The Productive Pessimist

  A-Level results day (15th August 2024) has, in recent years, become overwhelmed with social media posts proclaiming that "results don't matter!" and shouting as loudly as possible about business success stories who "weren't academically successful, but are now doing way  better than that person in their class who got straight As!" This bandwagon may have started as a genuine desire to offer comfort to teenagers who were shattered by their first encounter with a particularly harsh reality: that hard work doesn't always guarantee the results you want, or need.  However, it's now become nothing more than a particularly toxic stage for adults to centre themselves and their achievements - "Hey, look at me, kids, I f--ked up completely in school, because I thought it was stupid and boring, and I'm doing okay!" This does harm on several levels: 1. It takes away the pride and sense of achievement which are the foundations of self-esteem and s...

Along with  co-production , lived experience has become something of a buzzword in recent years, and, as with all 'trends', people are moving from engaged curiousity to wary suspicion. At The Productive Pessimist, we work exclusively from a position of lived experience - but what does that mean, and what, really, is  lived experience? What Working From Lived Experience Means For Us Working from lived experience means everyone on the Productive Pessimist team has been through what they're guiding others towards understanding of.   We didn't just take a 5hr course, watch a couple of YouTube videos, or read a bestselling book. For example, I (Ash) have the following lived experience: . 22yrs lived experience of managing all aspects of rural living, including travelling 30+ miles for work, without a car . 19yrs lived experience with serious pyschiatric conditions . 16yrs lived experience in trans masculine experience and identity . 9yrs lived experience of kinship care, ...

  This morning, I should have been hosting a networking event alongside my business partner.  Unfortunately, I woke up with a particularly bad cold - far more than just sniffles and feeling under the weather - which didn't improve as the morning went on.  I asked myself what I would do if I had a "regular" job; the answer was "I would identify that I was well enough to work from home, but not well enough to go into a physical location." So, that's what I'm doing today, while my partner handles the networking event.  "But if someone's well enough to work from home, they're well enough to come in to work!" I'm not dying, and my vision is only minimally playing up (I have multiple active sight-loss conditions; it takes actual work for me to be able to benefit from the little useful vision I have left; that is compromised when I'm ill), but I am probably contagious, and have no way of knowing how what for me is a bad chest cold woul...

  BBC Panorama Life School Wirral   (trigger warning for physical and verbal abuse, discriminatory language) prompted us at The Productive Pessimist Ltd to reach out as a matter of urgency to Life Wirral.   While the school has, rightly, been closed by the local authority, we have identified serious risks for any situation any of the leadership team from Life Wirral may enter into in the future, and for any attempt to re-establish the brand if re-education around both effective support and education for SEN children, and effective and appropriate management practice generally, is not provided or engaged with. The problems of Life Wirral aren't isolated. They are problems that are entrenched in British ideas of management, whether that is management of adult members of staff in a business, management of students in a school, or management of behaviour.  Britain is a nation built on conquest and control, and the Protestant concept that people 'earn' compassion, a...

  "What?! I've got to give one special group of people even more  time off - paid ! - while making enough money to keep this place going is already stressful enough?! Jog on - I'll just make sure we never  employ someone who's a 'carer'! They can claim benefits - that's what it's for, isn't it?" I suspect - even if you feel guilty about it -  that's how many business owners reacted to the Liberal Democrats' proposition of a  Carers' Leave Bill  - swiftly followed by relief as you realised which Party had put it forward, and how unlikely they were to ever be elected. Then a niggle of anxiety; what if whoever does  get in nicks the idea, because they think it'll make them popular with those in the electorate you secretly think are "lazy scroungers who just want an excuse not to work." I know it's how an awful lot of people do  think - because I'm a carer for my wife.  I went through the Covid-19 pandemic as a shi...

Pride isn't just about slapping rainbow stickers on things, hiring flamboyantly gay or visibly trans influencers, and doing 'awareness training.' As businesses and leaders, Pride month should be where your LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual/Aromantic, and other non-cishet identities and experiences) colleagues guide you in the groundwork that needs to be done for lasting change. Stonewall wasn't just a random incident of civil disobedience; it was the detonator blast that broke ground to begin to build a new way of being human, and a new way of seeing and welcoming other human beings. LGBTQIA+ Inclusion For Life, Not Just For Pride There are things which are a common, unconscious part of how people who are not LGBTQIA+ behave and set up the world, especially in workplaces, which, unintentionally, exclude LGBTQIA+ people, especially those who are also experiencing financial challenges, and/or have intersectional  disadvant...

  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! ...