As I peered into Facebook this morning several friends were ranting about the Halifax Building Society’s decision to have personal pronouns on their staff name badges so anyone can tell at a glance which gender any member of staff identifies as.
Some friends were saying what a good thing this was, others weren’t so impressed. I can’t help but feel that if someone born as a male feels they are actually a woman (or vice versa) and wish to identify as such, then that is their right. Speaking for myself as a nearly sixty-year-old five foot eight seventeen stone baldy I identify as a six foot six fourteen stoner with a full head of hair in his mid-twenties… Sadly identifying as such changes nothing. And whatever anyone “identifies as” has no bearing at all on their ability to do their job for the Halifax Building Society. (Does it?)(You can add preferred pronouns on your LinkedIn profile. Mine are “hatstand/armpit”)
It is claimed that this pronoun on badges policy has cost the Halifax half a million quid what with disgruntled customers taking their money elsewhere.
If I had an account with the Halifax I would be closing it tomorrow… Not out of any trans-hatred but in protest about what a waste of time and money this all is.
There was also a lot of whinging about the (supposedly) dire state of the shops in Ashford’s town centre. People were bemoaning how there is little more than overpriced coffee shops, hairdressers, nail salons and tattoo artists, and they wanted to see more when aimlessly wandering round the place. What more do people want from a town centre? Surely the days of department stores and chain stores are long gone. Pretty much anything I want can be left on my doorstep (note that’s “left on my doorstep” and not “delivered to my doorstep”) by Amazon.
Only a couple of weeks ago a colleague was complaining that they’d visited the Ashford Outlet Centre and spent a fortune on stuff they didn’t really want. When I asked why they’d gone to the Ashford Outlet Centre I was told it was “something to do”.
“Going shopping” is a rather expensive pastime, isn’t it?
And I saw I’d missed a geo-meet this morning. Am I being rather paranoid in thinking that had been a rather well-kept secret?
We took the dogs to the woods for a walk. Being the weekend it was rather hard work; he woods were filled with normal people and their dogs, and heaven forbid that the dogs of normal people should ever met another dog (the dogs don’t have an issue, but the normal people do).
And with walk walked we came home where I spent the afternoon asleep.
Being the first day of the Munzee Clan War I shall Munz a little on my way to work… and then I’m doing the night shift… unless I get a better offer in the meantime.
I can’t imagine a better offer coming though… As always a day before a night shift is (sadly) a day wasted.
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