Discrimination At Work: A Rant!

There are all these laws to protect certain groups of people at work. For example, you can't get rid of someone because are pregnant etc.

Now I'm not saying I don't agree with them to some extent. Everyone should have equal rights.

What annoys me is how there seems to be no protection for people that don't fall into any of these protected categories.

I was having a conversation about this the other day with someone and it really got me annoyed! The example we were talking about was this:

Imagine 3 people. They are all women of child bearing age. They have all worked at the company for the same amount of time, all have the relevant qualifications and all are equally good at the job. Someone has to be laid off.

Person 1 has a child, she struggles to get childcare at certain times which means she often can't cover extra shifts.

Person 2 has a history of depression so is regularly on the sick.

Person 3 has no children and no history of illness. She is readily available to cover shifts as and when required with very little notice needed.

As an employer, which one would you want to keep? I think anyone would choose person 3 if you are looking at it objectively as someone who wants to get value for money from an employee and needs someone flexible.

However, the law would say that laying off person 1 or 2 was discrimination, therefore, you would end up getting rid of person 3.

How is this fair?

And how is it not a form of discrimination in itself?

You are discriminating against person 3 for not having a reason to be discriminated against.

Where is their protection?

The protection for the average person that doesn't have any particular problems?

It appears there isn't any.

For the record, I'm not suggesting that employers should be allowed to get rid of employees willy nilly for these reasons, I'm just saying that in that scenario, there should be a bit of lee way to keep the person who is most suitable for the role - IE: low sickness rate and flexibility. And that there should be some protection for people who don't fall into any of the categories employees aren't allowed to discriminate against.

Maybe these laws are part of the problem, part of the reason employees don't take women who have young children, don't take people with a history of mental (or any other type, that was just an example) illness. Obviously they are not allowed to do that, but we all know they do, they just voice a different reason, which is a lot easier to do at the recruitment stage than the redundancy stage.

What do you think? Do the laws need to protect people who don't fall into these categories? What would you do if you were the employer in this scenario? Let me know in the comments :)

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My Monthly Reflections - August

 

What a month! My theme this month was "Blogging - anything and everything blog related". I started with a list of some of my favourite blogs, and I contacted several of those bloggers from the list to ask if they would take part in an interview series. I had a really positive response. Thank you again to everyone who took part! I also posted lots of blogging tips, mostly the things I wish I had known when I first started out, and things I have learned along the way that I have found useful. I thoroughly enjoyed writing these posts and they were well received.
At the start of the month, I like to note down what I plan to write about for the month's theme. When I did this, I realised I had enough posts for two months, but as I had already (publicly) set a topic for September, I decided to double post each day of August. It was always going to be tight time wise, but I figured I could squeeze it in.
Of course, like a red rag to a bull, this was a trigger for everything to happen at once! My manager at work went on the sick for two weeks, meaning I had a lot of overtime at work, plus my Grandmother went into hospital (she has now been in coming up to four weeks!). I suddenly didn't have the time to do a double post a day, but I figured I'd committed to do it, and I was dam well going to do it!
Cue, a lot of posts being written at 4 and 5am on the day they were due to go live! I managed to just about keep up on the surface, but I know my social media presence slipped massively and I got quite behind on linking up to linkys. I apologise for my lack of tweets etc!
I can't see this improving until she is out of hospital, so apologies in advance. I will still respond to tweets, comments, emails etc, but it may take a bit longer than usual.
Anyway, that's enough of me banging on about how hard I have it, at the end of the day, no one forces me to blog, so I really only have myself to blame!
On a positive note, with everything going on, I'm pretty happy that I managed to get 2 posts a day out! It's shown me that if I apply myself (and accept that sleeping isn't really an option!) I can get posts written a lot quicker than I anticipated.
September, I will be mostly back to one post a day, although no doubt there will be some cheeky little extras, but I think I will do double posts again at some point in the future, as I did kind of enjoy it.

Here's this month's round-up:

My most viewed posts (excluding linkys):
1. My top 30 all time favourite blogs
2. How to write a killer guest post
3. 3 top tips for beating blogger's block

My least viewed posts (excluding guest posts):
1. Even morre things you didn't know about me
2. Hashtags and promo accounts on Twitter
3. My weekly schedule

I think number two on the worst viewed list may have done much better if I had called it something like "Using hashtags and promo accounts to boost traffic", but hindsight is a wonderful thing!

If you have a minute (and a cuppa!), why not check out my most popular posts, or show some of the less popular ones a little love!

 

What where your best and worst posts this month?

 

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5 Things That Annoy Me About Blogging!

Today I thought I would have a little moan about the things that annoy me about blogging. I guess the fact I could only think of 5 but could easily think of loads of reasons I love it speaks volumes. None of these things bother me enough to make me want to quit blogging, or even ruin my day, but they are still kind of irritating!

1. Pop-ups

I went into this in some details in this post, so I won't go into a lot of details here. I can live with a little pop-up in the corner of the screen, because it's easy to ignore, but a giant pop-up in the middle of the screen makes me want to scream - especially if I'm reading on my phone, where it takes a lot of mucking around to close it!

 

2. Comment verification

I will quite happily check a box to say I'm real (although if I was a robot, I would still check it if I wanted to publish the comment!), but some of them go a bit far. The ones where you have to do a simple sum should be fairly straight forward, but they rarely accept my first answer. And the ones with the letters never ever do! I came across a new one recently - I had to complete a little jigsaw puzzle! I actually thought it was quite cute, because it was new, but if I had to do that regularly, I'm pretty sure it would get old quick!

