I recently returned from a visit to the United States where I noted that JFK Airport was displaying signs saying, “We respect the choice of colleagues who choose to wear face coverings.” Our visit took place over the period of Trump’s election victory. Amongst the outpourings of hate, grief and bafflement by demented Democrats was a post on X by some androgyne urging Americans to wear masks in protest, confirming my suspicion that many maskers conceal their identity just to piss off normal people. In New York City though, except for on Halloween, I saw hardly any maskers among the hundreds of thousands thronging Times Square. It was the same story all over New England, and over the border at Niagara Falls in Canada. No masks anywhere, apart from one waitress who took my breakfast order in Bangor, Maine. She sounded like a Dalek, and thanks to the combination of her accent, the mask, and the fact that I’m substantially deaf and therefore lip read, I couldn’t understand a word she said. However, she got our order right and it was a good breakfast, so no harm done.
In London for a meeting earlier this year, a masker on the reception desk directed me to the mumble-mumble floor. She was the only one of the four on the desk exercising her supposed right to conceal her identity. Three times she told me the floor number and three times I was left none the wiser. Somebody less confrontational might have spent the afternoon wandering the 20-odd floors in the hope of stumbling across their intended destination, but I told her she needed to remove her mask so I could understand her. She did so, grudgingly, and I got my directions. There was nothing obviously wrong with her, apart from her attitude. Her colleagues meanwhile were struggling to contain their delight at her discomfort. I empathise with them. For me it was a brief encounter, but they must put up with that self-centred pain in the arse all day long.
Nobody in our business has ever chosen to wear a mask. Even during the pandemic, everyone chose not to wear one in work, and I refused to wear one anywhere. Before anyone accuses me of risking employees’ lives, they were all in their 20s and fit when Covid started. Aged 56 and fat in 2020, I was the one most at risk, and happily took my chances. With no maskers currently on our staff therefore and bearing in mind that masking has become a means of having a wokie tantrum, I’ve updated our staff handbook for the benefit of any future job applicants. To respect all cultures, including our own native British culture, to avoid disadvantaging those with disabilities, and to safeguard colleagues’ mental health, thereby ensuring our workplace continues to be diverse, equitable, and inclusive, our staff handbook now reads as follows:
‘Whilst we have a relaxed dress code in our business, wearing a face covering such as a veil, mask, burqa or niqab is totally and completely unacceptable unless prescribed by a registered medical practitioner for reasons of your physical health. Note, physical health. In that event you must, at your own expense, provide medical evidence in the form of a letter from your GP.
Saying you want to wear a face covering for cultural reasons is not acceptable. This is the UK and our culture here is that we deal openly with people. We like to read others’ expressions, and we are happy to have them read ours. The ‘woke’ talk a lot about ‘respecting other cultures’ but somehow seem to think that British culture should not be in any way respected. Well, we disagree. We do respect our own British culture.
It is not acceptable to say that you want to wear a face covering for religious reasons. We are reasonable people, and we welcome those of all faiths. Head scarves are perfectly acceptable, but face coverings are not.
Saying you want to wear one for mental health reasons is not acceptable, even if it’s true, which we doubt. Anyone can claim anything about their mental health and it’s impossible for anyone to prove anything one way or another. You may say that not wearing a mask causes you anxiety, but having colleagues wear masks causes us anxiety. We are not comfortable dealing with people who conceal their faces. In any case, if you are so paranoid, weak-minded, and mentally fragile that you really feel the need to mask up, our office would not suit you anyway. We are always busy, and we work under and cope with pressure. You are probably better off getting a job as a basket-weaver, or a DEI officer, or whatever, ideally in a charity, trade union, quango, or government department, requiring little of you. Either that or just man up, women included. You can’t improve your mental health at the expense of ours, or at the expense of those with hearing difficulties who lip read. The wearing of face coverings is a form of disability discrimination against the deaf and hard of hearing.
Finally, it is not an acceptable method of expressing your political views. We are aware that some people in the United States are urging those unhappy with President Trump’s election victory to conceal their faces. This is not the United States, however, so please don’t import American problems to the UK, à la George Floyd episode. We shall not allow our workplace to become a forum for such antics, whether to protest against Trump, Biden, Putin, Kim Jong Un, Starmer, or any other dictator.
Our office is a workplace, not a woke place. We are all frank, honest, and open with each other, as we are with clients, and we expect the same in return. That is our policy, and that is our culture, so if you do not like it, do not apply for a job here.’
If that offends anyone, tough. We’ve been telling it like it is since we founded the business in 2004 – ‘Honest Advice in Plain English’, as it says on our notepaper and signage.
Neil F. Liversidge is an Independent Financial Adviser running his own firm in Castleford, West Riding Personal Financial Solutions Ltd, www.wrpfs.com. For 39 years until 2017 he was a member of the Labour Party. A Brexiteer, he voted Conservative in 2019 and is now a member of Reform UK, the New Culture Forum, and the Free Speech Union.
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Fine words butter no parsnips (if that means what I think it does). Your word salad statement will just not stand up if TPTB decide another masking episode is necessary. You ruin your case as a sceptic by talking about the pandemic as though there actually was one (of actual health and not of just over reaction/mental instability/hypochondria). Sorry but this has to be said.
Look up the definition of a pandemic. The mindset that says C19 never happened is the same kind of gaslighting as that which says a man can somehow magically become a woman, on uncontrolled immigration is not a problem. It wasn’t hypochondria or mental instability that killed a number of my friends and clients. Most of them were elderly and in less than perfect physical health, but mentally robust. One of them at least, though, was perfectly fit and healthy and in his early 50s before it hit him. He coughed and choked to death.
Mandating masking was never an end in itself, and if you genuinely think it was, you are paranoid and delusional. The masking mandate was simply a ridiculous and panicked reaction by governments desperate to be seen to be doing something.
If that’s your idea of a salad, I don’t recommend you apply for a job at any vegan restaurants.