“HAPPY” hairdresser gets ad chopped

Did you read about the job centre where a “jobs worth” banned a job advert for a “happy” stylist on the grounds it could “discriminate” against unhappy people? “HAPPY” hairdresser gets ad chopped. The hair salon owner thought someone was winding her up when she had a phone call telling her to tweak the wording.

Brilliant! What next? Jobs can’t be advertised for professionals with experience and drive, in case they discriminate against non-professionals, the inexperienced, and those without drive?

Sounds like it was a really bad hair day for someone! Sounds like the person in the job centre was trying to make sure they’d be eligible to apply. How about setting up a salon called Les Misérables, where only whingers can apply to work? Haha!

Seriously, the problem is, employees nowadays (particularly government employees) are rarely given any leeway. They have to follow a preset system as this is considered safest (and allows the employer to take on low-grade, cheaper staff). A system that is usually computer-based. “Computer says no” resonates so significantly for so many just for this reason. This employee was merely following instructions, instructions you’d need to see to fully understand the absurdity of the situation.

This incident reminds me of an experience decades ago when a colleague advertised a secretarial post with a local job centre in London. She wanted someone who could take shorthand at x words a minute. The job centre flatly refused to advertise the post claiming it discriminated against people who could not achieve x words a minute. Unbelievable!

Sometimes it takes a story like this to draw attention to the utterly daft conclusions people come to in their eagerness to pursue social media driven values, rules and misunderstandings. A bit like the BBC and the “Rule Britannia” saga. The woke generation in a nut shell.

Whoever put in place the discrimination laws, or those who enforce them, should …. well, words fail me.

Actually, I could help out with the words, but they wouldn’t see the light of day on these hallowed pages..

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