Government is a jargon-heavy industry. When I first joined the BC public service, I was drowned in abbreviations and acronyms that obfuscated more than they aided. Business lingo also run amuck: quick wins, deltas and COP.
I find jargon an interesting subject because jargon can serve many different functions. For industry experts it can be shorthand for complicated ideas or lengthy word salads. It can also add a specificity that is lacking in every-day English: for sailors, for example, portside and starboard have more specific meanings then left or right. On the less positive side of things, jargon can obfuscate information from industry outsiders and confuse newcomers. I am halfway convinced the proliferation of jargon and acronyms in the public service exists to confuse freedom of information requests.
This is all preamble to what I actually want to discuss, which is my wholehearted hatred for term ‘bio-break’. Perhaps I am being a curmudgeon, but what is wrong with ‘bathroom break’? It only costs another two syllables! However, my ire is not primarily fueled by my desire to defend the old but rather by the implications of the new.
First, the direct meaning of the term. “Biological break” makes it sound like we are cyborgs making momentary concessions to our weak fleshy nethers. How unfortunate that we are yet biological beings, our workdays still marred by the need to satiate our biological functions. ‘Bio break’ laments both our human frailties and our individuality, a corporate sigh that we are not yet subsumed utterly into the corporate machine.
Second, aren’t we already sufficiently distanced from our bodily functions? Are we so ashamed to poop and pee that we can no longer even refer to the room in which the act takes place? Is the workplace so so puritan an environment that it can no longer withstand the mention of ‘bathroom’? How many masks must we place on the maligned act of poo-pooing?
Third, why doesn’t the term encompass other biological needs? I wouldn’t say I’m taking a bio break if I am getting a snack or taking a nap! Yet another insult to our human natures, that our biological existence is reduced to our excremental functions.
So, next time you need to go to the bathroom, say you need to go to the toilet, the crapper, the john or the loo. Just please don’t say you need a bio break.
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