Taking the piss

Well, my gast is well and truly flabbered.

I’m working in the office today and after several cups of coffee I’ve paid a visit to the loo, as you do. Stuck on the wall at eye level above each urinal was a colour chart with eight graduations of the colour yellow from clear through to a darkish brown, via several zingy variations inbetween. The text sternly instructed me to check my output against the chart (not literally, I hope) and warned that if was any darker than the first three colours in the sequence I was severely dehydrated and needed to drink more.

I noted the fact that it didn’t specify exactly what I should be drinking, and that technically speaking the notice officially sanctioned a lunchtime trip to the pub for several pints of Courage Directors Bitter which would have the necessary effect on the shade of my urinary output at the expense of my ability to type, program or do anything other than fall asleep at my desk.

A little bit of further investigation revealed that our company has for some reason engaged the services of a health monitoring business who seem to have collective bee in their bonnets about hydration and the effect of drinking unfeasible amounts of water on productivity. Leaving aside the distractions of the water cooler with its highbrow discussions of last night’s televisual entertainment offerings, surely if we are all nipping to the loo every fifteen minutes after chugging several litres of H2O isn’t our work bound to be affected in some way by the distraction?

I thought that the fad for drinking excessive amounts of water (but none of that evil tea or coffee which spoils the magical effect somehow) had been rather discredited? Indeed, doesn’t drinking too much water do something nasty to the brain, as several unfortunate users of the drug Ecstasy have found to their cost? Does anybody else have to put up with pseudo-science like this in their workplace?