Have you seen McDonald’s new recruitment campaign? Beneath the image of a grinning, grey-haired worker, with tiny fans of lines at the corner of his eyes, is the slogan: “Not the retiring type.”
The irony won’t be lost on British employers. Because far from being grey-haired, lined and over 50, today’s “retiring type” is more likely to be youthful, clear-skinned and chronically work-shy.
McDonald’s will be keen to promote their new campaign as a fight against age bias (when you’re a fast food giant, you grab your ethical brownie points where you can), but it’s no coincidence that companies across other UK sectors are also now trying to entice the over-50s back to work, and I suspect the real reason behind these drives is less lofty. With 400,000 fewer workers out there than at the start of the pandemic, you might even say born of necessity.
As John Lewis boss, Dame Sharon White, warned last week: “if we continue to have far fewer people in work, [and] looking for work – you’ve inevitably got more inflation and more wage inflation.” Which means the country could effectively grind to a halt, and although many of the Brits who left their jobs since the start of the pandemic were in their 50s, it’s now the under-50s who are disinclined to go back to work full time.
So if you’re looking for energy, enthusiasm and – whisper it – someone who might occasionally make it into the office, an oldie may be your best bet.
Well before statistics – and a summer of travel chaos – confirmed that Britain would not go back to work, we had noticed a pattern of behaviour: the waiter too busy scrolling through Instagram to take your order; the endless OOO emails – “I now only work on days beginning with ‘W’” – the warnings of shorter work hours, pared down menus and longer wait times taped to windows and doors. As one passive-aggressive sign in a local London café put it: “We are short staffed. Please be patient with the staff that bothered to show up. No one wants to work anymore.”
Personally, I can’t understand the psychology. It reminds me of the moment the shops reopened after the first lockdown and every high street clothing store thought it would be clever to cover their floor in elasticated waistbands. Only I had just incinerated mine, along with the novelty slippers. I didn’t want laxity and permissiveness but rigour and rules. Give me a damn corset, anything that helps set things straight and give life back some structure.
When the writer Malcolm Gladwell told a podcast last week that WFH was “hurting society” the backlash was swift and brutal, yet everything he said was true.
WFH has made people feel “physically disconnected,” and we don’t need either someone of Gladwell’s intellect or a team of psychiatrists to tell us that without that sense of “belonging” and feeling “necessary”, we flail. His bottom line (no pun intended) brings us back to elasticated waistbands: “If you’re just sitting in your pyjamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?”
I’d follow that up by asking whether it’s any kind of life at all. Whether, once you pare it all down, we’re not in the midst of an epidemic of laziness, unable to shake off a lethargy that (understandably) engulfed us for so long.
But people get very upset when you use the ‘L’ words.
After a “Nobody Wants To Work” Twitter meme went viral last month, youngsters were quick to explain that this wasn’t, in fact, anything to do with work apathy but a long-overdue reaction to the evils of capitalism. They were probably in their elasticated waistbands, waiting for the Deliveroos paid for by their evil, capitalist parents as they made these heartfelt points.
It’s a comforting thought. But the awkward truth is that this isn’t happening everywhere – and laziness is starting to look like a very British problem. Economists are making dire warnings about productivity, specifically in this country: that the number of people in work or self-employed is still 500,000 lower than the pre-pandemic level, with roughly 900,000 fewer working today than the Bank of England had expected before Covid hit. There are currently 1.3 million job vacancies in Britain – more than the number of unemployed people. When so few teachers want to go to work that you have schools seriously considering a three-day week, you know you’re in trouble.
With the US having encouraged many workers back into jobs, the UK now has the most persistent post-pandemic drop in employment of any G7 country, and since we’re not just competing against each other but Europe, the US, China and the rest, we may want to consider swapping the shy, retiring stance for something a little bolder, a touch more proactive. I hear there are jobs going.
> “If you’re just sitting in your pyjamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?”
Well I just quit my old job and about to start new one that pays much more while allowing me to sit in my pyjamas in my bedroom
I recently got a WFH job and it is honestly the best thing in the world. I save so much money.
Always so quick to blame workers when it is the greedy fucks making all the money while we scrounge for scraps. Things that will bring workers back;
1. A living wage
2. A good work home life balance
3 Bosses having employees backs and treating us like humans.
4. Flexible work schedules, working from home 2 days a week in the office 3 or working Saturday & Sunday and being off during the week, offering 4 day work weeks.
