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Workplaces need clean toilets for women who absolutely need to use them during periods - there's a danger of infections!
At the start of my career, I worked in a company that had terrible toilets. On occasion, there would be tiny worms coming out of the tap water in the toilet. You can imagine how appalled I was, and I had to take leave at least once during my period since I didn’t want to die of some disease caused by poor hygiene. The HR person would come up to me and say, “Aishwariya, today, you look a little dull,” or words to that effect. Somehow, nobody ever discussed the issue of poor hygiene in the toilets. At the start of my career, I kept a lot of things unexpressed since I was new to the workforce. I finally told the HR about the issue. I don’t think anything was done.
So, of course, when I got a chance, I quit that company and instead joined an MNC, which had a spanking new building and was a leader in its segment.
My fervent plea to entrepreneurs and business owners is, please do not let this happen to anyone. Even if you cannot offer your employees a new skyscraper in an SEZ, at least ensure that they do not have to undergo ordeals, such as the one I went through. It is humiliating to be asked to use a restroom that is so unsanitary.
Those of you running businesses out of offices, please see to it that the following basic things are done.
There are many more things employers can do to make their employees feel comfortable in the workplace. I have listed the very basic, non-negotiable ones.
Dear reader, please feel free to name some steps a company can take to make employees feel at home via comments. It is embarrassing that I have to write about the very basic levels of hygiene in an article and spell out these things. However, sadly, workplaces can be hellholes in more ways than one. It is not always mental torture an employee has to go through, but sometimes, physical torture, too.
Image source: a still from the film Mr and Mrs Iyer
Aishwariya Laxmi is a writer, editor, blogger, and poet living in suburban Chennai, India. She blogs on https://aishwariyalaxmi.com/ and has a newsletter at https://ash.fambase.com/. Her poems and flash fiction have read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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