aka I’m just wild about Emperor Harry’s new apron.
Stephanie Zillman news editor of HC Online asserts: “Humour must be inclusive to rule out harassment and discrimination concerns, and there are substantial liability risks for unguarded employers if they are seen to have condoned the behaviour.
In communicating the purpose of strict limits on humour in the workplace to employees, it is important to highlight that by no means is ‘fun’ being eliminated, or that the company is regulating how colleagues relate. It is simply about setting boundaries to foster a healthy work environment, free from hostility and legal exposure, which will ultimately make everyone happier and more relaxed at work.
As a rule of thumb (my emphasis), certain types of comments, jokes, and pranks are never appropriate in the workplace and should not be encouraged or tolerated. Many topics are legally mandated as “off limits” in the workplace, and polices should prohibit employees from innuendos, and making comments or references about:
Sexual orientation or acts
Religious or political practices or beliefs
Race or ethnicity
Social status, gender, or age-related stereotypes
Physical appearance and attributes
Weight-related issues
Disabled persons, or persons with any form of diminished capacity
Any other topic that targets an individual or group as being inferior.”
Might the same values and consequentially proscribed behaviours be applied by an outlaw motorcycle club? Offence is always against our personal claim to certain socially formed values ... and they’re not the same for everyone yet laws are written such that one size fits all. What a task.
So what is so different about Prince Harry being publicly loved by ‘society’ (well ... err ...Sir Richard Branson and other such ‘fashionable’ speaking subjects) for playing strip billiards when a purported picture of a naked Harry is happily published allegedly showing him bear-hugging a woman who appears to be completely naked as well. Wow! what mixed messages. I guess some will argue that such behaviour is OK for third in line for the Crown (because he’s loved as a rascal) in his hotel suite, not ok say for a PM in her holiday flat, OK for a bikie in her clubhouse. So wearing an apron with a picture of a penis to a workplace ‘do’ results in disciplinary action for the wearer. Can’t write rules for this social behaviour so ‘all knowing authorities’ offer safe ‘guidelines’. In the end, society (and workplaces) orients to what we BELIEVE are the rules for ‘doing being me’ and not the societal rules that don’t really exist at all. In fact we are making the rules day by day, conversation by conversation as we go along. Different folks; different strokes.
What do you think? What offends you? Why?
