The Productive Pessimist

  This is the main text of an article raising a critical eye at the UK government's recently announced social care reforms - which, themselves, are essential to ensure robust resilience, and an ability to actually implement, the planned reforms to the NHS. Our response here is intentionally brief, and intended to serve as an introduction and invitation to health and social care organisations, and other businesses, in the UK to partner with us to solve the problems they perceive with necessary systemic transformation. The cart before the horse Labour’s burning desire to reform the NHS, reduce waiting lists, and give patients greater autonomy and choice, relies on social care reforms; social care reforms which won’t even begin to be considered - by the groan-inducing “Commission” - until April 2025, with a very slow burn to a potential action plan being available sometime in 2028 - just in time for another General Election, and, very likely - given Labour’s proven ability to alienate...

  It can be easy to dismiss the memes that centre "we could be hibernating right now, but nooooo, we had to invent CAPITALISM and CUPS!" as "just more Gen Z whining", and further evidence that "people are lazy and just don't want to work", and sure, some people actually don't  want to have any  kind of job. That's a thing - people are allowed to feel resentful about the idea that they are obliged  to do something they find to be either very intrusive, or actually harmful to their wellbeing. A lot of people will just be posting those memes as 'engagement-scrapes'; complaining about work we don't really  have too much issue with is part of human nature, and probably has been since we first started engaging in planned, focused, longer-term-thinking activity, rather than merely surviving day by day.  People like to bond through sharing low-key frustrations, so these memes will generate a lot of comments, shares, and likes - all of which...

Today, 12th November 2024, marks one year since our first "problem solving post" on this blog; you can read that post  here . Our very first post as The Productive Pessimist on this blog was a general intro post, published on 5th November 2024, and The Productive Pessimist Ltd was formally registered as a company in February 2025; however, writing, and helping teams, people, and organisations achieve their potential are central to how I undertake my responsibilities with The Productive Pessimist Ltd, and so I choose to mark the one year anniversary of the first "how to solve a common problem" post on this blog. I've also put out a YouTube video - which you can  watch here  - I hate  doing videos, I have no  skills or competence in doing videos, my sight loss causes significant practical challenges with doing videos - but, every so often, I'll do a video, because we never get better at things by avoiding them, and because the videos provide a nice contrast to...

There are 551,000 more people unemployed than there are available jobs.  Clinicians are EXCEPTIONALLY resistant to the idea of providing routine medical appointments outside of working hours. Bus companies just shrug their shoulders as able-bodied mothers take over the lone wheelchair bay on each bus with their buggies, tourists yeet their wheeled suitcases into it, and bored teenagers sprawl there, because schools refuse to provide their own bus services, and bus companies are allowed to take more passengers than there are available seats. In the UK, there is an average of 37 reported hate crimes against disabled people every single day. That's an average of a crime against a disabled person every single hour of every single day. It's not an "epidemic of worklessness" - it's an epidemic of intolerance for anyone who isn't 100% "normal" and "on the ball" 100% of the time.  It's an epidemic of intolerance for any period of absence, and a...

  One of the  services  we offer at The Productive Pessimist is public speaking, remotely or in person, both as sole speaker and as panel members. One of the topics we offer public speaking on is that of living car free.  This topic is covered in depth by myself - Ash  - and centred in the 20yrs I have been obliged to spend living car free, with half that time spent living in small villages in rural Norfolk , travelling up to 40miles each way for work, in full time employment. How It Started When I was 19, I took my third - and, as it turned out, final - driving test. I failed, and in such a way that I was referred for a fitness to drive sight test. I failed this, as well, with the commentary that my peripheral vision was very limited, and I therefore wasn't considered safe to drive. When I'd failed the driving test, I had a severe panic attack, and expressed to my instructor that "My parents are going to kill me" - I paid for my driving lessons , but my Dad pai...

  For the youngest members of the workforce, the idea that the internet could 'end' is an impossible consideration - like trying to imagine the life your family might be living if you'd never come along. For the oldest members of the workforce, there may be a bit of nostalgia for "the way things used to be", tempered with an acknowledgement, perhaps grudging, that the internet has made possible things that couldn't even be imagined when they first started their careers. For the mid-career Millennials, the idea that the internet might stop existing is an intriguing proposition, which comes presented with all sides of the possibility clearly visible. The good, the bad, the ugly and sublime. So, what suggests we might be entering 'The End of the Internet'? Firstly, simple timing.  It's been over 40yrs since the internet was first developed, in its first iteration (January 1st 1983). It's been just over 25yrs since the first social media platform l...