Asda's new pronoun badges for staff

[BessyK]

My BIL who works at our local store has just received this information, he thinks Asda's gone mad. Asda are also funding Diversity Role Models with £100,000 over the next year. Looks as though they're jumping in with both feet.

Why aren't they offering these badges to all the customers who walk through the door?
Are they transphobes or something?

This seems really stupid to me as a concept.

The colleagues who have been actually "misgendered" won't necessarily be correctly "gendered" because of a daft badge which is ridiculously hard to read.

Presumably most of the customers who are arseholes will still be arseholes; the ones who won't notice subtle cues like man wearing lipstick and feminine clothes still won't notice; and the ones who have terrible eyesight and are judging based on the 6-foot-3 masculine profile in front of them won't be any better off either.

So this is really just a way for younger woke staff and their more woke middle class customers to score congratulatory points together.

@StealthPolarBear

My pronouns: ASDA/CEO

"It’s customerphobic to try to drag me into this crap."

@Lordfrontpaw

Well I guess it indicated quite clearly the staff flop avoid. You might get their pronoun wrong or something.

Aren’t they there to stack shelves, work on the tills, sell the cigarettes, work as security guards etc? I’d hope they had better things to do that ‘chat pronouns’ with customers.

Oh hell I plan to misgender any Asda staff I see with one of these badges. What do you think they'll do, ban me from the stores nationwide? Worldwide?

Ooh the drama.

My pronouns: ASDA/CEO

@stealthpolarbear

Hmmmm maybe a crimson letter branded on your forehead?

@MockersGuidedByTheScience

Looks like I’m switching to Aldi

Asda la vista, Baby.

I just spat my beer out at that

Customer; excuse me love, where are the beans?
Employee; ‘taps badge’
Customer; I’m sorry. Can you tell me where the beans are, mate.

Bananabixfloof
I could be very easily persuaded to misgender too.
I will use an alias name which will be Miss Gender or maybe P R O'Noun.

I can see the headlines in my minds eye.

Ohh I used to work in Safeway whilst at college. My name was "Neil". Line manager used to get reet cross with me and my colleague Janet (Janet had a beard and a willy). Apparently, we weren't taking our name badges seriously. Should have claimed they were interfering with my identity. I could have been Neil on a Tuesday. If I had Neil Feelz. Bastards.

Flamingo where I come from everyone is called love - man, boy, woman, child, cat, dog etc .

FFS
Can they have badges like this?
UN/ION

Totally ridiculous idea but this thread has made me laugh

My supervisor asked why I was Howard 😆

I never understand the pronoun thing.

You only use a pronoun when talking about someone, not to them.

So if you did get it wrong. They wouldn't know.

The only time it would awkward is if you said excuse me sir, but if the sir was in a wig with blue eyeshadow on, you're probably gonna just say excuse me.

@Alabamawhirly1

I never understand the pronoun thing.

You only use a pronoun when talking about someone, not to them.

So if you did get it wrong. They wouldn't know.

The only time it would awkward is if you said excuse me sir, but if the sir was in a wig with blue eyeshadow on, you're probably gonna just say excuse me.

It is to tell you it is your thoughts being policed not your behaviour towards the trans person.

The badge means Warning heretics: do not reveal your heresy even if the devotee is not present

This is the best that Asda execs could come up with in 14 weeks of lockdown zoom calls?

They need to look back and remember when they came up with BOGOF, the Asda challenge or they whirly price roll back thing.

That's what get customers in the door. Not migraine inducing SPAG tests.

@Mooserp

Totally ridiculous idea but this thread has made me laugh

My supervisor asked why I was Howard 😆

I shouldn’t laugh - at work I sometimes use a name that isn’t my real one (I created them to avoid cold calls or so that we can share a project across some team members). It’s a unisex name but most people think it’s male (I guess because of the industry).

“This is the best that Asda execs could come up with in 14 weeks of lockdown zoom calls?”

Ah that explains it. I bet whoever ‘advised’ them charged ££££. It’s the modern day ‘rebranding exercise’ then?

@MittensTheSerpent

Oh for fucks sake. ASDA is the only supermarket I can get a delivery slot with at the moment. Will be boycotting anyway.

You're going to boycott a supermarket because they've made badges that staff can wear if they want to ?

Seriously?

Because they have bought into the gender crap.

Asda isn’t just a shop, it’s a workplace. Colleagues will talk about each other, e.g “could you take over from Susan on the deli, she is due a break.”.
In this context, reminding colleagues of their pronouns at all times is the same as the use in email signatures and online directories for workers behind laptops all day.
In other words, proven to be bad for women. Reinforcing the sex category in which workers need to be allocated.

I want to start going to Asda so I can play "pronoun bingo" so maybe it's a good marketing gimmick.

I wonder if you could declare no pronouns at all (and watch people turning themselves inside out trying to work that out).

“Lord is going to be working in the deli by lordself today”