A big victory against office fun fascists

‘Fun’ colleagues can be a pain. But the trend of having offices as ‘fun’ spaces can be a bigger pain, especially for those whose idea of office is a place to work and then vamoosh from. A consultancy firm in Paris fired an employee for apparently not being fun enough – ‘insufficient professionally’ because he didn’t get involved in social events organised for staff to bolster team spirit. Well, the fun fascists have got what they deserved after the terminated worker won a legal case against the company. The court quite rightly said that it is not ‘everyone’s cup of tea to forcibly participate in seminars and end-of-week drinks’ – and, by drinks, it presumably isn’t cups of tea. In the spirit of liberte, egalite, fraternite and professionalite, the court adjudged the company’s ‘fun’ culture promoting ‘humiliating and intrusive practices’.

Being a party pooper is one thing. But being an alleged party pooper’s pooper takes things to another level. The anonymous unfun person wasn’t even pooping any office party. All he was ‘guilty‘ of was the workplace equivalent of a ‘conscientious objector’ – refusing to be drafted to fight a war. Extracurricular events organised by company HR may not seem war to most folks happy to have pizza and beer on the house. But, for some, like our hero, doing ‘overtime’, and that too not to work, can seem violent.