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In these modern and enlightened
times, employees feel they have a right to bring their domestic issues to the
workplace. Employers have assumed a new duty to care for employee “wellness.“ and
competition in the market place for wellness benevolence is fierce. Never mind about
productivity or shareholder value so long as you can demonstrate your caring touchy-feely
attitude and outdo your competitors for sensitivity, environmental
consciousness and social justice. Worried about paying for your forthcoming
gender reassignment surgery? Take a job with a US giant IT Company and claim
tens of thousands of dollars towards the cost of your hospitalisation during your transition towards your
self identified gender. Or maybe you’ve already become something else and just need a
refresh of your old wardrobe? All taken care of in the modern workplace – its $400
at the same US Company. In Mushroom’s formative years in the Royal Air Force, whinging
in the workplace was a sign of weakness and would attract instant ridicule. “Shouldn’t
have joined if you couldn’t take a joke,” was a standard rejoinder to any tale
of misfortune or perception of grievance. May I be excused flying duty tonight,
Sir, I have to take the dog to the vet,” would be greeted by derision - not
just by the supervisor but those who would otherwise have to fill in for the
absence would be equally hostile.
Inexorably, the woke culture appears to have spread to the
very areas of society in which it would be least expected, the Armed forces. The
catchall of “inappropriate behaviour“ has, it seems, become the limiting factor
in what can and cannot be done in completing the operational task. Introspection on inclusiveness has now taken
so much prominence that a whole operational day was recently devoted to mandatory
training in wokeness for all ranks. A
recent report by the supremely woke Air Chief Marshal Wigston has, apparently,
made no less than 36 recommendations about unacceptable levels of behaviour and
methods for dealing with them. But where
would one start with 36 recommendations?
Were they prioritised and the costs and operational impacts properly
laid out so that a reasonable plan could be devised? One could speculate that
the Service Chiefs will be scratching their heads and wondering where to begin (if I was a Consultant, and advising them, I would, of course recommend "picking the low hanging fruit first"). With Ministers anxiously watching their social media accounts we
may be sure to see more headline catching initiatives, doubtless at great
expense and operational cost.
It’s not as though the Services haven’t got anything else to
worry about at the moment. With the conventional
situation in Ukraine deteriorating by the hour, wild and inflammatory statements
from political leaders abounding, it is easy to see how the conflict could
escalate to Nuclear, Chemical and Biological (NBC) dimensions. Now, in Mushroom’s later years, we were very
good at fighting under an NBC threat.
Regular exercises conducted under NBC conditions involved long days and
nights trussed-up in charcoal protective suits covering normal flying clothing and air purifying respirators. Engineers practised working in the open in full NBC kit so
that aircraft could be maintained ready for action, however hostile the
environment, whilst aircrew learned to fly wearing the portable respirator and
air purifier equipment known as AR5, or the "whistling wheelbarrow" as it was sometimes called. Every excursion beyond the clean environment would require lengthy decontamination upon return. I don’t
mind saying it was awful, particularly if you were anything like claustrophobic.
We would spend long hours on alert playing bridge and praying for “endex.” In between, we would take regular refresher
training in the theory of NBC survival and take practical tests in tear gas
chambers to check our equipment worked. I
think, for cushiness, a day spent woke navel-gazing might be preferable to the
periodic “ground defence training” in which the friendly RAF Regiment Flight
Sergeant would keep the Officer Aircrew very much on their toes for a whole day
– an excellent example of what we used to call “practice bleeding” but which,
knowing our enemy, made absolute sense at the time.
Forty or so years on, with the collapse of the threat from
the Warsaw Pact, several peace dividends have been declared. Mushroom understands that NBC training and
equipment has been progressively scaled back to the extent that, now a new
threat has emerged, the Services are scrambling to reacquire the skills and
equipment that might become necessary if the conflict in Ukraine escalates. But with 36 unacceptable behaviour
recommendations to tackle amongst regular operational commitments, how will NBC
training be shoe-horned into a busy schedule without disturbing the delicate work/life balance of "our people?" Something
in the culture may have to give and the raft of reviews on behaviour may have
to be put to one side.
