Whole day of work wankery tomorrow, give me strength.

[StrawbHead]

I have an 'away day' at work tomorrow. The whole Department in a room together 9am-5pm for the first time since autumn 2019.

Since our last 'away day', several new members of staff have been appointed and, mostly, shown themselves to be absolute arseholes. Two of them in particular are completely insufferable - think speaking for the sake of speaking at any opportunity, wokery pokery to the point of cringe, mask zealot Twitter warrior types.

One of these areholes is leading a session tomorrow on 'equality and diversity issues'. She has form for bullying.

Since Covid I've gotten used to getting on with my own work without crossing paths with most of my colleagues. I've avoided all in-person, whole-department activities for three years. It's been heaven.

Please give me the strength to survive tomorrow's horror show.

You can entertain yourself with the discrimination that displays to those who have hearing issues, such as Tinnitus, auditory processing disorders and age related hearing loss.

I rather enjoyed slaughtering the Diversity trainer in front of everybody when she'd already had a go at me (her phrase 'I call out prejudice wherever I find it for those who aren't brave enough to say something') for being completely ableist for saying that some disabled people do not find LOOK AT THE PARALYMPIANS DOING SO WELL, AREN'T THEY BRAVE AND TRYING SO HARD TO BE LIKE ATHLETES remotely inspiring and actually find it rather fucking patronising. By having to climb over the table and the shit she'd dumped blocking the only exit and the route to the coffee using a crutch and wearing my leg brace, sending her loose papers she'd left on the floor scattered far and wide with the crutch and muttering about yet another sodding microaggression that's outright dangerous.

I fucking hate Diversity Training. Especially when you're stuck in one position on a shitty chair for over an hour being lectured by somebody who clearly doesn't have a scooby about how painful it can be.

Oh, and for the monarchs, Horrible Histories is your friend.

Can you splash out on an amazingly gorgeous sandwich or packed lunch (make or buy if you can), so that while they are all having slightly stale cheese sandwiches you are tucking into something fantastic? Allergies, don't you know, always better to be safe than sorry. If it smells great, even better. Plus it'll give you something to look forward to during the morning session.

Oh no! I feel for you! I try to get through these things by saying as little as possible, smiling quite a bit and never volunteering for anything. We have all sorts of stuff like this, I often used to get asked to take part in various things because I'm female, in a male dominated place and senior. Apparently that means I'm a good candidate. I resolved in Jan 2021 not to do that sort of stuff any more and I now turn it all down without explanation saying "I don't feel comfortable" so far everyone has been treading on so many egg shells they have not asked why not!

I suggest that whenever you need a break from all the wankery, you simply declare that you feel very 'triggered' by what is currently being discussed and need to find a 'safe space' to 'emotionally re-centre' and that you will re-join as soon as you feel able.

Do you work for The New York Times?

I bloody knew this was academia. What an utter shit show it is at the moment. I have all the sympathy op. We have similar on Friday, I would rather slpa myself repeatedly in the head with a wet fish (I despise fish). I siwh you well and hope you can zone out or do something else.

Sorry for the typos. not been drinking, I have been raging a lot today at the utter shitness of academia today though and how they could not even spell value let alone apply it to thinking about their own staff.

Your description of your colleague putting a sentence together reminds me of my DD (11uo) who has 'cluttering' (officially diagnosed over the summer but suggested in April).

Her brain doesn't properly form sentences on the go so speech is cluttered with abnormal pauses, revisions, slurred bits to hurry things along, the odd bit of stammering (it'streated by the same people who specialise in stammering) etc.

if your colleague is plagued by this it might be worth suggesting he asks for a slt assessment. Many people only find out about this as adults when they have difficulties with interviewing, meetings, presentations etc. People find their own workarounds to minimise the effect.

Good luck with the day. Sounds hideous.

OP at the risk of sounding like a dick, have you done anything combat the bullying and performance behaviour?

Ah yes, that awkward moment where you see all the biscuits and sandwiches and ask 'where's the gluten free food for celiacs?'. If you're pointed to a sad looking thing 'Is it dairy free as well? Celiac disease has destroyed my ability to process dairy as a result of the ongoing disease process due to things being cross contaminated. It was prepared entirely separately in a different location to all the other gluten containing foods and has been kept at least five foot away from everything else, hasn't it? Do you have the packaging so I can check the ingredients list first? Yes, it's very inconvenient. Disabilities and medical conditions such as these really affect every aspect of your life, especially when other people don't stop to think about them'.

