It’s official; Marks and Spencer have fallen, the sequel.......

[MrsSnippyPants]

First thread getting full and and I continue to be interested in responses received to people’s emails and store visits.

I refused. It wasn't a thing when I was in the City but apparently its bad now and not unusual to see people (more often senior ones) doing a Bunce.

There was a brilliant idea of rainbowifying our company website and social media (for about ten minutes). I asked for the business case, asked what message it was giving out (and why could we possibly need it) and told them they could do it themselves if desperate.

My assumption is that they have calculated that a backlash by MN types will be more that made up for by the benefits of others seeing M&S as part of the woke generation up there with the hipster Guardian and ...Flora.

It's really really hard to change brand perception. They've been trying for years (several decades) and they haven't managed to crack it yet to get a significant proportion of younger customers. I agree that it is arrogant and dismissive of the loyal customers that shop with them, even though they have the worst loyalty scheme of any shop I can think of.

Absolutely raging over all this. I was going to order the Christmas turkey from M & S but it'll be Booth's now, even though it means a fair schlep by car to go and pick it up vs a 5-min walk.

(Please tell me Booth's hasn't gone woke, someone?)

Make sure you tell them. If everyone does (I was also going to do this as I have drawn the host straw this Christmas) then they might start to get an inkling. Especially if they balance it up against the 'new business' they think they will receive.

Shareholders won't be happy. I'm almost looking forward to the next AGM.

I agree about the what about disability. There are over 7 million people in UK with a disability and I dare say a much smaller about with LGBTQ issues. All this focus with 800 workers “advising” yet I still struggle to get around their stores because basic things like how close rails are together are still not looked at. Funny giving some areas have acres of space yet especially baby and Bra sections you have be size 6 walk passed comfortable never mind pushing a pram.

Look. Just paint your wheelchair or walking stick with a rainbow. Dye your hair blue and wear sparkly eye makeup. And if you are a woman...

Oh, don't worry, Fekko - I will

2 words - rainbow poppy

we can work towards the goal of creating an environment where everyone can be themselves and bring their whole-self to work

Apart from women, obviously, who can just shut up. And if they have inconvenient faiths, trauma or disability, go away.

It makes an utter mockery of this kind of idealism, it's empty. Devoid of anything but soundbites, just mindless memeing.

They don't care about the LGB.
If M&S cared about lesbian and bisexual women they wouldn't expect us to be okay with men using our changing rooms.

My work have a similar LGBT+ network, and yes, it’s wall to wall T. L and B issues only get a look in when there’s a T angle.

I am personally leery of this ‘bring your whole self to work’ mantra. It feels a bit mandatory, ie if I don’t want to know about my colleague Dave’s penchant for kinky pup sex or I think my own bisexuality is broadly irrelevant to my ability to do my job, I am in some way an impediment to progress and inclusion.

It's really really hard to change brand perception

Oh, I don’t know. There have been a few notable individuals who have managed this pretty much overnight. Always for the worse though...

Ratner!

It's just tokenism. Remember their LBTQ sandwich, well women have their own sandwich now. It also consists of four letters.

FU? That’s only two...

And - and - I didn’t take lunch today so decided to grab something from outside. I walked straight past M&S and went to a small bakery that I had never been in. I got a very nice baguette with fresh filling - expensive but bloody lovely.

It’s great discovering new places to shop and new things to buy. I’m still kicking myself for not swapping Always for a brilliant and lovely new alternative (for women) years ago!

I had a good chat with a lingerie assistant in my local M&S branch today. She told me that they were vigilant in the lingerie section - no men allowed in - because of all the responses spelt out here (first bras, mastectomies etc.) All good until a few minutes later she admitted that if the person was dressed as a woman, then they had to be allowed in, because otherwise, they were told, it was discriminatory.

Same as their former trans colleague using the women's staff changing room; the female staff didn't like it but were basically told they were being discriminatory if they complained.

I told her bluntly that they were still men, probably with all their bits intact, and she agreed it seemed wrong, but there was nothing she or her shop floor colleagues could do. Senior management ignore them too.

I mentioned men accessing the children's fitting room. She said there was probably some rule about adults entering without children (say under 16) but she didn't really know. She mentioned safeguarding, so I'd like to think I've raised awareness in the store today at least

I also went into a fairly new John Lewis. Curtains on the cubicles, but you could easily stand on the stool and discreetly position a phone over the top (and I'm only 5'1"!) But at least without the lockable doors, they can perhaps have a legitimate single-sex policy.

Fitting rooms in JL say just that - no mention of men's or women's - but I did noticed there was one that specifically said Children's fitting room, so that at least was a positive..

But the rule seems to say ‘wherever you feel most comfortable’. I think I’d feel more comfortable in the managers office to be honest.

My response slightly varied but not much ...signed by someone called Patryk Zak. Mm

I wonder if, I’m the same way there have been claims by TW about joining in with the asking for and handing out tampons in the ladies, there’s a fantasy ideal in some people’s minds about how women’s changing rooms work?
You know how all we girls together like to stand round in our undies, telling each other how fabulous we look, helping each other on and off with the things we want to try on. It’s a regular you-go-girl party in those ladies fitting rooms and that’s what they want in on. Of course there won’t be any perverts who’d use any excuse to get in there to take photos over cubicles, it’s all sparkles and rainbows isn’t it.

Agree Pumpkin. In a lot of workplaces grown-ups get on with the job and leave your 'whole self' out of it. In many roles your personal life and self-actualisation is left at the door so you can focus on the task or person on hand, such as teaching and caring roles. It's pandering to self-absorption and the rising tide of narcissism. Plus the rainbowisation of many workplaces is rather grating given the lack of equivalent enthusiasm for tackling visible and invisible disability, sex, race hate etc. Violence and discrimination quietly rumbles on for those groups at stratospheric levels but we have to tread around this crap. The only heartening thing is that privately so many people are like-minded, sceptical and weary of it even I'd they can't speak out .

The horror of people bringing their “whole self” to work.
Leave all the more unpleasant edges of your personality, sex life and personal habits at home please, it might scare the office cat.

Bringing your whole self to work is probably what let that bloke to wank away in rubber in the NSPCC bogs.

Well yet again isn’t it about taking the gay and lesbian agenda and running off with it to make it all about T / kink / fetish.

Bringing your whole self to work is supposed to be about not having to hide mainstream aspects of your private life if you’re gay for example. So when you have office chats about what you’re doing this weekend you don’t have to coyly talk about “my partner” and not say their name, (as a lovely colleague of mine did for about a year before trusting that no one in the team was going to judge him differently because he was in a same sex relationship). It’s NOT about regaling your colleagues with details of your private sexual fetishes. And it’s. It about everyone having to share details of their domestic set up if they’d rather not. Some people like to separate out their professional and this private selves entirely.

I really don't think the "whole self" talk and the rainbowisation have much to do with the LGB. Someone's sexual orientation is usually not relevant at work. Someone's gender identity is, though - special pronouns, wanting to use the other sex's changing rooms/toilets etc