The Productive Pessimist

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 ...

  Re-skilling isn't about your current skillset being obsolete, or at risk of being overtaken by developments in the business sphere. Re-skilling is the "fourth R" in the sustainability focus cycle, and, increasingly, that sustainability cycle is being seen not as "second best", or "something to consider for some quirky retro content", but as central to personal resilience and business success. Reduce means identifying what's necessary, important, and the cause, not just a symptom. At The Productive Pessimist Ltd, we focus on helping you reduce your problems, down to the one  issue which is actually your barrier. We work with you to reduce the distractions to your strategic focus, and reduce the number of steps from where you are now to where you want to be. Reuse prompts you to hold a 'stock' of approaches, skills, and mindsets which can be applied to a diverse range of challenges and opportunities. For example: communication  is a skill w...

  What do you consider a reasonable commuting distance?  20miles? 30?  Maybe, for a hybrid role, up to a two-three hour drive away, depending on how many times you're expected to be in the office?  The Department for Work and Pensions expects jobseekers on Universal Credit to travel up to 90minutes, each way - yes, including  for minimum wage roles. Well, John Tuckett, the UK's new "Border Tsar" (or Immigration Services Co-ordinator, to give him his official title), considers a commute of 1,834miles, from his "family home" to the UK, to be completely reasonable, and believes it won't have any impact on his ability to effectively carry out his new role - which comes with a £140,000 a year salary. If you were driving, you'd be on the road for almost two days, with a 37hr drive time. Of course, John Tuckett is going to be flying to the UK to carry out his new job (carbon footprint, anyone..?); with a flight time of 2hrs 52mins, plus travel to and from...

  "It's not pie! More for other people doesn't mean less for you!" This was the howl of social media's self-declared #neurodivergence, #disability communities in the late twenty-teens and into the twenty-twenties. It sounded almost convincing, a worthy rallying call that everyone who wanted to be On The Right Side of History should immediately get behind. And if you dared  to hesitate to get behind the statement, if you so much as thought  that it maybe didn't sound quite  right - well, you were privileged , you were guilty of ableism , you just wanted disabled people to not exist!  If you were  disabled yourself, and had some reservations about the pie-ness of inclusion, then you were "everything that's wrong with the world!" But - as so often happens - those who were hesitant have been proved right.  It turns out that, as many disabled people with observable, high-impact impairments, who need  workplace accommodations - and, most importantly, w...

  The recent controversy around Meta's whole process of moving away from fact-checking has become, understandably, centred on Mark Zuckerberg's statement that "we need more masculine energy in tech." In the UK and USA, "masculine" and "feminine" are loaded words, and heavily shackled to "men" and "women" respectively; people tend to hear "masculine energy" and jump to "men"...and, from there, jump to "That's misogyny!" But masculine and feminine are simply types of energy  that people bring to a space; they do not have to  correlate to expressed genders of "man" and "woman". Masculine Energy Masculine energy is the energy of determined, often single-minded and individualistic, focus.  It's the energy of direct, concise communication. It's the energy that says "Tell me if you have a problem, and I'll stop it being  a problem for you."  It's the energy...

  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...