Comparing a colleague to Darth Vader isn't offensive
Calling someone Darth Vader. If that's as bad as your workplace banter gets, I'd suggest you find a more entertaining place to work. Yet, incredibly, an NHS worker not only took enormous offence to being compared to the bucketheaded villain of the Star Wars franchise, she also took her employers to a tribunal. She's just won £30,000 in compensation for her trouble.
Lorna Rooke claims she was prompted to leave the NHS Blood and Transplant service after an incident in 2021, when a team-building exercise turned to the dark side. In Rooke's absence, her workmates filled out a Star Wars-themed personality quiz, supposedly determining which type of person they each are, with characters from the movies clumsily grafted on to each archetype. The personality test didn't declare Rooke to be an evil, planet-destroying psychopath. Apparently, she resembles Darth Vader because she, too, is a 'very focused individual'.
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