The Productive Pessimist

  What is the single, solvable problem behind UK government budgets? . Lack of a full-spectrum reality check. How are the members of society without access to extensive credit and family support doing? How are the people who only have one house - and are probably renting that - finding the cost of living? What’s going on with the people who are applying for over 1,000 jobs a year, and barely even getting interviews? What are the lives of disabled people who don’t get PIP like? The UK government assesses “growth” - which is a statistic that is very easily manipulated. (Think of all those jobs on LinkedIn that are constantly listed, are showing 100+ applicants, but no one ever seems to be talking about being hired…that’s giving the impression of growth - those companies are often claiming government loans and tax breaks on the basis of the “jobs” they’re “creating” - but will turn around when those loans come due, or the tax breaks are set to end, and claim that “no one wants to ...

  In my run down coastal UK town, the past few weeks have been hell for local retailers, with teenagers treating major shoplifting sprees - taking electrical items, clothes, alcohol, not "just a few sweets or a bit of makeup" (assuming you're the kind of person who thinks it's 'fine' to steal 'small' things in the first place... I'm very much not  of that mindset...) - as something that's just...a normal part of them not having to be in school, and their parents aren't able to afford to be at home to supervise them. (If they're not actually at a legitimate job or course...lock them in the house. Take every set of keys, including those for the windows, with you...or teach your kids basic morals...) Parents aren't able to even take three  consecutive weeks off from most jobs, let alone six - so, even if you believe parents "should share the school holidays equally if they both work", it's not possible. In offices and oth...

  I don't usually write personal accounts. That's not what The Productive Pessimist  is about, I tell myself. Problems are universal. Problems don't have names. We're here, as a company, to solve anyone's  problems. But The Productive Pessimist also claims to provide the solution by living through  the problems.  We talk about how our lived experience informs and complements our professional expertise.  Which means, sometimes, personal accounts are exactly  what The Productive Pessimist is about. The recent EHRC legislation around access to "single sex" spaces is deeply personal. So is Kathleen Stock's recent musing on "why are  so many young people using walking sticks, hmmm?" I won't be linking to either of them. They'll come up easily enough on a Google search. I'll be speaking on both of them, because of both of them bring up problems for businesses, and both of them are deeply, brutally personal. The advisory in the title isn...