The Productive Pessimist

  As with mental health , neurodiversity inclusion is going to become a very present focus for UK businesses in the wake of the recent welfare reforms. Neurodiversity is also  a deeply complex aspect of inclusion, which typically requires a tailored approach designed with individual businesses - not only is every neurodiverse person different, with different sensitivities, skills, competencies, and accommodation needs, but so is every workplace.   The Productive Pessimist Ltd  offer a range of inclusive design and practice consultancy services, ranging from £15  one off costs to £8,000  yearly service support; reach out to us by email at theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com , or check out our services page  to find out more. For this blog, will be addressing a few common questions and challenges on neurodiversity, and neurodiverse inclusion in the workplace. Isn't everyone neurodivergent, though?  It's just about "seeing things differently", and ...

  With changes to the UK's welfare provisions making it harder for people facing mental health challenges to get basic financial assistance without  an expectation that they will be pursuing employment, British business can no longer carry on its time-honoured practice of subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) pushing people experiencing mental ill-health out of the workplace, and people trying to manage even complex mental health conditions can no longer assume that they will be allowed to focus on getting to a point of reliable stability before they have to look for work. The burden on people experiencing mental ill-health is cruel, especially for those whose condition is not  "just a normal response to the challenges of life", and is, for example, something like schizophrenia, bipolar, or one of the Cluster B personality disorders , which can be exceptionally disruptive to the individual experiencing the condition, not just those around them. At The Productive Pessimist ...

Disability inclusion is the art of planning for the future; when you create places and spaces that are inclusive by design, you accommodate the frailties and limitations that can come with ageing, you accommodate the way peoples' needs will change, outside of ageing, over time, as their circumstances and preferences change. Including disability from design, through build, and into completion saves resources, creates significant cost-efficiencies, and creates a consistency in development and provision which can both predict demand trends, and respond to emerging demands. Disability inclusive design isn't just about making entrances wheelchair accessible.   Disability inclusive design is about how a place is built, how space is laid out, how adaptable by individuals it is, how easily and to what degree things can be adjusted to suit individual needs and preferences. So much of the building of places and design of spaces is just an unthinking continuation of "the way we'v...

  I want  to start this post with the common rebuff from the trans community (of which I am a part); "Everybody has a gender!"  I can't , however, because that isn't true. Gender  isn't just the "polite" substitute for "sex-as-adjective".  Gender  is a psycho-emotional sense  of something that is true about oneself.  Truth is not  subjective, which is where the complexity of "gender" comes in - because "psycho-emotional sense" sounds very  subjective - it's "just peoples' feelings!"   Except it's not. What gives psycho-emotional sense its claim to being objective  truth is that it is made manifest in the way a person interacts with their society, and invites that society to interact with them.   Psycho-emotional sense may go through a period of flux - which, after all, is what puberty is for most people, and what menopause and andropause are for many people - but, in the end, after between 3-7 years, it...

  Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be introducing the individual elements of full-spectrum inclusion, which are all considered equally and combined in our inclusive design and practice consultancy  services. We're starting with Financial Inclusion , because we're approaching that time of the year when, in the UK, prices skyrocket a full four weeks before most peoples' "inflation-related-pay-increase" kicks in. (Make it make sense, UK...it's a fiscal version of kids gathering their stuff & getting to their feet the minute the bell rings, with teachers screaming "the bell is my signal, not yours!!!", completely pointlessly.) (To American "wealth influencers" - your  education in financial inclusion starts with this fact: In the UK, "presenting a record of all your achievements, and all the additional work you've undertaken, and then requesting a raise" will not work.  99% of companies here tell you at your initial in...

  The social model of disability  states that there is no "disability", in the sense of individual limitations, only "social barriers".  In its neutral form, this is simply an invitation to business and government to come together, and be guided by individuals affected by social barriers in how to create a better world. Unfortunately, very few things' neutralities survive their first exposure to human beings, and the social model of disability is no different; even in a "perfect" world, with maximal intersectional inclusion, there would still be people who had a negative experience, despite not behaving in anyway that "deserves" punishment or exclusion. (Although, in a truly maximally intersectionally inclusive world, it could be argued that no one  would "deserve" punishment or exclusion... It depends on whether there is any real possibility of educating and socialising out intolerance in others, which is very much the "elepha...