Humour, fairness, survivors of sexual assault in the workplace, and reversing excessive use of police checks

I've been a bit short of time this week, so I'm going to throw some brief thoughts together on a few topics, beginning with . . .

Humour needs to be adequately obvious

Several decades ago, I was helping with a community newsletter. The problem was, the editor didn't want to start work until after midnight - on a work night. I explained many times that this was causing problems, and eventually had to quit. At the next meeting of that organisation, a request was made for assistance, and in response a question was asked why their previous assistant (i.e., me) had left. The editor said they didn't know, so I spoke up, contradicted them and stated that it was because the work was too late at night.

Afterwards, the editor claimed that they thought I was joking.

WTF?

I - forcefully - said I hadn't been, and had given no indication I was using humour.

This lack of understanding was unforgivable, but is long past now. It does, however, illustrate a problem that some people seem to assume humour is present or obvious when it is not obvious. I have no problems with irony or satire - for example, "The Onion" satire website, but others do (notably, North Korea).

This disturbingly so with some instances of what is called black humour, but there are other instances where the only cue to something being humour is an assumption that it is resent - for example, Hermann Hesse's book "The Glass Bead Game".

This problem is a communication problem: if people do not understand that something is humorous, they won't "get" the message.

So . . . what to do?

Well, firstly, based on my experience, don't assume everyone is as cynical or pseudo-sophisticated as you. This is a particular problem with matters - such as "The Glass Bead Game". This PARTICULARLY applies to interpersonal interactions.

Secondly, and a slight expansion of the above, think carefully about your audience, and the possible ways things can be misunderstood, and then make reasonable attempts to prevent those problems. One of the things I liked about may favourite uncle when I was growing up was that he didn't push jokes too far - he made sure we knew he was joking. (Others who didn't were likely, in my opinion, sadists.)

Thirdly and finally, think about how you will respond when - not if (especially on social media) - people misunderstand something. (Objectively examining for learning and thanking them for anything would be useful.)

Fairness in the workplace

There are many issues under this topic, but the one I want to focus on is the inherent bias of workplaces stopping workers criticising the company on social media, but expecting workers to publicise and support the company.

From the point of view of Australians in Australia, that sort of behaviour may be legal, but it is an affront to decency and fairness, and therefore, some Australians would refuse to support the company, unless they can also criticise.

Furthermore, in many cases, someone supporting something without criticising could tell that person's friends that the so-called support is utterly, utterly, UTTERLY fake. Their response would be "WTF is wrong with that company?"

Survivors of sexual assault in the workplace

One of the things that was raised in the media when the US started their grope fests at airports, was the impact this would have on the survivors of sexual assault - including the survivors of child abuse.

This sexually aggressive behaviour - the impacts of which its proponents seem to wilfully blind themselves to - extends, albeit generally in less intrusive forms, to other airports.

This is a barrier to workers who are survivors of sexual assault travelling for work. When the potential for trauma is high, or the survivors are assertive enough, they will decline to travel internationally for safety reasons, as I do.

I've been looking for a book or some source which covers this, but without success yet. Why? Does no-one else have this perspective, or are workers so bullied they will allow themselves to be retraumatised?

(Incidentally, counselling someone over workplace trauma does not mean you can send them back to that trauma. The counselling is healing them, but they do NOT have a fault which means they need "fixing", the WORKPLACE has the fault which needs fixing!)

Reversing excessive use of police checks: a small, first step 

One of the major blocks to trans and gender diverse people working is the casual and often unnecessary use of police checks, which requires TGD people to deadname themselves. Now my home state has implemented the first, small retraction of that excessive practice by the correction of an appalling injustice for people seeking to access IVF by finally removing the requirement for police checks - after decades of administrative abuse.