People who always work from home, complained the boss of L’Oréal this week, have no “passion or creativity”. That may be so. But I think we need to ask ourselves why WFH is still widespread. It’s not necessarily because these staff are lazy.
They may just be terrified that, if they come into the office, some snivelling snitch will get them fired for telling a joke.
These days, it’s a serious risk. In the workplace, banter is increasingly seen as bullying or harassment, with the over-sensitive marching straight to HR or even demanding compensation. Hence City AM’s front-page headline on Thursday: “Banter Defence Won’t Cut It, Lawyers Warn, as Jokes Get Dangerous.” An expert in employment law said: “To anyone who is unsure whether it’s appropriate to say something in the workplace, I’d suggest: ‘If in doubt, don’t say it.’”
This may well be sound advice. But if staff are constantly walking on eggshells for fear of upsetting a tiny handful of humourless woke crybabies, office life becomes impossible. One of the main reasons that bosses want staff back in the office is, as the man from L’Oréal suggests, to encourage creativity. They believe staff are more creative when they can bounce ideas off each other while chatting informally. But if staff are petrified that the slightest conversational misstep will cost them their jobs, they won’t have those informal chats. They’ll just sit with eyes fixed on screens, and mouths firmly shut.
Then again, they could try subtly rewording their jokes. Instead of “an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman”, for example, make it “a Tory, a terf and a Zionist”. The sort of people who are easily offended by jokes tend not to like those groups, so you’ll be fine.
Wine whine
The health police have embarked on their latest attempt to make our lives that little bit more miserable. At the University of Cambridge, researchers have made the startling discovery that, if you serve people wine in smaller glasses, they drink less. So now, for our own good, they’re recommending that bars, pubs and restaurants stop using their largest wine glasses.
How wearyingly joyless. In any case, whenever some nagging fusspot tells us we drink too much, I always remember Dylan Thomas’s famous definition of an alcoholic: “Someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.” Admittedly, of course, it would be hard to find anyone who drinks as much as Dylan Thomas did. He drank so much that he dropped dead at the age of just 39. Perhaps that’s the reason we British are so bad at recognising that we’ve got a drink problem: we use Dylan Thomas as a yardstick. We think: “Well, I’ve made it past the age of 39, so my drinking must be fine.”
At any rate, I doubt many of us will pay attention to these researchers. Unfortunately for them, they published their findings on the same day a leading Nato military official warned Western civilians to prepare for all-out war with Russia. So in the circumstances, I can’t say I’m entirely in the mood for cutting down on alcohol. If I owned a bar, I’d be ordering even bigger wine glasses.
Besides, in a war with Russia, boozing needn’t hold us back. In fact, it might actually help us win. After all, our greatest ever leader, Winston Churchill, spent practically the entire Second World War drunk. People usually talk about that as if it’s a bad thing, but it makes me admire him all the more. I see his drinking as a form of jubilant showing off, like a small boy riding a bicycle with no hands. By downing half a bathtub of booze every day, Churchill was taunting the Nazis. He was saying to them: “Look, I’m beating you hands-down while absolutely bladdered. Imagine the thrashing I’d give you if I were sober.”
A dark day for dads
Like all middle-aged fathers, I spend a sizeable proportion of my life marching round the house, switching off lights that other members of the family have left on – while sternly reminding them that I’m not made of money. How shattering, therefore, to read yesterday’s report by the energy comparison site Uswitch, which revealed that we dads have been wasting our time – because switching off lights, it turns out, saves barely any money at all. Typically, says Uswitch, it saves less than £2 a year.
After all our grumbling and finger-wagging, what fools we now look. The news isn’t merely embarrassing, though. I fear it will pitch the nation’s fathers into full-blown existential crisis. Men already struggle to find purpose in the modern world. Fewer and fewer jobs require physical strength. Girls effortlessly outstrip boys at school. And we’re perpetually being told that masculinity is “toxic”. In these insecure times, the one thing we men knew we were still good for was going round the house, switching off unnecessary lights. Yet now, this last remaining source of male pride has been cruelly extinguished.
As it happens, Prince Harry once admitted that he’s “obsessed” with switching off unnecessary lights – to the consternation of Meghan. In 2018 he told the BBC: “My wife goes, ‘Why turn the lights off? You know, it’s dark.’ I go, ‘We only need one light, we don’t need, like, six.’”
I doubt yesterday’s revelation from Uswitch will have escaped Meghan’s notice. From now on, that Montecito mansion will be visible from Mars.
Way of the World is a twice-weekly satirical look at the headlines aiming to mock the absurdities of the modern world. It is published at 7am every Tuesday and Saturday
Sarah Carter is a health and wellness expert residing in the UK. With a background in healthcare, she offers evidence-based advice on fitness, nutrition, and mental well-being, promoting healthier living for readers.
