Play At Work

Work On The Box

July 15, 2016

It’s rare to see any sort of programming on TV dedicated to the topic of work. Of course, that’s not all that surprising when the very reason so many of us turn on the goggle box of an evening is for some mindless escape from a hard day’s work.

You can see the logic of content commissioners and schedulers: who wants to come in from work and watch TV programmes about work?

Far better to let people escape to beef-caked-and-bikini-clad populated islands, into the darkest recesses of the criminally insane mind, or into the kitchens of those that spend their time creating exotic food combinations you’ll never actually make for yourself.

I think it’s a great pity we don’t have more content on TV about work – after all, whether we like it or not, it does form the major chuck of most of our existences, and we’d certainly all benefit from wider conversations about it, and more guidance about making work work for you, whatever job you do.

That’s why I was optimistic this week when I saw two programmes on Channel 4, scheduled back-to-back in prime time, dedicated to the topic: The Job Interview (a fly-on-the-wall documentary featuring real recruiters and candidates trying to find the perfect match) and My Worst Job (another one of those pundit-lead shows – in this instance, almost all comedians, taking about their previous workplace experiences).

The Job Interview was certainly full of insight, but not the kind of insight that might actually help anybody, well, err, conduct a job interview, or attend one.

What it actually demonstrated, with absolute clarity, in fact, is how sketchy, subjective and unscientific most hiring processes are (and this from the people who were willing to expose their approach to hiring for the world to see).

What we did see is the banality of some of the questions asked of candidates. Example: to a woman returner – and single mum – with young children, “Can you give me an example of when you last multi-tasked?” (how the woman didn’t reply, “How the f*ck do you think I got my kids off to school and me dressed and ready and here on time love?” being testament to both the woman’s patience, and her burning desire for a job).

We saw people ‘pretending’ to perform a task through role play, despite being given no actual guidance about how they would be expected to resolve the problem presented to them.

“You have a disgruntled customer on the phone, what would you do?”

“Offer them an on-the-spot cheque for a thousand quid as compensation – you didn’t tell me I couldn’t, and now they’re a very happy customer.”

It also demonstrated something we do all know but all too soon forget: first impressions are very hard to eclipse.

This was valuable insight – though not necessarily actionable, which is kind of the point.

If there’s anything remotely ‘weird’ about you (and let’s be honest here, there’s something a bit weird about all of us in one way or another in someone’s eyes), if your form of weirdness is behavioural rather than purely cosmetic, a high-anxiety situation is highly likely to bring that to the fore. You’re on a hiding to nothing.

Not that you’re any better off if you’re a bit ‘funny’ looking. No matter how skilled you might be, a wild look in your eye, or the ability to speak without moving your mouth, is going to be the thing people remember about you.

To be fair, what The Job Interview did also show is that it’s an emotionally-complex scenario on both sides of the table.

No matter how weird recruiters might perceive a candidate to be (or how weird they are), no matter how adamant they are that that don’t want that candidate working for them, they still struggle with rejecting them. No one likes the “I’m just not that into you,” conversation. People might have some funny ideas about how to find the perfect candidate, but none of those involved in this show wanted to be cruel either.

My Worst Job, on the other hand, though funny in parts, did contain quite a searing streak of cruelty.

The premise itself was a bit mean: let’s get lots of successful comedians whose working lives are completely different to most peoples’ (and who probably only need to invoice a couple of appearance fees to equal the average working wage in the UK), interview them in their fancy, shiny kitchens in their jaw-droppingly expensive London homes, and ask them for funny anecdotes about their most menial jobs (the jobs those peanut-crunchers in the crowd at their public appearances do – if they can afford the ticket).

I can only think that the target audience for this show was other ‘professional,’ ‘wind-swept and interesting’ media types. Anyone working in a “grey office”, a shop, a factory, or just outside of the M25 (i.e. most working people in the UK), must have felt pretty deflated by the end of it (and there’s another episode next week).

