The Productive Pessimist

  It's happened again.  Your cookies have tracked what seemed to be an engaged, potentially high-spending customer across your website. They lingered the appropriate amount, clicked suitably quickly, examined the full, carefully-crafted description your copywriter had two fits of screaming profanity, three breaks to cry in the loo, and one episode of throwing a hardbacked version of the Oxford English Dictionary  at a colleague's head before their words were finally approved. The customer's virtual basket shows enough variety to suggest new marketing angles, but not so much that your software can't categorise them effectively. It will be possible for the software to prompt the tried-and-tested selection of marketing approaches that (mostly) work with their demographic. To appeal to their ambitions, their glittering image of themselves, their fears, their hopes, their prejudices, and, in doing so, get more money from them. Then - disaster! They've left your website!

  "Mental health at work" has become something of a buzz phrase in recent years, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. "Mental health" is the reason people "need to get back to the office" - because the extroverts are suffering, since they're no longer able to dominate meetings, talk people into agreeing to take on more work than they're actually comfortable with, or enthusiastically create a situation where, if getting drunk with people you already spend too much time with, or leaping on a zip wire, aren't really your thing, you're "unadventurous", "anti-social", and "not really a team player." The UK government insist work is good  for our "mental health", even as successful GPs decide they literally can't carry on anymore, and choose a permanent solution to the problem of burnout.  While the low wages, in comparison to the cost of living, and long hours of many jobs are actually c

  The 6th-13th May is Deaf Awareness Week  in the UK, where 12million people are Deaf, or hard of hearing, with 'hard of hearing' including individuals with some hearing loss, as well as those with conditions such as tinnitus   and Auditory Processing Disorder . At The Productive Pessimist, our Director and Management Consultancy Lead, Ash, lives with tinnitus, Auditory Processing Disorder, and some manual hearing loss.  He has given a short insight into the challenges this causes him, and what helps (and what makes life an absolute nightmare!) Ash: I found out I had physical (referred to as 'manual') hearing loss in my teens. At the age of 38, I have very limited hearing in my left ear, though my right ear is fine. (Frustratingly, this is completely the opposite way round to my sight loss, where I have no sight in my right eye, and limited sight in my left - if the ears and eyes could link up, that would be great!)  Fortunately, my hearing is not likely to deteriorate

  “I don’t want your face looking like that while I’m talking.”  (Face was ‘bland neutral.’) “People here don’t like you, because you’re too negative.” (Used very light sarcasm to defuse workplace tension.) “I think it’s a bit inconsiderate to overshare the way you do…everyone is struggling here, and they don’t need to be worried about you.” (Had responded to “How’re you doing?” with “Okay, I think…it’s been a bit tough at home, but I’m getting through. How’s everything with you?”) “We need happy, bubbly team players here - if that’s not how you feel, every day, then I’m sorry, but we’re just not the right place for you to thrive.” (Person was behaving normally, being professionally welcoming, supporting their colleagues.) Employers don't want to employ people with "mental health problems" (or disabilities), but the government don't want those people claiming welfare. Yes, depression and anxiety are natural, normal responses to life, especially life as it is current

This piece was written by Morgana Ford-McAllister, our Neurodiversity and Gender Inclusion Lead, in response to the Cass Review , in particular the suggestion that children and young people expressing a gender identity distinct from that to be expected from their sex as assigned at birth are actually neurodivergent, most likely on the autism spectrum, and experiencing a neurodivergent 'lack of awareness of self/inability to understand gender.' Morgana is an autistic trans woman. Autistic Lack of Self vs. Gender Identity TW for childhood trauma, denial of agency, discussions of transphobia and so on. As a lived experience trainer with The Productive Pessimist, I read 35 pages of The Cass Review to get an actual feeling for what was being said and the tone being taken. From that point onwards the report seemed to move more into the models it would recommend NHS England initiate for clinic sites and a discussion of statistics, neither of which were particularly relevant to my role

  Thursday night's episode of BBC One's The Apprentice centred on often the most "Aggghhhh!!! How are these people even getting selected?!" part of the Apprentice process - the presentation of business plans. While many people will have simply enjoyed rolling their eyes and laughing at how ill-prepared the candidates were, others will have been feeling empathic anxiety. Five-year plans.  Business plans for businesses you haven't launched yet. Can't get support for a concept without a business plan, but how do you plan an idea? A fast-changing world doesn't allow  for 'plans', yet people are still demanding not just that they exist, but that they're flawless - how is anyone supposed to cope? The Productive Pessimist' s Strategic Consultancy can help answer the question "what should be in a business plan?" (or a five-year plan, or any other kind of plan.) There are also plenty of templates available online, often for free. Let'