Bottoms up!

Shocking, breaking, all-important news from the bowels (sorry) of the Corp:

New toilet seats!

At least in the men's and (I'm told) women's washrooms in the CBC.ca area of the Toronto Broadcasting Centre. A quick (and sheepish) tour of other (men's) washrooms (lots of brackets) indicates a 50-50 mix of white and black seats.

I didn't notice anything wrong with the old white ones, but some time in the wee (sorry again) hours of last night, they were replaced with very shiny (and slightly cold) black ones. Too shiny, actually – they capture rather clear impressions of the bottoms that came before you.

I asked my colleagues for their theories on this replacement, and here's what I got:

• They're cutting down the cleaning schedule to every other day, and needed something that wouldn't show the dirt
  
  
• The seats are cast-offs from the executive washrooms, which have been upgraded to either mahogany or solid gold
  
  
• Black & white is more formal. Next they'll have a bathroom attendant. Or those coin-op machines that offer rip-off cologne and French ticklers

In case you think my blog has hit bottom (sorry, final time), you should know that this is only a tenuous news peg for another, better story of potty politics. It's a story with a happy ending (Crap. Sorry. Ooops, I did it again.)

Shortly after the lockout ended, CBC employees were greeted with ads in the CBC washrooms. Some sighed and pointed to the omnipresent and inescapable encroachment of advertising. Others decided to fight the power. Here is the story, courtesy of one person who helped spearhead the fight. She writes:

"I thought you might get a kick out of this surprisingly successful and heartening, though small, example of collective protest in action."
__________

Raising a stink

On the 14th of November 2005, washroom ads were found hanging in the women's washrooms and some handicap washrooms at various CBC locations across the country.

Horrified employees from every area of CBC responded in indignation in a number of ways. Some sent e-mails to CBC management; some, I'm told, joined together and spoke to the Vice President of English Radio who in turn spoke to Robert Rabinovitch; others turned the ads to face the wall or stuck the ever-helpful hand washing instructions on top of them; others called the media buying agency who placed the ads, complained to the VP, and threatened to boycott the products advertised.

To the surprise and gratification of everyone who let their voices be heard, on the 13th of December we received this e-mail from the Director of Special Real Estate Assignments and Communications, Real Estate Division:

"I just wanted to advise you that management has decided not to continue with the washroom advertising frames initiative. I have spoken with MediaCity (the agency), they have been very accommodating, and will be removing the advertisements and their frames this week - perhaps as soon as this evening."

We'll probably never know exactly what led to M. Prud'homme's e-mail (some think it was CBC's decision, others have expressed cynicism about this and suggest it was the ad agency who pulled out), but for the record here are some of the exchanges that helped bring about this remarkable decision:

I'm a producer with The National in Toronto and I'm writing to ask you to remove the advertsing from the women's washrooms. This is an office, a place of business, not a consumer forum for you to exploit. We have a right not to be bombarded with ads when we use employee washrooms.

Secondly, the ads themselves are offensive. "The juiciest thing in the office???" Defend that one for me please. I can tell you there's not a woman in our office who's not offended by this exploitation.

M. Prud'homme's standard reply was:

I've received your e-mail expressing your frank views. The following will provide you with additional information and a bit more context.

The placement of advertisements in washrooms-men's (to be installed in the weeks to come) as well as women's-is an initiative to generate revenue for CBC/Radio-Canada. All proceeds from this initiative will go to the corporate reserve account where they will be used for the benefit of programming. Washrooms at Montreal MRC, Toronto TBC, Ottawa OBC, Quebec City and Vancouver will have a single 13-inch by 17-inch advertising frame installed. Some larger washrooms will have a maximum of two frames.

We expect the majority of ads to promote cultural events and their corporate sponsors, and the agreement we have with MediaCity (the company that was selected to install and maintain the advertising frames) allows local CBC/Radio-Canada communications group to veto ads it deems inappropriate. The initial ad has already been replace in light of comments received.

I know this information probably won't change your opinion, but I hope it will help you understand the objective of the initiative and the measures we have taken to provide us with as much flexibility as possible.

Yours truly,
Ronald Prud'homme
Directeur, Affectations spéciales et communications
Division immobilière

In response, a group of 17 men and women from The National wrote:

Dear Ronald,

We fully understand the "context" of your decision to put advertisements in our washrooms. The endless stream of corporate decisions to sell off parts of this public company in the name of programming are well known to us. While we cannot do much to stop many or most of those efforts toward privatization, we believe we can, and must, prevent the selling off of us, the employees, in your money-grubbing endeavour.

We absolutely refuse to be the captive audience, the eyeballs, the customers, for you to deliver to advertisers.

In light of your intransigence on this topic, we must inform you that we will take our complaints directly to the media company, Media City, and to all of the advertisers (in the form of boycotting their products).

In sum, we don't want the money. We want, and demand, respect, and freedom from corporate exploitation.