I know I did. Po-faced as it might sound, if anyone’s noticed, these are tough, tough times – and, despite the stat used at the beginning of the programme that around 70% of people feel happy in their work, I’ve come across plenty of other stats that refute this.

For most people, work is bloody hard work. And, right now, in this shape-shifting, post-Brexit landscape, it couldn’t be more uncertain. It doesn’t feel now is the time to make light of it. People need real help, meaningful guidance, deeper insights.

There’s plenty of compelling, engaging, thought-provoking and potentially life-changing insights about work out there. There’s no reason this can’t be entertaining too. It’d be nice if those programme commissioners could open their eyes to it. Sure, we’ve got to be able to laugh at things, but making the daily working lives of millions of people nothing more than the butt of a joke is not what any of us need right now.
Calling Joni Mitchell: When Is It Time To Say Goodbye?

June 9, 2016

Whether romantically-based, work-related, or between nations, deciding whether to prolong or abandon any union is a process fraught with tensions between the head and the heart.

Should I stay or should I go?

Are we better together or better apart?

And, either way, will whatever is decided lead to a brighter future, or just a different one?

(Will we be forever haunted by the Joni Mitchell refrain – “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,”).

There are some universal questions to consider about the health, and worth, of any given union:

Are both parties benefitting from the relationship?

Can past mistakes or conflicts be resolved, be forgiven or even forgotten – and can they be prevented in the future?

And, the most essential component of all, is there so much as an ember of desire for the union to work contained within both parties involved?

In matters of love, it probably makes a lot of sense – and would help a lot of people save themselves a lot of time and unnecessary grief – if the first question addressed was the last: relationships can only continue if your hearts are in it, whatever arrangements and compromises might be made.

Don’t it always seem to go in most break-ups that one person gives up before the other?

There is no desire, and where there’s no desire, this usually obliterates any benefits the relationship might bring. Mistakes and conflicts are never resolved, forgiven or forgotten – and so they play-out on endless repeat.

Time to hail that Big Yellow Taxi.

At work, it tends to be the first question that both parties spend a lot of time struggling with – are we getting the best from, and out of, each other?

The struggle for a balanced deal between workers and employers has been starkly played out this week with revelations about the employee contract and culture at SportsDirect. When “You’ve got a job, haven’t you?” seems to be the only distinctive benefit offered to one party, it’s a relationship that should, quite rightly, be called into question.

Trouble is, you’re not always in the right place or position to hail that damn taxi.

For most on this planet, the ‘benefit’ of work is the cold hard cash it delivers, however scant. The purpose is pure: to provide, to eat.

For a good percentage of us here in Western Europe (while we still are), our relationship with work is…well, it’s complicated.

Even when the working culture really ain’t that bad, even when it’s perfectly rosy, people still spend a lot of time worrying about whether to stay or go. People ask me all the time whether they think they should stay somewhere or move on, career-mapping and planning, and, sometimes, just because they’ve read something that has told them some ‘golden rule’ about ‘perfect’ career-mapping and planning.

I don’t believe in golden rules.

My advice when considering if it’s time to take flight from an employer is to ask yourself two questions: am I learning; am I conquering?

This takes us back to mistakes and conflicts, too.

Clichéd as some will undoubtedly say it is, if you’re learning something new every day, it might be worth sticking around. Likewise, if you’re finding your power, are on your game, growing in confidence, in boldness, why skedaddle just because some ‘expert’ says you shouldn’t stay somewhere at your level for more than three years?

But, if you’re making lots of mistakes or not being forgiven for those you do make (or, of course, are being tripped-up into making them); if you’re constantly battling rather than conquering (or your boldness and conquests are causing conflict), don’t think of the time frame, think of the toll.

Fly, my pretty, fly.

Just as with love, with work there is that other question to consider, the more existential one: desire.

People’s desires at work connect to purpose, to community, to a vision, a mission. A belief in possibilities. A legacy, too.

