Saturday 28 February 2009

Are we really going mad??

As is usual for me I have been watching the news with some interest and always find something that makes me ask if we have gone totally mad in this country.
The first one was the story of the presenter on cbeebies with a disability which was ‘frightening’ children watching. I really did think that this sort of silliness went out about 20 years ago and we had ‘grown up’ as a nation and become far more relaxed with people less able than we may be. I have just read over on Will’s blog at Ramblings from Red Rose that one parent complained because they had to have a conversation with their child about disability – I would have thought this was a useful conversation to have to be having.
The other one was the young lady who was sacked for complaining about her job on face book. I haven’t read all the details but it appears she was pretty bored by the type of work she was being given to do and made comments about this and then gave her work colleagues access to her face book page where they read it. There are a number of things that strike me about this story and the first one is what sort of people was she working with? Why did they feel the need to run off and tell the boss that the girl had made some comments? Why did the boss sack her? Surely the company should have looked at why she was bored – was she in the sort of role that the old tea boy was when I began work almost 40 years ago – we knew full well that the junior would get all the jobs that no one else wanted including the making of tea for other workers. We had some young business apprentices working with us recently and I stressed that tea making was not part of their duties, although if they wished to make their colleagues a drink that was not a problem.
I sometimes wonder how far we have come when I read these types of story – perhaps we have not really come very far at all and all the equality and diversity stuff that employers come out with is just really a box ticking exercise!!

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