Only 1 of those will cost a company money.
Getting rid of child labour has made British children the lazy kids of the world. /s
If I was married to Piers Morgen I can easily imagine I’d be deranged enough to write bollocks like this too.
The Torygraph pushing Corporate Landlord agendas. F off.
The irony of this is laziest of jobs are journalists; always willing to toss off 1,500 words of prejudiced drivel.
The landowners are getting a bit worried that their cash cows are becoming sentient and realising that it’s all a scam.
Meanwhile on planet earth, somewhere the Telegraph might like to visit at some point, every other country is adopting WFH practices comparable to us.
From the USA:
>Only about a third of office workers are back in the office full time. And that isn’t likely to change dramatically any time soon: Recent surveys asked executives about the share of their workers who would be back in the office five days a week in the future. In 2021 the response was 50 percent; now it’s down to 20 percent.
Also:
>A study by the Stanford Graduate School of Business found that employee performance was boosted by 22% by working at home, and consultancy firm Mercer surveyed 800 employers with 94% of them saying that productivity was the same or better since employees began working remotely.
It’s almost like when you take away people hope, desire and any feeling of achieving something and instead replace it with uncaring work where you’re treated as a replaceable robot built to take abuse while at the same time removing all hope of every owning something in your life and even bringing the ability to have food into question; that people stop caring about any BS propaganda to work for minimum wage or barely above after real hours worked
It was all over when the Romans left and they stopped thrashing slaves with comically long whips. The Saxon lifestyle is mostly farm and community based woke nonsense
I guess British papers are good for the lolz. Angry cokehead journos watching their beloved British state go down the toilet. Delicious.
UK productivity was an issue long before the pandemic. It’s not working from home that is the issue.
Any evidence? Thought not.
Maybe some old people are struggling financially in retirement with costs of living the way they are?
I can imagine it would be difficult for some to get to grips with office work. My mums never even touched a typewriter let alone a PC. I work with a lady who has been doing this job for twenty years, who can’t quite get her head round opening her webpage in chrome
Productivity might increase if work were to feel genuinely rewarding.
Not survival, but affording the lifestyles of the “boomer” generation.
Tory news really are going out of their way with their astroturfing.
An article attacking work from home from the Telegraph the same day they come out with an article talking about the benefits of fasting as we prepare for a poverty ridden winter.
Throw in all the articles talking up the positive side of our economy dying, as well.
Blatant shameless attempts to manipulate public opinion in favour of their vested interests.
Yet WFH culture hasn’t made all the other countries lazy.
Almost like the problems they are referring to – like short staffing – are much more likely to be down to brexit, something which was exclusive to the UK.
Well, obviously if you are one of the many self-employed and work from home you are lazy too?
putting in 80 quid worth of petrol a month plus paying for parking which amounts to about 50 quid a month so thats 130 out of my own pocket.
I can stay home and pocket the 130 for myself. eat shit office landlords, I am keeping my own money
What utter tosh.
​
My own mental health is more important than grinding away in an office on a low wage in shit working conditions with shit air-conditioning while having to wear uncomfortable clothes for 9 to 5 and deal with annoying people just so the CEO and the board can award themselves a nice fat bonus at the end of the year.
​
If I can do my job sat at home in my pajamas with a glass of port, some music on, fan blasting in my face and my cat sat on my lap then I should be allowed to.
People also forget that WFH measures can have a positive impact both financially and for the envrionment.
Is it bollocks. The lockdown lifted the veil on all the bullshit of work and the insane inbalance of the employer employee relationship. We’re here to live not to be somebodies ticket to another fucking yacht.
25 comments
Have you seen McDonald’s new recruitment campaign? Beneath the image of a grinning, grey-haired worker, with tiny fans of lines at the corner of his eyes, is the slogan: “Not the retiring type.”
The irony won’t be lost on British employers. Because far from being grey-haired, lined and over 50, today’s “retiring type” is more likely to be youthful, clear-skinned and chronically work-shy.
McDonald’s will be keen to promote their new campaign as a fight against age bias (when you’re a fast food giant, you grab your ethical brownie points where you can), but it’s no coincidence that companies across other UK sectors are also now trying to entice the over-50s back to work, and I suspect the real reason behind these drives is less lofty. With 400,000 fewer workers out there than at the start of the pandemic, you might even say born of necessity.
