Were Scotland Yard’s phone operators playing it too loose with trips to the loo? You can’t manage what you can’t measure, so the bosses have devised an unintentionally-hilarious new procedure to keep tabs on toilet “productivity” metrics. From couriermail.com.au,

Toilet break now a ‘Code Three’

NO longer known as a number one or number two, when phone operators at Scotland Yard take a toilet break they will have to log it as a “Code Three” so police can monitor time wasters.

Britain’s Metropolitan police said the new rules would stop staff at the police head quarter’s control room from taking unnecessary breaks.

The operators will have to log toilet visits as a “code three” on a bath-specific database.

Staff are fuming about being so heavily scrutinised.

Employee Paul Drew wrote in a staff magazine: “Everyone I have spoken to about this finds it deeply offensive and humiliating.

“It would be interesting to know what the public or the Met can possibly gain from making notes of such intimate details.”

Superintendent Russ Hanson-Coles, told the BBC: “Our primary role at central communications command is to be available for the public to contact and it is vital that we make the best use of our resources.

“Staff in this environment have regular breaks that compare very favourably with outside industry so the need for extra personal breaks should be minimal.”