Dear HR,
I don’t want to get a reputation for only contacting you when there’s something to complain about, heaven forbid that I should become the ‘Moaning Milly’ of the office.
I wanted to compliment you and the business for the finely organised ‘Mental Health Week’. I’ve always said that there’s a few people in the office here that we should be taking a closer look at through a more ‘normal’ lens. I understand that our DEI group are required to profess inclusion and diversity, but we also must adhere to our safety at work policy by properly looking at some of the less than normal people in the workplace.
I was particularly enthusiastic to see that the speaker on Tuesday as he was using material provided by the Southern Baptist group: Faith Under Christian Kindness for his discussion on stress and work life balance. I’ve observed their good work over the years, particularly in their outreach programmes. Irish people will of course be most familiar with their work with reformed prostitutes ‘Hymens for Hosanna’, or their Northern Irish affiliate ‘Past Prossies for Proddies’. I have been confused by the ‘Plugged Analysts for Anglicans’ in the UK though; I wouldn’t have thought Business Analysts needed an outreach programme. Meeting the presenter allowed me to make a connection to the group which I will certainly be following up in the near future.
As I said, the speaker was excellent, presenting challenging material on work life balance, and encouraging everyone to find their own stress outlet including meditation, exercise and of course spirituality. I was particularly pleased that he didn’t advocate any particular form of Christianity; Southern Baptists can get a little carried away with all of that Born Again puritanism. I would assume that he recognised the generally catholic nature of the room, although I suspect there may have been a few unadvertised Church of Ireland adherents there too, but we’re nothing if not tolerant in the Dublin office.
Of particular interest was his encouragement to be thankful for just about everything. Many of us have of come across Southern Baptists over the years and often recognise them for this very particular trait. I’ve heard more than one unkind word in relation to this ‘over thankfulness’ that they are so often accused of. Condescending, trite, insincere and hypocritical are some of the less generous terms I’ve witnessed but I’m sure you’ve seen and heard far worse than I. After attending this presentation though, I was made keenly aware of the number of times I found myself not just thankful but actually giving thanks, and more often than not to God! I was a little surprised, if not shocked, by this Damascene revelation particularly as the first example that sprang to mind was just this Monday.
On Saturday our local supermarket was offering samples of their direct supplied Crème de Menthe which had Delilah circle the aisles until the management finally caught her and had her ejected. By the time I arrived to take her home, she had a green hue closer to Elphaba’s from the musical Wicked than her normal vaguely yellow jaundiced colour. Bundling her and the shopping into the car as she shouted obscenities that would make a sailor blush was bad enough, but in a fit of pique she ripped the labels of all of the bottles of mouthwash and threw them out the window as a form of protest. That might have been fine if she hadn’t also ripped the labels off of the Imodium. To cut a long story short, on Sunday and Monday that wasn’t mouthwash that I was using. By Monday lunchtime my regular ‘cycle’ had not been fulfilled for over 48 hours without putting too fine a point on it. By about four in the afternoon, the effects had worn off which in turn caused some fairly dramatic consequences so to speak. Having rushed to an available toilet cubicle that which followed bordered on biblical, or perhaps apocalyptic. You’ll never guess what I said in that moment – that’s right ‘Oh dear sweet Jesus, thank God’. And you know what? I was thankful – praise be!
There was one point that I would like you to make as feedback though. During the presentation one of the stressors that the speaker identified was terrorism. Accompanying this particular slide was a picture of a gentleman with a beard who had a distinctly tanned and Islamic look to him. Now I don’t want to dwell on the inherent prejudice that was being shown here, but I would have thought in this day and age as we discuss equality and equity so often that at the very least there should also have been a picture of a woman in a hajib, niqab or burka. Honestly, how much longer must we have to tolerate this inequity and lack of respect for women?
That said, I think the entire subject was handled tactfully and gracefully, and look forward to further material over the coming weeks and months.
Regards,
Alexander
Dear HR 