HR Hell

Came upon this on BDO Stoy Hayward (UK BDO site) monthly 33 thoughts feature.

To: All employees

It has come to our attention that some members of staff are making politically incorrect comments to fellow employees, and even business contacts.

Detailed below are some general guidelines in this matter, together with a short-form dictionary of correct usage. Please note that any employee found to have contravened these guidelines will be given immediate leave to explore external career opportunities.

Staff are asked to assess the group of people you’re speaking with and at least make some effort to gauge who might be offended by what. If employees insist on cracking jokes, please select jokes that seem appropriate for the group at hand. The firm will no longer accept the often-used excuse that your immediate line manager was the one who told you the joke in the first place.

Dictionary

Please note that you should not describe an employee as ‘lazy’. The person concerned should be referred to as ‘motivationally deficient’.

Someone does not ‘fail’ – they ‘achieve a deficiency’.

A colleague is not ‘dishonest’ – he or she is ‘ethically disoriented’.

Please do not use the word ‘wrong’ – try ‘differently logical’.

Only situations are ugly. People are not. Use ‘cosmetically different’.

For ‘unemployed’, say ‘involuntarily leisured’.

‘Spendthrift’ – ‘negative saver’.

‘Ignorant’ – ‘knowledge-based non-possessor’.

‘Unsophisticated’ – ‘socially malformed’.

Some of our male colleagues have complained of being referred to in a politically incorrect manner, and staff are asked to adhere to the following:

A male member of staff does not have 'a fat beer gut’.

He has developed ‘a liquid grain storage facility’.He does not ‘stink’ – he suffers from ‘hygiene aversion syndrome’.

He does not tell ‘endless, boring, unfunny jokes’, but is simply ‘humourly over-confident’.

And finally, staff should be respectful when speaking to female colleagues, too.

Please note that a female staffer is never a ‘moaner’ – she is merely ‘vocally unappreciative’.

Thank you for your co-operation.