The Productive Pessimist

  This morning, I should have been hosting a networking event alongside my business partner.  Unfortunately, I woke up with a particularly bad cold - far more than just sniffles and feeling under the weather - which didn't improve as the morning went on.  I asked myself what I would do if I had a "regular" job; the answer was "I would identify that I was well enough to work from home, but not well enough to go into a physical location." So, that's what I'm doing today, while my partner handles the networking event.  "But if someone's well enough to work from home, they're well enough to come in to work!" I'm not dying, and my vision is only minimally playing up (I have multiple active sight-loss conditions; it takes actual work for me to be able to benefit from the little useful vision I have left; that is compromised when I'm ill), but I am probably contagious, and have no way of knowing how what for me is a bad chest cold woul

  BBC Panorama Life School Wirral   (trigger warning for physical and verbal abuse, discriminatory language) prompted us at The Productive Pessimist Ltd to reach out as a matter of urgency to Life Wirral.   While the school has, rightly, been closed by the local authority, we have identified serious risks for any situation any of the leadership team from Life Wirral may enter into in the future, and for any attempt to re-establish the brand if re-education around both effective support and education for SEN children, and effective and appropriate management practice generally, is not provided or engaged with. The problems of Life Wirral aren't isolated. They are problems that are entrenched in British ideas of management, whether that is management of adult members of staff in a business, management of students in a school, or management of behaviour.  Britain is a nation built on conquest and control, and the Protestant concept that people 'earn' compassion, and their nee

  "What?! I've got to give one special group of people even more  time off - paid ! - while making enough money to keep this place going is already stressful enough?! Jog on - I'll just make sure we never  employ someone who's a 'carer'! They can claim benefits - that's what it's for, isn't it?" I suspect - even if you feel guilty about it -  that's how many business owners reacted to the Liberal Democrats' proposition of a  Carers' Leave Bill  - swiftly followed by relief as you realised which Party had put it forward, and how unlikely they were to ever be elected. Then a niggle of anxiety; what if whoever does  get in nicks the idea, because they think it'll make them popular with those in the electorate you secretly think are "lazy scroungers who just want an excuse not to work." I know it's how an awful lot of people do  think - because I'm a carer for my wife.  I went through the Covid-19 pandemic as a shi

Pride isn't just about slapping rainbow stickers on things, hiring flamboyantly gay or visibly trans influencers, and doing 'awareness training.' As businesses and leaders, Pride month should be where your LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual/Aromantic, and other non-cishet identities and experiences) colleagues guide you in the groundwork that needs to be done for lasting change. Stonewall wasn't just a random incident of civil disobedience; it was the detonator blast that broke ground to begin to build a new way of being human, and a new way of seeing and welcoming other human beings. LGBTQIA+ Inclusion For Life, Not Just For Pride There are things which are a common, unconscious part of how people who are not LGBTQIA+ behave and set up the world, especially in workplaces, which, unintentionally, exclude LGBTQIA+ people, especially those who are also experiencing financial challenges, and/or have intersectional  disadvant