In another life I was in school management. There were occasional squabbles between staff. Can you believe it? Teachers complaining about each other, whatever next? Thankfully the internecine squabbling was rare but the incidence increased somewhat when email became a thing. I had to ask staff not to shout in capital letters nor send irritable emails to all rather than the person concerned. Most staff met at coffee or lunch so a face to face exchange was preferable and more honest. The safety of hiding behind an email was both too convenient and snide. And now the vitriol of the small minded has been given much freer rein in cyberspace.
At a high level meeting to discuss staff relations one suggestion which gained momentum was the formulation of a staff behaviour protocol. A ten pointer, if I recall. Staff must treat colleagues with respect at all times … well if it had been left at that then ok, but it went into detail. Protocols on emails;not raising voices; having trusted witnesses to oversee arguments; categories of ‘offence’; hierarchies of response. A minefield. Luckily the laissez faire lobby won and I happily asked the staff to be nice to each other and we would deal with any problems on an individual basis, following procedures already in line with union advice and employment law. We needed no other internal tinkering.
Which brings me to the 6000+ complaints already burning the hotlines of the Scottish police after the enactment of the Hate Crime Law. I know that it’s a stretch to link staff complaints in a secondary school to a nation’s handling of public unpleasantness…but didn’t they count to ten before unleashing the dogs of thin skinned professional offence-takers on the overworked boys and girls in blue north of the border? And those who are thick skinned but are genuine victims, did they not have a route to redress without the complicated, highly questionable and pathetically vague nonsense of which JK Rowling and others have made mockery?
Organisations – and in this case a government- seem to run scared if they don’t have an army of employees in place to ensure that minority view and sensitivity is prioritised and publicised in an orgy of self righteous virtue signalling. And as this sanctimonious march continues those who most need our help, the genuinely afflicted with serious mental, physical or social problems, are being elbowed out of the way by the criminal amounts of money spent on those whose distress has been exaggerated by self absorption.
simplysorro 