My mortal enemy attacked me at Woolworths
Today’s Wednesday.
Which means it’s time for the very first edition of…
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD WEDNESDAY!¡!
WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY just me talking about things I hate.
You will, in turn, learn to hate them too.
Fingers crossed we’ll stick to mental health, but don’t come at me if I throw shade at people who eat mushrooms every once in a while. I’m allowed to hate more than one thing alright?
FOCUS THOMAS. Back to what ails me this Wednesday.
It was actually staring me in the face today in the fridge section of my local Woolies - a poor old Dare Iced Coffee, its regular green banner mutilated by a traumatising shade of yellow:
RUOK yellow.
My arch-nemesis.
(For my international readers, a non-profit mental health organisation)
Some of you may already be familiar with my long standing war against RUOK, some of you may wonder why I have a problem with something that promotes ‘mental health awareness’.
To the latter, I say again - you’ll learn to hate it too 🥳
Let’s be real… the ONLY people drinking Dare Iced Coffee’s are tradies or teenage boys - both of which belong to circles that’ll take the piss out of them for drinking from an RUOK bottle. I will eat the bottom half of my front door the very day I hear of a productive mental health conversation going on at a construction site or in the back of an all-boys classroom.
Ding Ding Ding!!! Unsolicited reader interruption incoming:
“Duh, that’s whole point - we want to reduce stigma!”
Man I tell ya I could really just turn tomorrow into Things I Hate Thursday and dedicate a whole email to my dislike for the word ‘stigma’, but I’ll save that one for later…
Sure, we wanna tone down the bullying when someone’s two steps shy of running away from their life. But as with everything we do, there’s a TIME AND A PLACE GUYS.
On a jobsite, it’s time for HAMMERING NAILS.
In a classroom, it’s time for WINDING UP THE RELIEF TEACHER BY GETTING ALL YOUR MATES TO PLAY THE WII THEME SONG ON SPEAKER AT THE SAME TIME LEARNING.
At a workplace, it’s time for WORK.
I’ll admit, the bone I’m picking is not with Dare Iced Coffee - heck, deep down I actually have something resembling respect for RUOK, mortal enemy shtick aside. They are a suicide prevention non-profit, after all.
But I do NOT respect what their logo has become
- a virtue signal about mEntAL hEaLTh.
Just like someone taping RUOK logos over fun-size kit kats (not naming any names 🙄), strutting your RUOK themed iced coffee around tells me you’re more interested in telling the world how much you care, rather than actually caring.
The very mantra is a virtue signal. I’ve listened to people in my own workplace bandy the question about, ‘Are you okay mate?’ with an enormous grin, then walk away whistling. It’s pathetic.
Who in the WORLD is telling you they’ve been having DARK THOUGHTS at the freakin WATERCOOLER MAN?
You go home thinkin’ the job’s done, they go home thinking if that was your best crack, there’s no one out there who’s willing to listen. And now no one’s fixed.
That is a recipeeeeee for catastropheeeee babeeeeee.
Instead of parading an ‘I Care About Mental Health Look At Me I’m An Ally’ flag all over town, get busy forging rock-solid relationships with people first, and then checking in with them off the back of hard-earned rapport. That’s the appropriate antitdote to virtue-signalling.
Alternatively, you can do your part by helping me grow my band of un-professionals - just forward this email to one person who’ll livelaughlove it and I’ll be forever in your debt.