This is always one of the saddest things about the demise of any high street retailer (as we’ve seen with the recent fall of BHS here in the UK) – there’s a sense of mourning mixed into the anger, fear and pain of job loss; an end to a comforting, if neglected, sense of continuity.

It seems to me the greatest loss to BHS happened long before it started to really crumble – no one had any vision for it. The workers were committed to the relationship, but not so those at the helm.

Contrast this with Steve Rowe’s Mrs.M&S turnaround strategy: whether you like it or not, it’s a clear vision, it’s bold, and is rooted in customer desire and goodwill (and where there’s will, change for the better can follow).

Which brings me to my final union to consider in this post (yes, I’m going there): the European Union and Britain’s relationship with it.

In what order should my relationship questions go with this one? Truth of the matter is, I have no idea.

The biggest challenge is defining the real nature of the relationship in the first place. Is it more akin to a working relationship or a love match? Does it boil down to a trade-off or a philosophy?

The messiness of the debate certainly has hallmarks of both – the impenetrable ‘speak’, disputed data and sensationalism of business disputes; the bitterness, hysteria and character assassination more often encountered in a marital breakdown.

Personally, I entered into this debate a bit like Joan Armatrading, not in love (or wedded to one option or the other), but open to persuasion.

I have no direct experience working with the EU, I don’t really understand its mechanics. I have lived my life within the EU, both as a Brit and as an EU immigrant when I lived in Amsterdam, so, from that point of view (my past another country), I guess I’ve had a wider ‘European’ experience than many (if only an ‘experiential’ one).

Trying to apply a more rigorous analysis to the true nature of the relationship, to assess its real benefits, or otherwise, has been nigh on impossible. Modern politicking makes it impossible. The hysteria, the hyperbole, the squid-ink defences and offences, makes it impossible.

That said, it’s hard to ignore the army of international politicians and economists who believe we’re better off in (though even this begs the question of what vested interests are at play).

So, if the benefit question isn’t all that helpful, what about the mistakes and conflicts, the possibilities for revision and reform? Can we make the future better together?

Across Europe, there’s clearly a desire for change and I believe that change will be inevitable, whatever the outcome. This is the age of transparency. All institutions are facing unavoidable scrutiny and exposure, and the EU, in the longer-term, cannot be immune to this.

Dragging things into the light either shrivels them up or transforms them. Adaptation is the key to survival. Whether the UK is there or not, I think the future of the EU will rely on its ability to evolve, and to speed up that process to keep pace with the chaos of our times.

If it doesn’t, it will, inevitably, die.

So I’m left with the ember, the notion of desire. ‘The People’ will tell us how big that ember is, but, at this 11th hour, I’ve come to the conclusion we should be fanning it.

Putting the volume of the economic arguments for Remain aside, I find myself back on a more philosophical tract.

There is more that unites us than divides us.

Only connect.

We are reminded of this when faced with atrocities like the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels; we’re reminded of this when a little boy is found washed up on a beach. What we share, what we value, what freedoms we want to protect.

We need constant reminding of this. Our shared humanity. The fight for true democracy. That the horrible things that happen to others could so easily become our nightmares too. And that things tend to work better, people tend to work better, when they’re joined up, when they’re connected.

Any couple will tell you that. Any business will too. And it’s the basic principle at the heart of the EU – the desire to make things work for all states involved, however agonising that process might be, however much it can be improved.

Going it alone is always a bit scary, but it’s not ‘Project Fear’ that makes me so troubled about the consequences of leaving the EU, it’s the fact that those calling for it seem devoid of any real vision (I can’t help suspect the one many have is something a bit like a Britain of the 1950s, a turning back of the clock to another age, another time, that’s gone with the wind).

It’s a scary world, and with so much volatility in the world, pressing for revolution without a clear vision, without a clear plan, and with the possibility of some very dangerous voices exalted in an ‘OUT’ victory, is a really scary picture – and one no big yellow taxi is going to come along and rescue us from.
Love In The Age Of Transparency: Trust, Temptation & Tech

May 11, 2016

Trust is in the crosshairs in the age of transparency, but the trials of technology could teach us how to rebuild it.

