Daily Diary

Diary top 10 – those Valentines dos and don’ts

Posted 15/02/2008 by The Daily Diary

For most people, birthdays, holidays and anniversaries of obscure pagan festivals are a cause for celebration. And that’s even more true of employment lawyers. It’s not (quite) every day you can send out an alarmist missive warning that singing ‘Happy Birthday’ violates the human rights of those whose birthday it isn’t or invoke that old chestnut about how paying workers a proper wage threatens to ‘damage the competitiveness of UK industry’. Almost, though.

Having collated the numerous Valentines-themed discrimination briefings that inundated your correspondent yet again this month, The Diary hereby offers its safety-first (and either slightly belated or very far in advance) guide to Valentines Day dos and don’ts. Actually, they’re all just don’ts.

1. DON’T… buy chocolates for the guy or girl you fancy. It’s definitely sexist, probably fattist and quite possibly racist, in some hard-to-identify way.
2. DON’T… wear something red to the office (other than braces, in a faux-ironic nod to the 80s chic you still love deep down). It marks you out as a dangerously volatile socialist trouble-maker and is also unfair on the colour-blind, who will wrongly assume you’re wearing that nice grey necktie for the 58th day in a row.
3. DON’T… send cards with hearts on them. It discriminates against those colleagues lacking one.
4. DON’T… artificially inflate the proportion of younger, attractive partners who engaged in a pass at you (PEP) by kicking out the old fogies every few years.
5. DON’T… enjoy ribald banter within earshot of colleagues. It discriminates against those too ugly, too socially inept or too fascinated by appendix three of the Companies Act to take part in sexual activity.
6. DON’T… invite hundreds of colleagues to take part in an online poll ranking your favourite office hunks or honeys. It’s insensitive, won’t make them fall for you and just might end up as the week’s most-read story on a popular legal news website based on another continent.
7. DON’T… compose a passionate ode to the managing partner comparing his manly physique with the sensuous downward curves of his latest profits projection.
8. DON’T… draft anything that includes such wilfully misleading assertions as ‘roses are red, violets are blue’, when the roses in the meeting-room flower-arrangements are actually crimson and the violets – as clearly stated in clause 13(ii), paragraph four of the firm’s partnership deed – are quite obviously heliotrope-indigo with a hint of magenta.
9. DON’T… swan about looking pleased with the massive bunch of flowers you’ve just received from an amorous client. It’s a bit of a giveaway how you got that surprise instruction on the big deal.
10. DON’T… show any outward affection to anyone, ever. It’s a sign of weakness.

Some inappropriate conduct, yesterday