Yours truly,

The women and men in 4B

Here's the text of some other letters:

First, you got rid of the cafeteria. Today, as I settled into another week at work, I was stunned to see the latest cash-grab: ads in the washroom. Is CBC really so hard up for money that it has to offer up its employees as captive consumers? I expect to see ads when I leave my work area to get a coffee or lunch. But when I take a necessary break just down the hall, still thinking about my work, it's jarring and distracting to see a garish advert for chewing gum. I cannot overemphasize how strongly I object to these ads and to the idea that CBC sees me not just as a valued worker but as a set of eyeballs to auction off to the highest bidder. I come to work to work, not to be sold a product.

(Upon receipt of M. Prud'homme's standard reply about the majority of ads promoting cultural events and their corporate sponsors, this writer said: "If chewing gum is a cultural event, I guess I better start building my apocalypse shelter.")

I understand that your office is responsible for the advertisements in the women's washrooms of the Toronto Broadcast Centre. I was appalled by this intrusion. We are browbeaten at every turn by people wanting us to spend money on things we do not need. The washroom is a temporary respite from this barrage. Please explain to me (and all of my colleagues who are also dismayed by this commercialism of our workplace) why this has been allowed to happen. Are the men to be tortured too, or is the exclusive privilege of the women of the building?

Dear Mr. Prud'homme,

May I request that you remove the ads that have been installed in the women's washroom here at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto.

It is offensive to think that we not only have to deal with every single square piece of our public life being visually defiled by advertising, but that we must also face it in one of the few places in our work life where one can have a moment of privacy and visual spareness, is just an insult.

Putting advertising in the women's bathrooms in the Broadcast Centre in Toronto is totally inappropriate.

Yes the CBC has funding issues, but if putting ads for Trident chewing gum in our bathrooms is viewed as a creative & proactive way of dealing with the corporation's bottom line than we have a more serious problem than the PCs getting elected.

Please remove them.

Yesterday I was shocked to see that commercial advertising had been put up in women's washroom in our CBC Toronto building.

I would like to voice my strong disaproval of this practice. I would like to think that our work place would stay free of commercial advertising, keeping it a professional environment conductive to our core business, and would wish not to be bombarded by commercial advertising in places we cannot avoid to visit (the washrooms!).

I hope that you will reconsider the decision of advertising in our building.

Hello there,

I wanted to write to tell you how shocked I was to see advertisements in the washrooms at the CBC. I am familiar with the practice of placing ads in public washrooms and even in school settings, but I can't understand why they would be installed at the CBC. We are not the same environment as a bar or restaurant, or a public urinal in Union Station. I don't believe there is a place for that at the nation's public broadcaster. It seems like whatever revenue generated by this is a small sum compared to the indignity of having ads directed at the corporation's employees, especially in a company where so many of the employees are independent-thinking journalists.

I hope that the decision to have ads in the washrooms is reversed.

Thanks for listening.

Please forward my email to the correct person(s). I wish to lodge my total disgust for the installation of ads in all the ladies washrooms at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto.

I know that we are trying desperately to be creative in funding but this is just wrong.

We are a publicly funded national broadcaster and it is an embarrassment to me as an employee to have these signs on the wall - as though we were a bar or a restaurant. I can only imagine what guests who come into the building to appear on our shows must think.

This is an insult to our corporate integrity.

(After the decision to remove the ads, this person wrote:

I've been feeling very down at the mouth recently because of the many, many changes that have happened here at CBC over the course of the last few years. What has upset me the most is my utter powerlessness to do anything about any of the changes that affect us day to day.

This has brought me hope.

Thank you - to all who said "enough".)

I've grudgingly grown used to seeing the surface of ice rinks and the sides of busses used to promote products, but there are places I hope never to be reminded that, by some people, we're all just seen as potential consumers. One of them is in my home, and another is at work. Is it so crazy to imagine that I can go to the bathroom, a necessary break in my day, without having this cynical view of the world forced on me?

In your e-mails, you seem to see us as valuable, creative, productive workers. Allow me to do my work without feeling, several times a day, that you see us as much, much less; mere consumers in a world full of stuff.

Please re-consider your decision to allow advertisements in our washrooms.

Dear Mr. Prud'homme,

I would like to express my disgust at seeing advertisements installed in the washrooms of the CBC building, here in Toronto.

When I am in the workplace, I do not want products and brands thrust in my face: it is a violation of my headspace.

I work in radio, a commercial-free zone. Thus, I respectfully request the removal of these obnoxious installations from this most private of spaces - the washroom.

One person wrote to me:

This great news has lifted my spirits. I left a voice mail for Mr. Prud'homme, and said that I felt my privacy had been invaded by these ads in the washrooms, and I could not believe that even with tight budgets at the CBC that the CORP would stoop so low. 'Trident Splash' in a washroom......''give me a break''......

On my floor someone placed the hand washing sign over the ads. It wasn't me!!!

__________

"So," my friend writes, "WELL DONE, one and all. As one person wrote, "Grassroots organizing works!" It's lovely to enjoy a moment of collective success."


Tags: advertising, washrooms, cbc, protest, gorbould