I attended a beautiful wedding at the weekend – beautiful couple, beautiful venue, beautiful crowd.

I do love a wedding. Whatever the circumstances, it’s a valiant act: an act of hope; a concerted step into the future – a shared future, feet together, in step with each other, however uncertain the ground ahead.

That always seems to me to be a terribly admirable thing to do.

A wedding invites witnesses, in the flesh, and in ink on paper, to hope – and to certain obligations, be they emotional or legal. Whoever is present is testament to those assurances from each party in the union; each guest, apart from being a (usually, staggeringly expensive) cost-per-head, invests in that bond (you’re a pretty lousy wedding guest if you’re there hoping it will fail).

Of course, what usually makes the leap of faith that getting married is all the more poignant at most weddings is the certainty that a great many present in the crowd will have failed at their own attempted unions.

Is failure the word? There’s a lot of loaded blame in that, and a lot of injured parties in the divorce courts. Is it your ‘fault’, even partly, if your partner cheats on you, lies to you, hits you? Have you failed in some way? Can you be blamed for pinning your hopes on someone who couldn’t deliver?

A lot of people, it seems to me, have worked really hard at their marriages. Tragically, for so many, they’ve end up being the only one working on it.

But wherever it starts, however it unravels, it always ends up in the same place: a breakdown in trust.

I spend a lot of my time thinking about, talking about, and writing about the nature of trust between employer and employee, institutions, corporations and citizens, but little time really thinking about the nature of trust between romantic partners (rom-com is really not my genre), so, when I go to big social occasions, particularly weddings when you get the chance to catch up with people you haven’t seen in years, I’m amazed at the revelations I hear.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been at a string of events where I have been left speechless (really) by some of the ‘trust issues’ people have been facing in their relationships; what is happening to everybody?

What is everybody playing at?

Actually, in many ways, I think there’s a big clue in just that – playing. Those darn little devices, harbingers of dangerous games. They’re always there, in any tale of modern day marital disharmony or distrust, supplying us with their dodgy pics, dubious texts and damnable browsing histories.

So often, I’m sure, it all starts out innocently enough – ish. But any fool should know two things about living in the 21st century by now: technology heats thing up, and this is the age of transparency – there’s no where left to hide.

Texting playful banter easily accelerates into over-heated (or over-exposed) exchanges. Online, any image your mind can design can find its graphic reality, which can make it, then, a possibility – which can lead to playing very dangerous games indeed. And, just to add even more complexity (and duplicity) to the mix, the digital age allows a lot of people to hide behind a lot of masks – and people in masks tend to be the ones who do pretty terrible things.

Of course, it’s the very connectivity that pushes temptation our way that also, so ruthlessly, exposes us. Devices are left unguarded. Texts undeleted. Emails get rerouted. The fact is, most of us don’t understand what we’ve got connected to our Clouds or not, don’t understand why some texts show up on multiple devices and some don’t. And, let’s face it, if you’re playing around, and away from home, a lot, you probably haven’t got time to read the damn instructions anyway.

We are stupid to fall to temptation (haven’t we always been?). We are stupid to think we can ever trust technology to cover our tracks (on this, we’re really not that clued up at all).

But I don’t think we’re stupid to keep trying to build trusting, trusted unions – whether between romantic partners, employers and employees, or public institutions and society at large.

The technology that has ushered in this age of transparency has, indeed, opened Pandora’s Box. The darkest secrets of the world, and of people’s inner worlds, fly out around us. It’s tempting to want to cover our eyes.

But, for all the heartbreak, for all the incomprehension, for all the loss and the discord and the shattered hopes, for everyone I’ve spoken to recently who has been exposed to something troubling, or untrustworthy, about their partner (thanks to technology), wherever they are right now in their relationship (or out of it), the truth has, in many ways, set them free.

