The Death of “Old Dave”

A British employment tribunal recently spent valuable hours of human existence solemnly deciding whether referring to a middle-aged colleague as “Old Dave” was an act of unlawful workplace harassment.

The claimant won. Compensation was duly awarded.

Somewhere, a stenographer had to type those words into the official legal record of this realm with a straight face.

It is easy to laugh. But behind the punchline lies a grim reality: British working life has been quietly colonised by an industry of professional fragility.

We used to run on a different fuel. For generations, British workplaces were held together by a ruthless, democratic brand of affectionate irreverence. You had a colleague called “The Clock” because one hand was bigger than the other. You had “The Blister,” who only ever appeared when the hard graft was finished. You had “The Deckchair,” who collapsed under the mildest whiff of pressure.

Nobody called ACAS. Nobody demanded a mediated apology. You took the joke, laughed at your own ridiculousness, and fired one back. It was social glue. It signalled you were part of the crew.

Today, that organic culture has been bulldozed and replaced by a hyper-vigilant HR bureaucracy that treats all spontaneous human interaction as a pending lawsuit.

Let us be plain about this: Equality legislation was designed to stop genuine discrimination, not to bubble-wrap the workforce against observable reality.

A grey beard is grey. A bald head is bald. Being the oldest bloke in a room full of twenty-something digital marketing coordinators is an observable demographic fact.

Yet under the current legal framework, the test for harassment hinges on the subjective emotional reaction of the most easily bruised person in the building. If Dave decides that acknowledging the passage of time violates his dignity, the law steps in with a chequebook.

The logic is utterly corrosive. The moment you elevate hurt feelings to a civil rights violation, you incentivise grievance. Why develop a thick skin, a sense of humour, or basic resilience when being terribly offended pays out at five figures?

Follow the trajectory. If mild teasing is legally toxic, what remains? Sterile corridors where colleagues communicate in sanitised, corporate-approved platitudes, terrified that an unscripted remark near the kettle might trigger a formal grievance.

None of this is to defend genuine malice. Malicious bullying, targeted humiliation, and sabotaging someone’s livelihood are real problems that warrant getting sacked.

Normal adults know the difference. We know the difference between a calculated campaign of cruelty and a bit of clumsy canteen banter. Equating a mundane nickname with systemic oppression doesn’t protect the vulnerable; it trivialises actual discrimination and infantilises grown men and women.

If you cannot survive a colleague pointing out your advancing years without rushing to an employment lawyer, the problem isn’t the office banter.

The problem is you. Own the grey hair, laugh at the joke, and Dave? Find your sense of humour.