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Potty mouth: reading e-mail in the bathroom

By Layer 8 on Mon, 01/08/07 - 12:00pm.

In a rather disconcerting find, almost one in five small business managers read work-related e-mails and other documents in the bathroom, presumably at work. It's worse that almost 50% of them said they work while driving, but the bathroom? What could be that interesting? (This study follows another one that indicated more Americans are logging wirelessly into the Internet - from their bathrooms.) The newspaper I understand. The survey of 300 small business owners (with up to 20 employees) was sponsored by Staples and conducted by International Communications Research.Here are some other findings:

* One in five (21%) work while eating dinner at least 4–5 times per week;

* More than a third (37%) could not readily remember their last vacation. Of those who did vacation, nearly half admit to working during some portion of it.

* Additionally, the pervasiveness of mobile phones and hand-held e-mail devices has only contributed to these long hours at untraditional times.

* More than two-thirds (68%) work on days off, checking e-mail, voicemail or making work-related calls;

* Two-thirds (66%) work after hours and at night;

* Half (51%) work on holidays;

* And almost half (47%) work during what is supposed to be family time.

* Generally, surveyed leaders of younger companies and those with fewer employees expressed the most lopsided work-life balance, and the vast majority (92%) characterized their workload as about the same or heavier than from a year ago.