 

3. Scheduling tweets

I know this is a necessary evil, but I still hate it! Especially when I unwittingly manage to write the same thing twice so they don't post. I have no idea how this happens to me - if someone said to me re-write your last tweet word for word, I know I would never be able to do it!

 

4. Misleading tweets

You know that moment when you are scrolling through your Twitter feed and you spot a tweet that really grabs you? You excitedly click on the link, ready to discover the secret to getting a million followers, or glowing skin, or anything else that you can think of. You reach the post and it's not even remotely close to what the tweet said! This has to be my number one hate! I get it, you need a catchy tweet to get people's attention. But make it a catchy tweet that is relevant in some way to the post!

 

5. Auto DMs

I know I'm not alone in this. I have yet to speak to anyone that says "oh, I love auto DMs"! In fact I have yet to speak to anyone who says they don't actively dislike them, some even say they auto unfollow anyone who auto DMs. Just out of interest, if anyone who uses these happens to read this, do they actually ever work?

 

What are your blogging pet hates? Let me know in the comments!

 

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Spreading Rumours And Lies: A Rant!

What I see when people spread rumours!

As a barmaid, it seems my life is open for discussion and judgement by every customer who walks through the door. Apparently, working in this industry means my life is fair game, and the bits they don't know (which is most bits) they just make up and spread around.
This should annoy me, but as I started writing the post, I realised it doesn't! I find it hilarious - some of the weird and wonderful things that get back to me are beyond belief, and no one with half a brain would believe it.
It also kind of amuses me that the customers have nothing better to talk about than me and my imaginary life - any publicity is good publicity right?! It reminds me of the Shakespeare quote I vaguely remember about how we are all actors on a stage - he forgot to mention that the audience like to get themselves involved!
I'm pretty thick skinned and I just laugh about it - I don't bother even denying the rubbish anymore - people will believe what they want to believe, and that's fine. I have better things to do than debate my own life with someone - you know like go out and have a threesome or two if you believe the rumours ;) (the boring truth is more like sit online and write a blog post or two!).
Where it does annoy me though is when they talk about the other barmaids who take it personally and get upset. The regular customers know who will be upset by their rumours and yet it doesn't stop them spreading them!
Who the hell do they think they are to make crap up about people to the point they don't want to come into work and face another day of comments and looks!
Perhaps the people making rumours up should go out and get themselves a life instead of putting their noses into other people's!

Have you ever had rumours about yourself get back to you? Does it bother you? Let me know in the comments :)

You can find me here: Twitter Bloglovin Pinterest and Instagram Please do stop by and say hi!

You can find me here: Twitter Bloglovin Pinterest and Instagram Please do stop by and say hi!

Those Damned Sales Calls!

I am so sick of sales calls! They are nothing new, but lately the sheer volume of them seems to have sky rocketed. They are constant - on my land line, at work and now (oh joy!) even on my mobile.

This week alone I have been told all about the car crash I was in (I wasn't), the bank charges I've accrued (I haven't), and of course the dreaded PPI (which I don't have. Also, I don't live on Jupiter, which is how far away I would need to be to have not heard about this!). And don't even get me started on the recorded message I get bothered with at least once a day about PPI. I have been told to switch energy companies, mobile phone providers (twice), and my personal favourite? The company that is going to fix my terrible credit rating and financial ruin (which I'm not quite in just yet lol) by giving me - wait for it - a credit card!                                         Tuesday I was at work, and I'm not supposed to be on my mobile phone. It was in my bag and I heard it ring. It stopped and then started straight back up again. Several times. I was a little alarmed. For someone to do that, I figured it must be pretty important. I sneaked it out to check, and had 6 missed calls all within a second or 2 of each other and all from the same number. The number had a local area code which further worried me. I called the number back and had the following conversation:

Them: Hello (company name I didn't quite catch) how can I help you?

Me: Sorry who are you?

Them: Company name

Me: (relieved and annoyed in equal measure) You have got to be kidding me!

Them: Excuse me?

Me: I have had 6 missed calls off you one after the other. I thought someone was dead! What do you want?

Them: Oh, that wasn't me *pause* We would like to help you claim compensation for the recent road accident you where involved in

Me: *hangs up*

I mean seriously? Even I had been involved in an accident (and you know, just sat about waiting for someone to call me rather than calling a solicitor myself), did they really think that tactic was going to encourage me to do business with them? I think not.

Generally, I try not to be too rude or hang up on sales callers - after all they are only doing their job, but there's a line, and more often than not, sales people cross it. If you work in sales, and want a pleasant exchange, please follow the below guidelines:

- When I tell you I'm not interested, apologise for wasting my time (because you have) and say goodbye. Don't keep banging on. It's not going to change my mind, it's just going to irritate me. If, in the future, I do decide I want whatever you're selling I am not going to give my business to people who don't understand basic communication prompts like no thank you!

- When I refuse to tell you which company currently provide certain services, or how much I pay for them don't get knarky - it's none of your business.

- When I tell you I don't want to complete your survey don't just repeat the request again, or even worse, start anyway! Here's a novel idea - if you want market research, pay for it like decent companies do!

If you follow the above, it also works for you too:

- You can move on to someone who might actually want whatever you're selling

- You are less likely to be sworn at or hung up on

- If I have a bit of time to kill, I am much less likely to play with you and let you think your pitch is working for 20 minutes then hang up

Alternatively, do us both a favour and STOP calling me!

 

Do sales calls drive you mental? Do you do this for a living? If you do, let me know in the comments what it's like from your side (I promise I'll play nicely!)

 

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