Some forgive, try to forget. For some, there’s nothing left to rebuild. Either way, hope does spring eternal. It’s the really incredible thing about people. However scarred their hearts, they come to a wedding full of good hope for others, wishing them well, and, in that, start to rebuild the possibility again for themselves, to open that door just a little.

As the beautiful couple at the opening of this post reminded the crowd they’d gathered for their speeches, it takes a lot of work, and a lot of honesty, to build a solid, happy, productive union.

Employers and institutions need constant reminding of that, and so do we. It’s no wonder we (rightly) struggle to find trust in collectives when it’s such a struggle to find it even in those we love.

But, much as the tentacles of technology put more temptation our way than ever, perhaps we can learn from the transparency it offers us to stop hiding ourselves in the first place; to drop our masks before we commit, or ask others to commit to us.

Hiding is such a waste of everyone’s time and, unless you completely unplug, you’re going to be found out sooner or later.
Show Us The Money: Pay & The Public Domain

April 11, 2016

“What on earth is the point of having an accountant if he’s within the law?”

Edina Monsoon, Absolutely Fabulous

It’s not often you actually hear a sharp intake of breath, let alone a collective one. Mulling over the news of the last week this weekend, I was reminded of the last time I encountered this phenomena.

The connection? The thorny old issues of money, and transparency.

I don’t think a collective sharp intake of breath was heard around the world at the news that the rich and powerful are able to do things with their money the rest of us can’t, and do it within the law, as so oft repeated (but that, nevertheless, result in them paying less tax than they might do otherwise).

This we already knew. No surprises there.

The How, and the Where, and the Whom, delivered out of the hat from the Panama Papers, has, however, been significantly more revelatory. So much so, in fact, that now British Prime Minister David Cameron is publishing his tax returns and outlining what the weekend shop in the Chipping Norton branch of Waitrose comes to (has it come to that yet? I suspect it might).

This is the age of transparency. Don’t they know there’s no where to hide?

It’s perfectly right, of course, that we know what we pay our public servants. It’s perfectly right to investigate whether what they do with their finances is within the law (the Expenses scandal is very recent history – we’d be fools to think some of these old dogs haven’t learned new tricks to get something for nothing).

But should everyone in public life have their finances put under the microscope? Cameron is, now, arguing for the PM and Chancellor, as the top-billed string holders of the public purse, to always publish their tax returns, while Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn is suggesting everyone in public life should do so (with others chiming in that this is the only way to restore the public’s trust in our institutions).

This is, certainly, a new twist in the cultural politics of Britain. To talk about money, in any context, is a very un-British thing to do (it’s ingrained in our class-system that talking about money is vulgar, and one never asks someone how much they earn, it’s not the done thing).

But times are changing. This is the age of transparency, after all, and, wherever we turn, there seems to be a 1% versus 99% divide, a deepening sense of the inequalities of options available to the ‘haves’ and what’s on offer for the ‘have-nots’ – not just an entirely different pay scale, but an entirely different rule book too.

Add into the mix the gender pay gap and the ‘Shopfloor-to-C-suite‘ pay gap (and, lest we forget, how the banks lost all the money and our calcifying mistrust in both figures of, and institutions in, authority), and it’s no wonder we’re obsessed with who earns what and why.

And it’s not just those in public office whose bank accounts we want to delve into. Public life isn’t just the preserve of those that work in the public sector. The business leaders of private enterprises are also subject to pay check scrutiny.

Last week, Co-operative Group CEO Richard Pennycook announced his pay reduction, stating his job had gotten easier since the peak of the Co-op crisis (and implying that, by taking a pay cut, he wants a bit of his life back in exchange).

It’s a smart strategy from that point of view (he’s a smart guy), but, for me, it does beg the question – are you being paid by the hour, or for the quality of your thinking? If you’ve fixed the crisis, shouldn’t you have as much incentive to be inventive, to build, rather than fix?

