I enjoy a nice cup of joe in the morning...a bottle or two of water in the afternoon while at work. Don't we all? I even think that the practice of ingesting fluids is encouraged by management. I mean...free coffee?...several water coolers/water fountains?

For some reason that I don't intend to explain in this short narrative, management feel that a well hydrated/caffeinated team is a boon to business.

Not surprisingly, all of this fluid intake begins to stir some of my most primal urges. Before I know it, I'm in the bathroom...discarding a sizeable quantity of that once delicious liquid.

Let's assume for a moment...that I earn...say...$.40 per minute.

So...

If I spent 10 minutes in the bathroom...I'd make 4 bucks!

But let's take this a step further.

Just as a personal hobby of mine, I record all trips to the bathroom in a bathroom log book. Duration, color, mood, what I was reading, etc.

As you can see from the month of records below...bathroom trips seem to fall in one of two distinct categories. Just for simplicity, let's call the yellow dots "Type #1" and the brown markers "Type #2". This data is inclusive of all bathroom trips (both at work and home) in a one month span.
Two things should be noted:
All occurrences of "Type #2" incidents never take place at work...they will therefore not be included in any further calculations.
Instances of "Type #1" occur both at home and at work. Those that occur at home are noted with triangular points.

Now...

Using my log and weeding out all occurrences that are recorded at home, we can start to see that I make about three trips to the bathroom per day at work that are each about five minutes in duration.

3 trips/day * 5 minutes each = 15 minutes total in the bathroom per day

15 minutes * earnings of $.40/minute = $6 earned/day in the bathroom

$6/day * 5 workdays/week = $30 earned/week in the bathroom

$30/week * 52 weeks/year = $1,560 earned/year just for going pee!

So...if there's about 146 million people in the workforce (who work an average of somewhere around 32 hrs/week)...and...they make an average of about $17/hour...and we use my log as a general example of a typical person's bathroom habits...

Then employers are paying out $129,064,000,000/year for people to use the potty. And that's a conservative estimate since I'm not including any instances of Type #2 in my analysis (and rounded down to a four day workweek instead of using a 4.21 day workweek) .

...and what about those people who spend 24 hours/day on the job (e.g. The President)? Every time they go to the bathroom...they're getting paid. So if our beloved leader gets paid $400,000/year...then George W. gets paid $7.60 every time he drops a deuce for the rest of his term and about half that for the rest of his life (assuming 10 minute bowel movements)! That's 7.6 Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers! It's a delicious vicious cycle.

Discontinuing the water coolers, coffee makers, and water fountains would eliminate a lot of waste (*snort*). I propose a one-time fixed cost of funnels and bottles for all associates.

...and...since I just saved corporations across America millions of dollars...it would probably only be fair that I get to use bathroom facilities for my leavings.