The Productive Pessimist

  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...

  Personal Independence Payment, or PIP, is a working-age benefit which individuals with recognised disabilities can apply for to support them with meeting the additional costs which those disabilities can incur in daily life, and in accessing employment. While PIP is "not means tested", this doesn't  mean it's "just handed to anyone who says they're disabled" - non means-tested just means that an individual's income and savings are not considered when their application is being assessed. This is often the first issue that comes up when PIP is being discussed in media, both mainstream and social - "non means-tested" is frequently thrown around media discussions very casually, allowing the assumption  that "they're just handing it out to anyone!" rather than, in contrast to the unemployment and under-employment benefit that is Universal Credit, which brings income restrictions for those in part-time or gig-economy work, as well...

  Life being stressful isn't  an illness.  That's entirely correct. But "life being stressful" also  isn't acceptable to employers, either. It's not going to be the case, in the UK, in 2025, that if people "just stop going to doctors and claiming mental health issues and getting signed off because life is a bit hard, then we wouldn't be spending so much on welfare!" . "People don't like you" . "You're impacting your colleagues' morale" . "It's unfair of you to make your colleagues worry about you by being clearly upset" . "You can't talk about feeling burnt out when there are people dealing with far higher workloads than you - everyone is burnt out, but we have to keep going" . "If you aren't happy to be here, f-k off and get a different job" . "I'm sick of you coming in here looking like you want to k*ll yourself - why don't you just f-king do it, so the rest ...

  "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...