Pink chairs – are they unprofessional?

In the news paper today: a consultancy company is looking for an office manager who is gay… The company’s comment to the journalist: gays are creative, involved, thorough, willing to help and they have enough testosteron to be assertive. The company wouldn’t like to have a macho for lack of cooperation.

In a funny part of the article the journalist asks whether the company avoids the problem of falling in love at the workplace like this. The answer for the company is easy: no, of course not, because men can also fall in love with men… No doubt this journalist is far away from gay reality 🙂

Dutch law allows positive discrimination for women and migrants, not for gays. The company notices that all recruiters discriminate and choose whatever they like, but they don’t talk about it. This company has decided to speak out aloud and just say that they want to recruit a gay office manager. So far, so good, I thought. Original, even weird behaviour keeps the diversity discussion going, and that will bear fruit no doubt. And it is fun to read this kind of articles in a serious news paper.

It was the end of the article that gave me a little shock. ‘Will you give a pink chair to your manager?’ the journalist asked. ‘No, of course not!’ was their answer ‘we are a professional company’. I looked at these words with embarrassment and also a smile. All chairs in our company Seba are pink chairs – does this mean we are not professionals? My plea is for diversity, not just in people, but also in chairs 🙂

Other blogs to read for you:
Social safety at work for gays and lesbians
Gay caveman in Czech republic
Company Pride in Amsterdam
Gay penguins Buddy and Pedro
Puteaux: a French world in pink and blue