About minute silences at work

[onesupplied]

We had a one minute silence today to recognise the Grenfell tragedy.

We all received an email well in advance about this. Our office manager sets off an alarm at 11am and when the silence is over. We've (sadly) done this a couple of times now in the past month.

There still remain a few colleagues who seem to take no notice. Although not talking they're typing, clicking, scrolling, shuffling papers.

AIBU to think that this is bloody disrespectful and that everyone can afford to take one minute out of their day?

[Bananasinpyjamas4]

Oh come on, ONE minute to pay respect for the dead. Unless you are performing surgery we should as a collective compassionate society manage that.

[TinselTwins]

IMO opting out of a silence is the same etiquette as eating when someone at work is fasting

Its okay to eat and drink as normal, it's not okay to antagonise the person not eating or to contunuously offer them food

I take the same approach to silences, I won't put someone in a position where it is difficult for them to maintain their silences (e.g. by asking them questions), but at the same time, me getting on with my work as usual doesn't hinder their efforts at staying silence so I'll do that

You don't need everybody else to be silent in order to observe your silence in the same way that you don't need everyone around you to fast in order to observe your fast.

[Falconhoof1]

Onesupplied I think we must be in the same office! Lots of people just kept working which is missing the point I think.

[megletthesecond]

I struggle when a minutes silence falls on one of my working days because I cry a lot. I had to be taken away for a cuppa to calm down last time.

It's easier at home or the war memorial. I cry but I don't have to go back to face a computer and take calls five minus later.

[TinselTwins]

Oh come on, ONE minute to pay respect for the dead. Unless you are performing surgery we should as a collective compassionate society manage that

we don't manage it for all sorts of massive atrocities so I will not participate in a practice that prioritises whose lives matter most.

I like the PPs workplace idea where those who want to collectively gather can do so elsewhere though

[user1476869312]

It's always the essentially fucking meaningless, virtue-signalling shit like silences that gets all the officious meddlers and inadequates in a tizzy, though. Is there anything useful you can do, after something bad has happened? Donate money, goods or time ? Write to your MP? if so, do it. Otherwise, go about your own business and leave others to go about theirs.

[RiverTam]

I must say it smacks of virtue signalling to me, but some people do seem to always want to make everything about themselves.

I thought the minutes silence was for those who'd fallen in combat in the defence of their country?

[Misswiggy]

Sorry but I was pissed off when my son came home from school today saying that they'd had yet another minutes silence. When did it become the norm to do this for every tragedy that occurs? I have cried tears when watching the coverage of grenfell but I find this sudden trend for a minutes silence for everything a bit dramatic and also dare I say it, slightly "fake" - as though they're doing it because they feel they should.

We live in Manchester so for the Manchester bombing I agreed with the minutes silence - but to do it then for the London terror attack and now Grenfell? I don't understand it tbh.

There are plenty of tragedies around the world every day, with much higher mortality rates, which we do not even pay much attention to.

[greenlavender]

You can't carry on with what you are doing if others are holding a minute's silence, it's not possible. I run a Call Centre & I learned pretty early on how upset the older generation got on 11th November if people tap on keyboards, text etc and now I just don't allow it. What's a minute out of your day? If you don't like it, leave the room.

[blankface]

We all received an email well in advance about this

Perhaps the email needs to have instructions on how to behave in the workplace during the silence, specifying that silence means silence, no typing, scrolling, shuffling papers etc.

Long time since I worked in an office but I think we used to stand next to our desks with heads bowed during a silence. Standing would hopefully stop the 'continuing office noises'

[khajiit13]

YABU. It's not a competition People can pay their respects in their own way, in their own time.

[RiverTam]

It's been a long time since I dud, but I don't recall doing it for anything other than Remembrance Day. Don't think it was even done for 9/11 or 7/7.

[TinselTwins]

What's a minute out of your day? If you don't like it, leave the room.

Wouldn't it be much better if those who wanted to opt in left the room and did it elsewhere?

[TalkinPeece]

The minute silence in workplaces is a very modern penomena (post Diana in fact)
And it has frankly got completely out of control.

Dozens of people die on the roads every day .... no silence for them

The 11 am thing is piggy backing onto the Armistice
And devaluing it

[Whileweareonthesubject]

Sabine - it's two minutes for Armistice Day, one minute each for ww1 and ww2. It always used to be observed on 11th of November, whichever day that fell on, but gradually changed to just two minutes at 11am on Remembrance Sunday. In recent years we've gone back to observing the silence on the 11th. It's not new.

[SootSprite]

A man was killed in a car accident yesterday, did you have a minutes silence for him?
A couple were killed in a house fire, did you have one for them?
A child died from cancer, how about them?

This competitive mourning by those not directly affected by tragedies is getting ridiculous.

[TinselTwins]

The 11 am thing is piggy backing onto the Armistice
And devaluing it

exactly! people are so busy being superior about their involvement yet they don't take a minute out of their day to consider the actual meanings and origins.

Bit like when people were doing the cold bucket challenge for breast cancer etc and didn't give a fuck that the whole point of it was to experience the feeling of MND, yet they were the ones virtue signalling.

[user1476869312]

Also, it's frankly dodgy that anyone's employer can order them to be silent (or engage in any other non-work-related behaviour).
People may well have valid reasons for not wanting to comply - whether that's pressure of work or an ethical objection to enforced silence.

[TalkinPeece]

whilewe
The 11am silence was definitely not observed in offices and scools in the 70's and 80's

Nor did we have silences for the hundreds every year killed by the IRA

Its a very modern phenomena - the 4 minutes for the Asian Tsunami was the first one I specifically remember.

[TinselTwins]

Its a very modern phenomena - the 4 minutes for the Asian Tsunami was the first one I specifically remember

The first non- armistace one I ever had in a workplace was for 9/11. Which is why I actively do not participate - there were other overseas tragedies happening at the same time to less white/western people It very much felt like a declaration of whose lives mattered the most.

[HmmOkay]

Be silent if you want to be silent. But you don't get to visit that on others, particularly if the other people didn't even speak.

This whole trying to shame everyone in the population into observing a very public minute's silence thing makes me cringe. I am capable of reflection on my own - I don't need to do it for 60 seconds in front of Martin from Accounts.

[JoshLymanJr]

It's got nothing to do with compassion, it's about the modern need to be seen. It isn't enough to quietly contemplate a tragedy, you have to be seen to do so, otherwise you might as well be pissing on graves.

[Ollivander84]

We try and do them as best we can but as emergency services, if someone rings 999 then obviously you can't have them on hold! But anyone not on a call will observe the silence

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

It's become incredibly pompous and ceremonial - and it's completely arbitrary. What earthly good does shutting up for 1-3 minutes actually do?

I can't abide those who not content with participating quietly, have to theatrically swivel around and scowl at anybody who isn't. You're supposed to be concentrating on the dead, focusing on them. That's what you said you wanted to do so shut up and get on with it then.

I agree with TalkinPeece about the devaluing. It is. I also agree that participants should leave the workplace to find a space where other people are not so they can do their contemplating in peace.

Competitive everything seems to be the order of the day and it's really horrendous. People died - do something useful to show respect for them and their families... or just stand there for 1-3 minutes but stop hijacking other people. Do it for yourself.

[Saucery]

No one's ordering me to be quiet, what an odd thing to say. I choose to be. Cars still drive past, dinner ladies still clatter pots about, KS1 were playing as not expected to observe the silence (staff were given the choice to leave the non participating classrooms if they wanted to take part).
I was photocopying, bell went, I stopped photocopying and looked down for one minute.
It's really not some insidious plot to have us all in sackcloth and ashes.