It begs the question, what are we being paid for? What is anyone, whether at the top of the tree or just entering the jungle, being paid for? Always followed by “And is that fair?”

Transparency, surely, is the way to find out.

There was a lot of fluster about this on the BBC’s The Daily Politics (Monday 11th April) – it’s an issue that heats a lot of people up – with Conservative MP Charles Walker stating that this was the thin end of the wedge, and that, before long, if we continue down this path, constituents – everybody, in other words – will have to share with the wider world what they earn.

It’s already happening. Which brings me to that collective sharp intake of breath.

A couple of months ago, at a workshop on employer branding, the issue of employee remuneration and reward came up, and one of the participants took us to a US tech company website where, in three clicks, you could access a spreadsheet of the salaries for everyone in the company.

It was when this spreadsheet popped up on the screen that the audience, literally, sucked the oxygen out of the room.

The sheer nakedness of it was, clearly, startling.

The response was just as hot and flustered as it was on The Daily Politics today, too. The over-arching, perhaps very British, sentiment was, this was, indeed, a bridge too far. An invasion of privacy. And, potentially, a workplace-politics hot potato.

The company doing this don’t see it that way. It’s all out in the open. Consistent. Explicable. If you’ve nothing to hide, why hide it?

I kind of warm to it, in a way, in principle. I like the honesty and straight-forwardness of it. And the company employees signed up for this. They think it’s a good thing, so why not? Having said that, I still think I’d have been happier if this information was only accessible internally.

If I’m a manager and the people I manage know what I earn, and I think I’m worth that, and can justify that, I’m happy to talk about it – but I’m not sure I want my next-door neighbour knowing what I make.

Because that’s the thing about being naked: people will judge.

Hard enough with colleagues if you always seem to be floating off early or cancelling meetings to question whether you’re pulling your weight (and therefore earning your dough), but, in our private lives (do we still have those?), the people around us are also likely to judge our spending.

When your siblings realise how much you earn, they might not think the cheap, plasticky toys you buys your nieces and nephews really cut it.

When your children know how much you earn, giving up the argument for the new device, Disneyland or the designer clobber they desire may be a harder battle (and just think of all the ‘my parents earn more than your parents’ one-upmanship that can play out on the playground).

And when your neighbours realise how much you earn, they might suddenly think that new bit of fence panel that’s needed between you should be your financial call rather than theirs.

Ugly stuff.

Even worse would be the pity of those who thought you earned more, who suddenly start picking up the coffees or suggesting cheaper venues to go out to eat.

This debate has only just started, and will widen, inevitably.

Will knowing more make us trust more?

I’m not sure, actually. The bottom line, for anybody, is, if you’re doing dodgy things with your money, that ain’t going to show up on your tax return anyway, so this rush to publication of tax returns might not be the trust panacea people are hoping for.

Most people in this country are PAYE – they don’t do tax returns, they don’t have accountants – but I think we all expect those who do to do everything they can to avoid paying more tax and, most of us, if we’re really honest, and were able to, would do the same – hopefully, still with an intent to do it all within the law (although I think, if we’re really, really honest, a lot would share Edina’s sentiment too).
Smokers & Mirrors: Hiring & Prejudice

March 21, 2016

People don’t like smokers. Or fat people. According to the data, they’re not too keen on short people, gay people, women, bald men, tattoos, ‘old’ people or people with names that don’t sound ‘white’, either.

No wonder there’s a so-called war for ‘talent’: who’s left?

It’s a strange paradox (what isn’t?) that, while we’ve heard a louder narrative from many organisations calling for people to bring their whole ‘selves’ to work over the last few years, there seems to be no noticeable decline in the mountainous list of things people use to discriminate against potential employees.

If anything, the judgments seem to include a wider sphere of potential no-no’s, and feel harsher.

Sure, you can bring that whole self of yours to work, just as long as it’s not a self that brings with it a predilection for Krispy Kreme donuts or Marlboro Lights.

