PC ?

Posted on 2010/01/27 11:58:30 (January 2010).

There was an article published in a local paper recently about a UK JobCentre turning-down one employer's advert for stating in his requirements that potential employees should be "reliable".

It was deemed not politically correct. Why not? For suggesting that unreliable employees need not apply.

It's hard to see how we can halt this tidal-wave of bureaucratic lunacy. There is a whole "strata" of our working population who fill administrative roles and clearly have too much time on their hands, or have their hands tied by misguided UK/European legislation.

It's one thing to ensure a population of people all get fair treatment in everything they do and are treated equally, it's quite another to make a mockery of those noble ideals by letting such petty quibbles make it a laughing-stock.

Smoking is another victim. I don't smoke myself, though my parents did. In my formative years I went out with friends to pubs and clubs where smokers were asked to confine their habit to designated areas, often with special ventilation. One area of a restaurant would be for smokers, another, usually larger area, for non-smokers etc. We were quite amicably kept apart while they indulged. I don't see a problem with this although I'm mystified as to how nowadays some recent beauraocratic nonsense has forced all these otherwise warm and social people out onto our streets. Isn't there a sordid discrimination latent in this practise? What's worse, those beaurocrats have seemingly missed the fact that smokers are forced out onto pavements in towns where they make life pretty miserable for non-smokers just trying get a bit of fresh air! Going out at lunch-time from work I walk among a veritable forest of smokers idling around, banned from going anywhere else, breathing-in their exhaust fumes.

Even the designated "smoking room" where I work has been closed and people now go out into the car park every hour or so throughout the day.

These two practises clearly don't balance. Discrimination works on so many levels and it seems no one is taking charge of this stupid stampede to political correctness. It's becoming more and more ludicrous by the day.

Well I guess that since smoking is a practice that is deemed bad (and it is), then everything should be done to get it to stop, or at least to make it hard for the people to pursue it. On the bureaucratic idiocy, I completely agree, sometimes things are taken to the limit just because people don't have anything better to do (i guess)...

Posted by Lox at 2010/01/28 10:39:59.

Indeed, it is political correctness gone mad, Nigel... As for smoking, well I do have to agree with Lox. Here in Greece a smoking "ban" came into effect on July 1st 2009, but the law was so badly conceived (and so badly enforced) that absolutely nothing has changed. I hate going out for a meal in winter (eating being outside in summer in Greece) only to be forced to inhale others' smoke. I have a Fart Machine (a small box which emits loud fart sounds, operated by remote control), and I'd love to be able to use it in such restaurants and to say "Well, you are smoking, so I am farting - breathe deeply!". My wife is, however, an inhibiting factor!! :-))

Posted by Bryan at 2010/01/28 11:59:14.

Thanks guys!!

Yes, I should point out, I'm not suggesting smoking in itself is ok (my Dad died from it, after all), it's just the rampant descrimination I'm railing at - which seems perfectly acceptable, when the use of a harmless (and pointless in the context) word is deemed not.

Posted by Nigel at 2010/01/28 14:34:21.

It is argued that the true reason for the collapse of the Roman Roman is a buraucratic apparatus which was becoming too heavy. People preferred submitting to barbarians in order to free themselves from taxes.

Posted by Sheri at 2010/01/29 07:39:41.

err... Roman Empire

Posted by Sheri at 2010/01/29 12:48:53.

Given our chat in your thread about self-employment in France - and Lox's from Italy - I can easily understand why this is considered a reasonable explanation :-))

Posted by Nigel at 2010/01/29 19:58:36.

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