Talking about sports at work apparently needs to come to a swift end!
Chartered Management Institute head Ann Francke isn’t a big fan of talking about sports in a professional setting, and she made that crystal clear during an interview with the BBC. Two examples BBC mentioned are soccer and cricket. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
“A lot of women, in particular, feel left out. They don’t follow those sports and they don’t like either being forced to talk about them or not being included,” Francke explained.
Then, the talk really took a wild turn when she claimed talking about sports could clead to sexism in the office!
“It’s a gateway to more laddish behavior and – if it just goes unchecked – it’s a signal of a more laddish culture. It’s very easy for it to escalate from VAR talk and chat to slapping each other on the back and talking about their conquests at the weekend,” Franke added.
Below is a live look at my reaction to her comments.
This attitude right here is why America has to bail out England whenever the wind blows too hard. Stop talking about sports in the office?
Give me a break. I’d rather die than give up talking about sports.
How low of expectations does she have of women to assume they don’t follow sports? Every single woman I know is a fan of sports.
Furthermore, the average woman I know could explain the spread offense better than most. Excuse me if I don’t want to insult the women I’m around by assuming what they do and don’t know.
Secondly, and arguably more importantly, sports serve as a bonding factor. They’re something that keeps morale high. Everybody loves looking forward to a cold beer and the game. That’s just a fact.
If we ban talking about sports, then we’re going to get separated. Even when you cheer against each other, you’re still bonding over the rivalry.
So in closing, to paraphrase a bumper sticker from “Red Dawn” (a movie I’m sure Francke is also not okay with being discussed), you can have my sports talk when you pry it from my cold dead mouth.