More Ridiculous Laws For The U.K
From next Sunday it will be an offence, punishable by unlimited compensation orders, to allow customers to chat up bar staff.
Now to me this has always been part of the job. You serve drink, sometimes food and try to make sure the drinker enjoys his time in the pub by talking to him and yes that involves looking interested and accepting / giving compliments.
From April 6, employers will risk being sued if a bar worker or waitress complains of being called "love" or "darling", or if staff overhear customers telling sexist jokes.
Sexist jokes are par for the course and asking for "another pint please love" is just a general, day to day phrase. It's just a name and let's face it most of us have been called worse.
I can't imagine asking for compensation because some person (with alcohol in them) dared to call me "love". It's hardly in the same class as inappropriate touching or falling and breaking a leg. It definately isn't an insult either
Lawyers are advising pub owners to cover themselves by displaying warning notices declaring: "Harassment is not tolerated."
I can't see a name such as "sweetheart" or "love" being a form of harassment.
To me, harassment is nastyness, violence maybe, just general unkindness really. It has never been a nickname plopped onto the end of a sentence with no malicious thought behind it.
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I can't see that calling someone love is necessarily sexist. I live in Yorkshire and people use the expression all the time, women as well as men. It's just a friendly, non-gender specific greeting.
I can see how jokes could be a problem - if you worked in an all male environment, it could be really unpleasant if they all got together and told them within earshot. Even so, I don't know how they can stop people telling them in pubs. And anyway, who decides if a joke is sexist, surely in a lot of cases that is a matter of interpretation.
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