Of course they won't have bothered with that (they never want to talk about disability in Diversity Training), so you'll have to go to the pub leave to get your suitable food because they have completely failed to take into account the dietary requirements of people with a Protected Characteristic (the autoimmune disease that has a significant effect upon your day to day life such that you have to absent yourself).

Of course, a cross contaminated biscuit at 11am would necessitate you leaving as well. Celiacs can't always eat oats either, so even a gluten free biscuit is fraught with opportunity for escape risk.

definitely play wanker bingo as suggested by pps above. lots of cups of tea. disengage as much as possible, stare out of the window, do some doodling.

any mention of 'roleplay'or any of that bullshit, pretend you're getting an urgent phone call, leave and never come back.

good luck op

I have been to 6 of these already this year. SIX. I have another 3 in the diary before Christmas and my manger is desperately trying to find space to squeeze in another one. I have informed the organiser I am busy on whatever date they decide on.

They are all with different groups of people - our organisation seems to have about 50 SLT permutations all of which want to have copious away days. God only knows how we get any work done.

Ours tend to last for two days and include compulsory socialising for the evening too.

I think I must win for the hideous factor? I've only worked there a year and at this point I need counselling!

About an hour in dash out of the room with your hand across your mouth saying "I think I'm going to be..." and pop into the nearest loo where you make a load of vomiting noises.

Op is it absolutely compulsory? What would happen if you didn’t go?

Do get a furby. But bring it along as your Emotional Support Furby. If anyone tried to question this tell them that your understood mental health was important here and their behaviour is making you feel unsafe. How dare they create an unsafe environment!

While you are living through your wankery I will be at our lovely team’s team meeting, which is a follow up to the one we enjoyed so much we wanted another. I bless my cotton socks that I work for a wank-free organisation. High proportion of staff are menopausal women with no tolerance of wankery who are excellent cake makers. Makes such a difference. The rest are mums of school age kids so we’ll be done in time for school pickup.

I’ll be thinking of you. 🍰

I dare you to get super involved and put your hand up to answer every question asked if the audience.

No doubt your colleagues are the kind of people who take Being Triggered very seriously. Maybe you could attend the first part of the morning, then at the first break confide to a woke colleague of your choice that something vague and unidentifiable triggered you during the first session. And therefore you think you’d better leave the session now to “protect your mental health”.

An added bonus of this approach is that you get the coffee and pastries that are (hopefully!) available at the start.

Surely most of them are taking the same view as you but no one else wants to say it?

The bully. Can you ‘invent’ theoretical examples, but use her actual bullying, and ask her in her session what the correct response in the workplace is to someone behaving like that?

These days are awful and the only people that enjoy them are the ones in the "in group" - my old place this was the boys club where somehow all the men got top positions within a few years and women were over looked.
Also the equality talk - my old company regularly did these on mental health but then would try to push out anyone who was suffering with any kind of stress or personal issues!
Good luck. Hopefully booze at the end of it.

If any of the sessions involve shouting out suggestions to be written on a flip chart/whiteboard make sure you conspire with others to make first letter of each suggestion spell a rude word vertically.

I'm not surprised you work in academia.

Having said that, this kind of thing is not inevitable. I organise away days for my team and they are focused on strategy rather than this kind of pointless (yet divisive) virtue-signalling. Thankfully I work in a department that seems to be one of the few not dominated by insufferable woke bullies. Incidentally, I am a brown woman and ended up in tears at a recent training event run by a woke bully colleague in another department because I felt so tired, frustrated and othered by the fact that these white "progressive" bullies want to draw attention to skin colour all the time.

Oh you've given me the fear. I have an away day coming up (in academia) and in the rush of the new semester I'd forgotten all about it.

I work in an area that is awash with people who are very performative in their interactions - rainbow lanyards; pronoun badges; pronouns on emails etc.

If asked why I'm don't wear a rainbow lanyard I usually say that I'm waiting for the lanyard that shows we have empathy with our commuting students; or our first in family students; or the students who can't access our buildings as they are not suitable for wheelchair users.

If asked about pronouns I usually just say it makes me uncomfortable to share. If pushed I have the following reasons

Pronouns are a barrier to participation for our students who are struggling with English therefore I allow flexibility

Pronouns are a barrier to some students with learning differences

Universities are a sexist environment - reminders of one's sex reinforces that

I may be suddenly unwell at my upcoming away day