Whether it's the boss or the bureaucrats, the answer's the same: mind your own business.
I really hate bossiness. In all its many, uppity, net-curtain-twitching incarnations, particularly the state's sticky fingers meddling in my life. But I am not sure this week's suggested tradeoff - replacing an Orwellian state with an Orwellian employer - is such a swell swap. Is the Nanny state to be replaced by the Nanny corporation?
The working group on welfare dependence chaired by economist Paula Rebstock released its first report this week and suggested employers ought to be more actively involved in managing their workers' health issues: keeping them well, and getting them back to work quickly after an illness. The working group suggested we copy the Netherlands, which has a system where employers have to pay for most of the costs of their former workers on sickness and disability benefits. But you know how authoritarian the Cloggies are.
I'd say naff off if my employer popped round to see if I am having a sneaky fag when I'd promised to give up, or lectured me about eating broccoli. Of course, I can understand the rationale for getting businesses to take over wrangling recalcitrant slack-arses - companies have the most to lose if staff go off sick so they have the biggest incentive to keep them off the fags and on the broccoli.
And these sort of initiatives can work. The Economist recently applauded the success of a health line where workers did not ring in sick to their bosses, but instead rang a helpline staffed by off-duty nurses. The nurses helped diagnose and direct the staff members to the appropriate health service - or sprung them if they just had a metaphorical hangover. Pulling a sickie just got a lot harder.
I know it all makes perfect sense but it still disturbs me, this idea that we can outsource bossiness to the private sector. Serves me right really, having the idea I normally espouse - the private sector does things better - coming back to bite me on the bum. Because it is not merely your health that corporates are starting to poke their sticky beaks into. It seems on every front corporations are getting more involved in the personal lives of their staff.
Take the most recent instance of a CEO behaving badly - HP CEO Mark Hurd resigned after allegations of sexual harassment by a contractor. There was no actual rumpy-pumpy but Hurd claimed for some dinners with the foxy contractor he shouldn't have.
The corporation had to get rid of him to make a righteous statement about the company's "trust and ethical standards". Hurd's personal behaviour would have been swept under the rug in the past but now personal ethics and company conduct have become inextricably linked. We don't go to church anymore so it seems corporations have become our moral arbiters.
I rather wistfully remember the quaint old days when businesses were shamelessly occupied with churning out a product or service and making money. They weren't much interested in their values, or their staff's values, for that matter.
I don't want my employer to tell me how to live my life or what my morals should be. Whether it is the state or my employer, bossiness is bad. As P.G. Wodehouse said: "It is no use telling me there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof."
dhc@deborahhillcone.com
