Guru Blog

Once again, Guru gives you five links to the top workplace stories of the week. Jobcentre's sorry for the spurn of the Jedi No job unless you're Polish: Biggest Asda meat supplier excludes English speakers as 'all instructions are in Polish' Racism storm over £38,000 'Indians-only' job advert 'Bullied' City lawyer seeking...

Guru was saddened to hear the news that Hull City Football Club had sacked manager Phil Brown. This, you understand, is not because Guru is a fan of Hull - a city that is north of Watford you see - but because Brown showed the world that metrosexuality is actually a very bad thing. From his ridiculous David Dickinson style deep tan to his penchant for...

While employers are falling over themselves to prove how flexible they are these days, Guru has always taken the view that working from home is, indeed, a licence to shirk from home. It seems the ultimate job for home shirkers has now been created. A company wants to recruit a couch potato to eat 400 extra calories every day to test the fat-binding...

Guru is loath to criticise a great British institution such as the National Trust, but some things are beyond the pale (or, indeed, pail). In response to research that showed 74% of UK city based workers feel stressed on a daily basis, the National Trust has been handing out fresh air that has been bottled "at some of the country's favourite...

Being a regular on the gambling scene, Guru was interested to hear about two daring criminals who managed to steal thousands of pounds from casinos in London. How was it achieved? An Ocean's Eleven style underground raid? Some clever card counting? Maybe a straight put up job? Well, none of the above as it happens. In turns out that the dastardly...

Guru is frankly tired of the seemingly weekly studies that prove that red wine/coffee/white wine/beer (delete as appropriate) is bad/good (delete as appropriate) for you, but latest research on booze from Korea was actually more eye catching than usual. Boffins at Chungnam National University have discovered that infusing alcohol with oxygen allows...

Police forces invest heavily in training officers to help clamp down on drug use in society, but sometimes good old fashioned luck does the job for them. Two officers in Nuremberg couldn't believe their eyes when they saw a clubber lining up powdered amphetamines on the roof of an unmarked police car in a nightclub car park. The man had no idea...

It seems that vegans are to be given the same protection against discrimination as religious groups under the new Equality Bill. Official guidance issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission points out that the "ethical commitment" of vegans to animal welfare is "central to who they are". "A person who is a vegan chooses...

An interesting new spin on the war for talent from our friends in South Korea, where hundreds of jobseekers have taken part in a "Binman Olympics" to compete for just 14 jobs as road sweepers . Nearly 500 entrants competed for what are considered plum civil service jobs in the area of Gumi, with tasks including demonstrating how quickly they...

We hear constantly about skills shortages in the UK, but there is one sector which is really struggling to find new blood - beekeeping. Apparently, there are 44,000 beekeepers in the UK, but that's not nearly enough. The honeybee population is in decline and threatened by disease and lack of habitat. What's more, bees contribute £200m a year...

Guru was amused to see the nickname Scottish coppers have given one of their fellow officers following his decision to issue a penalty notice to a driver who was blowing his nose while stuck in traffic. Michael Mancini was fined £60 and handed three penalty points by police for "not being in control of his vehicle". He had been sitting in...

Kudos to Dick Olver, boss of BAE Systems, who said yesterday that Britain was belittling the job title 'engineer' by applying it to photocopier repairmen and gas fitters. Olver claimed about two million workers have the job title of engineer, despite having limited technical qualifications. Professional engineers should "take ownership...

Do you work with someone who has an odd name? Is there a colleague in your team or office that whose moniker is something embarrassing or just plain weird? You know, that fellow employee who, every time someone mentions their name, you can't help emit a little snigger. If so, Guru wants to know. Why? Because a study by parenting site thebabywebsite...

Today is Work Your Proper Hours Day - a TUC publicity stunt which claims to be the day when the average person who does unpaid overtime finishes the unpaid days they do every year, and starts earning for themselves. In the spirit of the day, Guru will be having his morning tea break, full hour for lunch, mid-afternoon tea break and be leaving the office...

Following this week's strike vote at BA, the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (Bassa) has upset a few people over its campaign poster mirroring the iconic image of US soldiers raising a flag after the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima. The Marine Corps War Memorial Foundation , said the use of the image was "extremely offensive...