I've been working for about 20 years and I've seen the culture change and, in my view, it was for the worse.

When I first walked into a building I would call my place of work, it wasn't the free-for-all, anything-goes environment that previous generations had described to me, but it was pretty loose.

There was a common, mutual, silent acknowledgement that there are things you can do, things you shouldn't do, and things you mustn't do.

That 'vibe' didn't really change for maybe 10-15 years, but then the whole thing accelerated with a meteoric rise of something you'd call over-policing.

Some work environments, especially in some countries in Europe and in the anglophone world, are Stranger-Things-Upside-Downing themselves into oblivion with hyper-vigilant self-censorship and an omnipresent fear of minor verbal missteps.

In theory, the idea behind PC norms was to fight actual harm and actual, overt harassment.

The opposite is happening: we're passively and preemptively punishing anyone and everyone to prevent potential harassment that hasn't happened, without any proof it would actually happen. We're arresting everyone in the room on the assumption that sooner or later one of them was going to commit a crime.

Our brain capacity is incredible, but still limited. It needs rest. It needs recharging. No one can be expected to perform at 100 percent 100 percent of the time, which leads to the first problem.

Because constantly editing your speech and behaviour to make sure no one gets offended is mentally exhausting.

It also leads to irritability, anger, frustration.

No one likes to be misunderstood. So being called things you know you are not just because of an opinion is incredibly insulting. And people are throwing these expressions around these days like they're weightless. If everything is offensive, then nothing is.

People think this is a meme or a joke, but it isn't. We are living in an era where if you say "I like really wine", somebody might be tempted to respond "so you're saying people who drink beer are idiots?".

Excessive PC also leads to lying, because walking on eggshells 24/7 to avoid being labelled insensitive will 1000 percent harm your ability to solve problems and share feedback that might be useful.

And suppressed views don't disappear; they boil under the surface.

When people can't voice mild disagreements or even jokes without risk, nothing good can come from it.

I think we are also underestimating how easy it is to slip into the path that might lead to a 'fireable offence'.

Let me give you a practical example, and please please please do not think I'm joking, because I'm not. I wish. But I'm not.

Let's imagine you and I work together. Let's imagine you make a comment about my jacket. "Wow, cool jacket," you say.

I can now talk to HR and if I say the magic words - "that comment made by me feel uncomfortable" - HR will essentially be forced to at least look into it and launch an investigation. At the very least, they're going to have to talk to you and ask you for your side of the story.

You might dismiss this as an extreme-case scenario that doesn't happen, but it does. It doesn't happen every day, but the very fact this is even a possibility should scare us.