To think well done for the RNLI for sacking people with naked women mugs

[jnfrrss]

Totally not acceptable to have naked women mugs at work! I applaud them. Nick Ferrari is raising my blood pressure minimising such behaviour.

I've never worked anywhere where naked women imagery is acceptable, even if they are covering their modesty

As the risk of people dying at sea in the area temporarily increases due to losing those active lifesaving volunteers, at least the rest of us can sleep safely knowing that the terminally offended got to feel their daily dose of oppression. This time at a pair of breasts on a ceramic cup. Well done.

Utterly ridiculous - the bullying being a different issue, but the comments about a jokey mug are just pathetic.

I have seen offices where women had firemen or naked rugbymen calendars. At most, they were asked to put them away.

You have to be badly twisted to jump from a possibly inappropriate item to "abuse", "sexual abuse" and so on. Some posters have such a dirty mind, it's very scary.

"You have to be badly twisted to jump from a possibly inappropriate item to "abuse", "sexual abuse" and so on. Some posters have such a dirty mind, it's very scary."

Or you have to be able to read the statement from the RNLI which is posted above.

maybe you should read my post and the fact that my reply was about the outraged posts about the mug - again, not the possible bullying and the whole story. Just the mug and the reaction from some posters about it.

To the person who said ‘I’m sure other people will volunteer to save lives’ you clearly have NO IDEA what it takes to be RNLI crew. It’s a massive commitment in terms of time, training, your skill set, your work and family arrangements, down to when you can have a pint.
They do not just ‘save lives’ like that’s a hobby. They deal with stressed parents, drunk idiots, they may well be first on the scene to horrible injuries (ever seen what an outboard propellor can do to you?) and pull bodies out of the sea. It is a thankless job largely done by amazing people and it is not even government funded.

I appreciate this is clearly about way more than just mugs, but the idea that mugs could be a safeguarding issue is ridiculous in a coastal community. My kids are growing up by the sea and if the day ever comes that I have to call the RNLI to find them I promise you I will not care if they have a whole wall devoted to playboy’s finest if they go out there and get my kids. Or anybody’s kids.

But the two things are not mutually exclusive are they? You can be a lifeboat volunteer without a collection of images of naked women. You don't have to say, "Well if I can't have my mug I'm not doing it any more and to hell with people drowning".

You can actually be a reasonable person, accept that such things are unprofessional, slightly intimidating and mildly offensive to most women, put the bloody mug away and carry on with your job.

I honestly thought there would not be one person who would agree with this. I guess MN will always come up trumps when it comes to idiotic signalling.

The local people are in uproar and protesting the sacking. These men risk life to save lives ffs

...and they volunteer to do it.

Another charity to strike off the donation list!

having a naked women mug is not a sackable offence. Refusing to get rid of them when asked is.

I am sure the RNLI know what they are doing.

Tinkly As a female fork lift driver many, many moons ago, I moved branch. On arrival the site office was decorated with a frieze (yes, really, placing had spirit level precision) of topless women from The Daily Sport. I elected to say nothing for a few days, having been down this road many times.

There was one bloke there absolutley busting for me to kick off about it so he could put me in my place. He cracked first and said something along the lines of 'You a dyke then?', I said ' what make you ask that' cue a lot of aggressive waffle about PC gone mad, wimmin, kitchen sinks, appreciating a nice pair etc etc.

All this was done in front of a load of other staff and customers, which I now think that was deliberate so I'd either take it, or kick off and get in trouble.

When he'd finished, I said something along the lines of 'I just don't understand why you'd surround yourself with images of women who wouldn't look twice at you. Is it some kind of fetish? Do you get off on torturing yourself by looking at women that wouldn't look twice at you? Seems quite pervy to me, especially since you've got a daughter of a similar age.' Walked out of the office and got on with my job.

Dunno who took the pictures down, but they were gone when I came back in later. Think this was the point that I learned that being calm was more effective than telling someone to fuck off.

"But they save lives so they can have..." naked pictures of women on the wall, naked men on the wall.... this kind of justification is a slippery slope. So a racist wall of pics would be ok. Because as long as they save children, they can have whatever view they like? What is racist to one may not be to another - Gollies?? Anti gay material on the wall? Do we again say yeah but they SAVE lives! What about dodgy images of children - ok because they save lives and it's only banter, they don't really think of kids in that way?

