NOT THAT EQUAL! Suggestion to Add Financial Equality to Workplace DE&I Results in Disappearance
No one dares speak his or her or their name. It’s as if their colleague simply never existed. “Burn all your notes,” the VP said.
No one dares speak his or her or their name. It’s as if their colleague simply never existed. The incident that resulted in the sudden vanishing of their coworker is spoken of only in hushed whispers, and only in the darkest of places.
It took hundreds of hours of exhaustive research by your Now With REAL™ News! investigation team to gather any information on the event. Note all names are changed to protect the safety of the witnesses.
Let’s meet Amanda, who tearfully explained what happened.
“We were getting back into the office after COVID and it was our yearly meeting for DE&I.”
For those who don’t know, DE&I means Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. It’s a relatively new trend redefining the working world.
The idea is a noble one: to make people of all backgrounds feel heard, welcomed, and respected. The concept has redefined the human resources sector. Companies are racing to welcome every possible demographic. Veterans, blacks, gays, Latinos, women, disabled, South Asians, Asian Pacific Islanders, Jewish, Arab, basically every single subset of humanity is explicitly welcomed except for straight European-descended men.
Back to “Amanda.”
“We were at our yearly DE&I meeting. Everything was, you know, covered in colorful balloons, and there were lots of snacks. It was a festive event, right? Our yearly brainstorming session. After everyone was full of cake and stuff, we started going around the room. And then, she — I mean, the person — said, ‘What if we added Financial Equity to our list of inclusive values?’”
Amanda refused to identify the name of the person who had spoken. But she did describe what happened next.
“The room went dead silent. You could have heard a cotton ball drop. Someone gasped. A few people started sobbing. I bit my tongue. The VP of HR called the person out and told the rest of us to leave immediately.”
“Burn all your notes,” the VP said as they left. “Leave all your electronic devices. Never speak of this again.”
By the time the employees returned to their desks, the offending employee was gone, all trace of them removed from the computer systems and networks.
Further, the vanished person’s accounts were scrubbed from social media. Amanda’s colleague seemed never to have existed. It was a cleaner elimination than any assassination.
“I feel really lucky,” Amanda said. “Because I was about to say that’s a great idea. The whole idea behind DE&I is that we share. That we’re all equal. But apparently, we’re not THAT equal.”