you sit down in your truck and half an hour later, after a cup of coffee, you realize you have to piss. You're still 2 hours away from your next bathroom break, so what do you do? Is this a consequence of poor planning on the part of the driver? Maybe. But that's inevitably going to happen anyway.

If you've been doing the job for a while, this should be very rare. Or maybe you're new to the job and this happens a few times. But you can probably at least find some kind of fast food place at least.

If we assume the company is doing things right, needing to pee in a bottle is not going to routinely happen unless that driver has a medical condition or is an idiot. So if there is a persistent problem with needing to pee in bottles, I'm confident that the cause is something bigger than 2-3 hour drives. Something like "all the drivers are rushed all the time" or "there's nowhere good to go to the bathroom between drives" or simply "they have to deliver too many packages at once". Or "the drivers are intended to take breaks mid-trip, but there was no thought put into making sure bathrooms are available on those breaks".

Well Dylan, I guess some people are just idiots. I am not a truck driver, nobody has me on the clock when I go on road trips, but sometimes I piss in bottles. Not every week, but more times than I can count. Could I avoid this if I did a better job of planning ahead? Probably. But that's a low priority for me.
If you're not feeling forced into it, then go for it I guess. The idiot is the person that thinks peeing in a bottle is a bad thing but consistently won't go to a convenient bathroom before leaving.

And this is their day job, they're not just forgetting because it's been a while.

> If you've got to go, you've got to go.

Yeah but I assume someone doing this for their day job can manage a bit of planning. As long as the proper opportunity is there, on-the-go emergencies should be quite rare and wouldn't be a systemic problem.

> Holding in your pee for up to 2-3 hours isn't very healthy; that's the kind of thing Amazon got in trouble for demanding in their warehouses.

2-3 hours since the last bathroom break shouldn't be unhealthy.

Why would truck urinals be untenable? That actually sounds like a pretty good idea. The truck urinals could even have collapsible privacy screens (aka shower curtains.)