Also think a little more about what the message of the mugs is saying about women. They're not 'just' images of naked women and everyone will have their view on whether it's objectifying women or men for these kind of images to be produced..... But they were women's bodies with the heads of the males that worked there superimposed. The 'banter' here is that it's funny to suggest the men are female, to suggest that they are 'less' than a man. It wasn't a compliment. It was a jokey dig at one another. The joke being they are a girl, ha ha ha So the fact the females head was replaced by the men's does make it worse. They are suggesting it is lesser to be a woman. This in itself it regardless of whatever else they were up to makes it a hostile work environment.

It is never and should never be acceptable to excuse behaviour that is not necessary and can be controlled by the vast majority of people, that offends others to go unchecked, unchallenged or indeed accepted because they save lives. As others have said it is perfectly possible to perform any role without this kind of behaviour. Remember that one person who is made to feel uncomfortable could be you (perhaps not in this instance), your husband, wife, parent, child or someone you hold dear. If a way of behaving causes offence and there is no need to behave that way. Don't do it. Its really not hard.

Its a shame that people will stop giving to the charity over all this. thats the sad bit and it takes a lot of money to keep the lifeboats going.

"Well if I can't have my mug I'm not doing it any more and to hell with people drowning"

Don't you dare try to make them responsible for people drowning after they've left.

They're more likely quitting because there is a clash with the management - these things go 2 ways, it's unlikely to all be on their side. It's possible, just possible, that the manager is an arse too...

These people sacrifice a lot of their personal time & see/do a lot & if they make the decision to stop doing it, for whatever reason, it's up to them.

Some sofa surfing social justice warrior who hasn't got a clue doesn't have the right to try & blame them for anyone that drowns after they've quit......

Its a shame that people will stop giving to the charity over all this. thats the sad bit and it takes a lot of money to keep the lifeboats going

Doesn't seem likely to me. Everyone local will know exactly what those men were doing that got them sacked, and won't have been the mugs. It will all be leaked on social media shortly.

I think

(And im struggling to phrase this)

That you have to be very very hard of thinking to think that its just the mug....mug maybe the final straw/catalyst, but its not

'Ooh dodgy mug...sack em'

But if thats what you want to believe then crack on...some people say 'god, you can't sack anyone these days..its all human rights this human rights that' others say 'omg sacked cos they didnt like the mug'. Some quite obviously don't say either

If you had any idea what the RNLI actually does you would not be happy about this.

It was joke.

RNLI volunteers are the people who sacrifice their weekends to train.

They get up in the middle to the night to pull people us of the water in dangerous conditions.

They help evacuate us when our homes are flooded.

They support other emergency services in our chronically underfunded country.

They wade through mud and search the coastlines lifting putrid corpses out of the water when people die in tragic circumstances.

There are not enough of these volunteers as it is and you are happy that these men have been sacked.

YABU. I will not give to the RNLI again now, despite the bravery of their men and women.

I take it you won't be calling them out either, Growingboys, should you need them?

Of course they shouldn't have been sacked. It's bloody ridiculous.

Erm

I employ people and work with a union

You can't sack people for having inappropriate mugs

I'd be happy to be saved from drowning by a sexist.
I'd be happy to be saved from drowning by a racist.
I'd be happy to be saved from drowning by a paedophile.
Hell I'd even be happy to be saved by Donald Trump.
Does that mean the RNLI should put up with whatever poor behaviour their volunteers choose to take part in? If saving lives matter that much to these men they had options.

Utterly ludicrous. I think we really are at 'peak PC' at the moment and it can't go on much longer.

Interesting article on it here:

www.yorkshirecoastradio.com/news/local-news/2570162/whitby-investigation-much-more-than-saucy-mugs-says-rnli/

We can confirm that the images of the mugs in many of the media articles is not a true representation of what was produced."

It involved the alleged production of what it calls 'inappropriate sexual material.'

This is about much more than ‘saucy mugs’ but for legal reasons and given the crew members have a right of appeal it is not appropriate to say more at this time however we can confirm the investigation focussed on the production of inappropriate material of a sexual nature and associated social media activity directed at an RNLI staff member.

We cannot allow bullying, harassment or discrimination in what should be a safe and inclusive environment and there will be serious consequences for anybody who demonstrates this behaviour within the RNLI.

I reckon from that, that one of the staff members mocked up on a cup was a woman so it basically appeared she was on a mug in a pornographic pose.

Volunteers giving up their time. Lifeboat Crewe Are fantastic, sacking dedicated volunteers for what seems like something so trivial is unreasonable. There have been other examples volunteers have been scaled - the York belling ingest for example. These actions are by paid officials who are out of touch with reality