‘The choice was to retire or to push back on the wokery and get kicked out’

In her column on Wednesday, Allison Pearson discussed how over-50s are being driven out of work by wokery. She wrote that “relentless wokery is driving the more mature into retirement before it drives us round the bend”. 

Telegraph readers took the comments section by storm to share their own experiences of facing wokery in the workplace, with many sharing their exhaustion of feeling targeted.

Read on to see the reasons behind why a number of our readers have been driven out of work: 

'Identity is now prioritised over competence and that will not end well'

@H M 

"I retired at 60 just over a year ago, as I got fed up with all the wokery. This included compulsory online courses in pseudoscience like unconscious bias and microaggressions, relentless curtailment of free speech, and worst of all, relentless over-promotion of minorities in search of equity.

"My boss's boss, a black woman based on the west coast of the US, was utterly clueless - the very definition of a 'diversity hire' - she could hardly read out her own slides, never mind presenting anything in a persuasive manner. She was incapable of handling an escalation, such as when I made a complaint about a sales manager - she did precisely nothing about this except sympathetic words and lots of HR jargonising.

"The final straw came when the Silicon Valley-based CEO, on the quarterly 'results' conference call, spent five minutes on financial performance and 25 minutes chatting to a trans person about their ‘lived experience'. Utterly bizarre.

"The choice was to retire or to push back and probably get kicked out.

"It's all happened so fast - they hired me at 54 and they were delighted to get someone with my experience. They were shocked when I left and that division has struggled. But there's no way they'd hire a 'me' now - identity is now prioritised over competence and that will not end well."

'I know an older executive who goes into meetings in a cold sweat, absolutely terrified he might inadvertently say the wrong thing'

@J Murray

"I know several older executives within large, often multinational, companies who have admitted to me they are terrified to say a single word at meetings. They range from executives within the drinks industry to those in advertising.

"One tells me he goes into meetings in a cold sweat, absolutely terrified he might inadvertently say the wrong thing and a 25 year career would be over. So, he sits there, contributing next to nothing with his nerves always on edge. He utterly loathes a job he once loved and lived for, but feels he is too old to move on and, if he did, would find the same situation at his next employer.

"The woke - through a combination of out of control HR who force older people into brainwashing training sessions to create groupthink by teaching critical race and feminist theories on their employees, and the introduction of younger, university brainwashed executives - have taken control of a truly scary number of companies.

"The bigger the company, the worse the problem."

‘The woke issue is only the tip of the iceberg’

@Mark Liddiard

"The woke issue is true but only the tip of the iceberg. I'm 56 and grew up being taught to work hard, save hard, take personal responsibility and not to depend on state handouts. As a result, I have been faced with ageism, being the wrong ethnicity/gender/sexual orientation for career advancement, subject to punitive taxation and the LTA cap on pensions. This mountain is far too high for most people to climb. 

"I'm now a part time consultant on a zero-hours contract to my last employer. As a result, I can manage my workload to increase my free time whilst paying the bills and keep my brain sharp. It's the best workplace decision I ever made. The thought of managing any more people with their woke views and dealing with the HR red tape is now horrifying!"

‘We had a trans employee before all the nonsense started and no one batted an eyelid’

@Ewen Miller

"I’ve had this wokery stuff - pronouns, odd signs on loos - at my workplace. I invoked my right to be offended that they thought I needed a pronoun, and I didn’t do the training and I wouldn’t use the loos. Colleagues from abroad, confused by it all, thought we didn’t have any loos. 

"We had a trans employee before all the nonsense started and no one batted an eyelid - they were just one of the team. Now all they’ve done is highlight differences and cause alienation and discrimination where little existed, if any, before all this nonsense."

'I nourish the memories of how much fun I had working in the 80s and 90s'

@Maya Dixon

"When I was in my 50s and being interviewed for jobs by 35 year-olds, some of them made me feel like an alien. When I got a job, I couldn’t believe the fear the young people had of normal chit chat. “Is it ok if I ask you where you’re from?” one of them asked me in the lunch queue (I have a non-British accent). I said of course you can - do you now have to ask if it’s okay? 

"As a result of the pandemic, I am now looking for another job. However, I’m now into my 60s so I wouldn’t last five minutes in any office today. I don’t care about wokery and I would therefore be fired quickly. I will need to work from home just to preserve my sanity - and to nourish the memories of how much fun I had working in the 80s and 90s when we could banter, flirt and have fun without having to worry about it all."

'All I had done was tell her that she wasn't doing her job properly'

@Stefan Lenn

"I have to say that there is truth in what she says. I am in my 50s and recently had a written warning from my boss after a colleague accused me of discrimination. All I had done was tell her that she wasn't doing her job properly. She wasn't and my boss knew it, but as my colleague had complained to HR, she bottled it and sided with her.

"I have no respect for either of them now."

'I am watching the firm slide down the slippery ‘go woke go broke’ pole'

@Carolyn Kirk

"I am in exactly that situation myself but in the private sector. Sitting duck for tax shaft-a-thon and forced by HR to recruit the wrong interns and grads (clue: white males need not apply). Forever doing repetitive unconscious bias and microaggression training. 

"All the while watching the firm slide down the slippery ‘go woke go broke’ pole as its share price nosedives and no one, especially not senior management, seems to care as long as they are seen to be saying the right things about diversity. 

"Counting down the days (years) until I can escape."

'I should just find a country which still has some common sense and emigrate'

@T R

"It's not just older workers. As someone soon to be 40 I find the whole wokery tedious, dull, and distracting from why I'm actually at work. As it's far too soon to consider retirement I am instead actively considering whether starting my own business would work, or if I should just find a country which still has some common sense and emigrate."

'We are really bad people for being white, middle class, and having saved rather than spent'

@Derek Smith

"I started work at 16 as an apprentice engineer and my wife started at 18 as a trainee nurse. We purchased our own house and lived through the horrors of 15 per cent interest rates - and for many years lived on less available cash than those living in social housing and benefits. Work, however, was cathartic because we were all pretty much in the same boat and provided a much needed dose of sometimes dark humour and banter.

"We bailed out in our early fifties, partially because we could see the direction of travel. We were being told that, actually, we were guilty of various unconscious crimes against pretty much anyone of colour, trans and gay people. Also, that we are really bad people for being white, middle class, and having saved rather than spent."

'I’m now not supposed to address my passengers as “ladies and gentlemen"'

@Nicholas Wade

"I’m an airline pilot of 24 years experience. I’m now not supposed to address my passengers as ‘ladies and gentlemen’. Instead, I should use ‘gender neutral language’. 

"Why? Who will I offend? Every day, my company squeezes a few more drops of joy out of my job."

Have you had any similar experiences with 'wokery' in the workplace? Join the conversation in the comments section below