Of course you can bring your whole self to work – just as long as I think it’s a self that’s pretty damn similar to me.

What options are there for the job seeker? Thin, caustic non-smokers will say quit smoking, lose weight. Wiser people might understand it isn’t, usually, as simple as that.

What other simple solutions might there be for people – wear stacked heels, a toupee, a flesh-coloured body stocking at all times; change your name?

Sure, those things are just as easy to change as your gender, colour, sexual orientation or age, right?

As I see it, the only, potentially, viable options from this particular list of prejudices would be to deny you’re a smoker, deny your sexuality, hide your tattoos or lie about your age.

Great.

And the really scary thing is that people do. They feel they have to. All the time. All over the place.

I outed myself as a smoker the other week.

It’s not something I’m proud of (not outing myself, but doing it in the first place, you understand), but, unfortunately, it’s my thing (has been for years). I’d love to stop (I did once, for nine months, easily, cold turkey – though falling off the wagon was, in the end, almost as joyous as greeting a new-born baby).

That said, seeing #NoSmokingDay trending on Twitter, on, of course, No Smoking Day itself, I did have a little pang, a little regret at thinking, had I known beforehand this day were coming up, I might have made the attempt (taking a new approach via my new found love of social media and thinking it might have been a good time to experiment, power in numbers and all that).

Expressing this thought (in less than 140 characters), the good people at #NoSmokingDay tweeted back with the gentle, yet persuasive, “There’s always tomorrow.”

I had to accept the challenge and, that night, before going to bed, cleared away all smoking-related paraphernalia. I woke, steeled with good intent, and spent the morning angrily doing housework. In the afternoon, I really wanted to get some writing done, but, by this stage, I couldn’t form a sentence that didn’t have nicotine in it.

This was starting to feel like torture. My levels of irritation (never particularly low at the best of times) were rocketing. Thankfully, at least I was spending the day alone.

I fell at the thirteenth hour, after dinner. And I felt it only right to acknowledge this on Twitter, to tell the truth of how freaking hard it can be, even when faced with public disapproval (whether solicited or otherwise).

Smoking is not my only flaw. I’m a human being, of course I’m flawed.

Just like anyone else.

Just like every ‘white-name-sounding’, heterosexual, non-smoking, non-inked, slim, full-head-of-haired, young (but not too young), above-average-height male on the planet (no offence guys, genuinely, no offence).

What unsavoury habits might they have that, if revealed on a job application, might be prejudicial towards them? Well, there’s a list, isn’t there?

And that’s the joke in all of it. The bitter irony behind all these mean little twists on people data that we mash up with sickness and productivity stats to justify our puritanism and prejudice.

Everyone has their vices. And work stresses people out.

Don’t tell me it’s just the overweight and smokers that pull a few sickies. Okay, statistically-speaking, they might have a few more, but what should be of more concern should be the sick days of an organisation’s ‘slim’ non-smokers; what’s making them ill (and, if they’re getting ill a lot, chances are it’s your unhealthy working culture).

And don’t tell me the reason a business isn’t as productive as it could be is because it has too many smokers – if anyone is actually buying that, they need to go back to business school.

The big positive of people who smoke and maybe eat too much is that they are more likely to know they are flawed human beings. Are they the very worst vices we can think of? Their real trouble is that they’re visible (or, even if hidden in the case of smoking, smellable).

Unless you’ve got a real problem, the vices of drink or drugs are less detectable.

Unless you’ve got a recruiter with brain-scanning x-ray vision, your addiction to violence, power, money, bullying others, belittling or hating people not ‘like you’ is also relatively easy to disguise. It must be. There are plenty of people with these kinds of vices that, clearly, get through the door, that get the nomination.

Surely these are the addictions we should really be worrying about at work?

With that in mind, a cheeky fag or a I-know-I-shouldn’t-but-go-on-then sugar-fix doesn’t really seem like the worst thing someone could do, does it?