The Productive Pessimist

  Ageism is often seen as exclusively about protecting older  people. However, "age" is a protected characteristic in UK law, and means any  age . People often use "ageism" to rail against statements such as "Ok, Boomer" - but "Ok, Boomer" relates to a mindset  - the mindset that says "the way I  do things is the best  way!",  "people don't have a right to be themselves  - they have to fit in, because that's what I  did!",   "I should be prioritised in every single situation!"  People of any age can have this "Boomer Mindset", while, equally, people of the "Baby Boom" generation can be very open-minded, very engaged with technology and change, and very enthusiastic about emerging trends. If you don't want to be referred to as a "Boomer", all you need to do is change your mindset. In contrast, millennials and Gen Z can't  escape accusations of "laziness",  "...

  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...

  One of the positive - if the government don't fumble it, and employers step in to provide the necessary 'assist' - elements of Labour's Welfare Reform announcements on March 18th was the "Right to Try", where claimants, including those on Limited Capacity for Work Related Activity, can engage with employment they feel they may  be able to manage alongside disabilities and health challenges, without  the risk of losing their welfare support, meaning that, if they can't  manage the workload, or an employer feels it is not safe for them to continue, they - in theory - wouldn't be required to start a new claim (which, for those currently on LCWRA, would see them receive substantially less  than their existing claim pays, obviously not a desirable outcome for anyone.) I've been around long enough, and had enough interaction with the UK's abysmal employment landscape, and encountered enough of the toxic, self-important, ableist attitudes of employe...

  I don't normally do personal deep dives on this blog, which is, after all, my professional presence as The Productive Pessimist Ltd. In the past - in jobs, when building connections and relationships, in social media discourse, and yes, in blog posts - I've apologised for "going into all of that"  or "going on about me".  In several jobs, I've been made  to apologise - and to feel ashamed - for mentioning personal challenges I was facing.  In my first office-based job, aged 21, on my first day, I was told, directly: "When you come to work, you leave all your personal shit at the front door of your own house. You're not you , here; you're the company, and the company doesn't have headaches, the company isn't tired, the company isn't worried about how it's going to pay its rent, the company doesn't have family members or friends who die, that it gets sad about. You're being paid to be the company for 10 hours a day, f...

This morning, LinkedIn was being very Monday, very LinkedIn, not very demure, not very mindful. A woman, whose profile suggested she works in recruitment, responded, quite aggressively, to a disabled man asking why companies were still  engaging in discrimination against disabled individuals with: "Because disability is a liability, it costs money, and businesses can't expect to run up their costs to an infinite degree whilst tiptoeing around every single need people could ever possibly have." This isn't an isolated thought.  It's not often said out loud in the UK - but it always has been elsewhere in the world, and it very much is being shouted from the rooftops of the USA. And it's not just recruiters and executive leadership; it's ordinary people, meaning that, even with the most inclusive, welcoming, accommodating leadership, disabled people will still be encountering hostile environments courtesy of the able-bodied people they have to work with  on th...

As soon as air travel began to become more affordable, Britain's small museums, and other smaller tourism attractions were in trouble. The problem was that, being British, those organisations didn't consider that they were  in trouble. Their entry fees were still a lot  cheaper than a plane ticket, and flying abroad was so much hassle , wasn't it? And besides, they were British.  You could have a conversation  with the lovely, British volunteers working in lovely, cosy, local British museums, you could enjoy the bracing British seaside, or the beautiful British countryside, whilst exploring quaint, quirky tourist businesses, and - the really cool  payoff - keeping your money in the local economy! And, for a while, the British public agreed with all of this. They pottered, they provided endless 2ps, 1ps, and 5ps, they brought quirky knick-knacks that would sit on a windowsill for a few weeks, then be moved to the mantlepiece, before finally being scuttled off to ...