Over the past few years, we have seen a series of memes that have had the potential to cause injury, such as planking, owling, batting and, of course, extreme ironing/hammocking. The Harlem Shake, however, never really seemed too dangerous. Ridiculous, yes, but not particularly life threatening. Fonterra disagreed, however, after it sacked two of its staff for shaking it on the Takanini factory floor.
To us, that seems like a massive sense of humour failure from Fonterra, which, according to the Herald, said Henry Taufua, a packer and robot operator, "rode a paper trolley or pallet jack in an unsafe manner endangering himself and others and failed to report unsafe acts by other employees" and Craig Flynn, a filling machine operator, put himself and others at risk of harm by organising the videos, "dancing with a shovel between his legs, hosing water where another employee was dancing and splashing a pallet endangering himself and others".
The Employment Relations Authority thought it was an over-reaction as well and the men's jobs have been reinstated, which just goes to show that no matter how big you get, you should always be able to appreciate a 'robot operator' doing the robot.