As John Lewis boss, Dame Sharon White, warned last week: “if we continue to have far fewer people in work, [and] looking for work – you’ve inevitably got more inflation and more wage inflation.” Which means the country could effectively grind to a halt, and although many of the Brits who left their jobs since the start of the pandemic were in their 50s, it’s now the under-50s who are disinclined to go back to work full time.
So if you’re looking for energy, enthusiasm and – whisper it – someone who might occasionally make it into the office, an oldie may be your best bet.
Well before statistics – and a summer of travel chaos – confirmed that Britain would not go back to work, we had noticed a pattern of behaviour: the waiter too busy scrolling through Instagram to take your order; the endless OOO emails – “I now only work on days beginning with ‘W’” – the warnings of shorter work hours, pared down menus and longer wait times taped to windows and doors. As one passive-aggressive sign in a local London café put it: “We are short staffed. Please be patient with the staff that bothered to show up. No one wants to work anymore.”
Personally, I can’t understand the psychology. It reminds me of the moment the shops reopened after the first lockdown and every high street clothing store thought it would be clever to cover their floor in elasticated waistbands. Only I had just incinerated mine, along with the novelty slippers. I didn’t want laxity and permissiveness but rigour and rules. Give me a damn corset, anything that helps set things straight and give life back some structure.
When the writer Malcolm Gladwell told a podcast last week that WFH was “hurting society” the backlash was swift and brutal, yet everything he said was true.
WFH has made people feel “physically disconnected,” and we don’t need either someone of Gladwell’s intellect or a team of psychiatrists to tell us that without that sense of “belonging” and feeling “necessary”, we flail. His bottom line (no pun intended) brings us back to elasticated waistbands: “If you’re just sitting in your pyjamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?”
I’d follow that up by asking whether it’s any kind of life at all. Whether, once you pare it all down, we’re not in the midst of an epidemic of laziness, unable to shake off a lethargy that (understandably) engulfed us for so long.
But people get very upset when you use the ‘L’ words.
After a “Nobody Wants To Work” Twitter meme went viral last month, youngsters were quick to explain that this wasn’t, in fact, anything to do with work apathy but a long-overdue reaction to the evils of capitalism. They were probably in their elasticated waistbands, waiting for the Deliveroos paid for by their evil, capitalist parents as they made these heartfelt points.
It’s a comforting thought. But the awkward truth is that this isn’t happening everywhere – and laziness is starting to look like a very British problem. Economists are making dire warnings about productivity, specifically in this country: that the number of people in work or self-employed is still 500,000 lower than the pre-pandemic level, with roughly 900,000 fewer working today than the Bank of England had expected before Covid hit. There are currently 1.3 million job vacancies in Britain – more than the number of unemployed people. When so few teachers want to go to work that you have schools seriously considering a three-day week, you know you’re in trouble.
With the US having encouraged many workers back into jobs, the UK now has the most persistent post-pandemic drop in employment of any G7 country, and since we’re not just competing against each other but Europe, the US, China and the rest, we may want to consider swapping the shy, retiring stance for something a little bolder, a touch more proactive. I hear there are jobs going.
Speaking of lazy people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia_Walden
Pay people more and they will bother working then
> “If you’re just sitting in your pyjamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?”
Well I just quit my old job and about to start new one that pays much more while allowing me to sit in my pyjamas in my bedroom
I recently got a WFH job and it is honestly the best thing in the world. I save so much money.
Always so quick to blame workers when it is the greedy fucks making all the money while we scrounge for scraps. Things that will bring workers back;
1. A living wage
2. A good work home life balance
3 Bosses having employees backs and treating us like humans.
4. Flexible work schedules, working from home 2 days a week in the office 3 or working Saturday & Sunday and being off during the week, offering 4 day work weeks.
Only 1 of those will cost a company money.
Getting rid of child labour has made British children the lazy kids of the world. /s
If I was married to Piers Morgen I can easily imagine I’d be deranged enough to write bollocks like this too.
The Torygraph pushing Corporate Landlord agendas. F off.
The irony of this is laziest of jobs are journalists; always willing to toss off 1,500 words of prejudiced drivel.
The landowners are getting a bit worried that their cash cows are becoming sentient and realising that it’s all a scam.
Meanwhile on planet earth, somewhere the Telegraph might like to visit at some point, every other country is adopting WFH practices comparable to us.
From the USA:
>Only about a third of office workers are back in the office full time. And that isn’t likely to change dramatically any time soon: Recent surveys asked executives about the share of their workers who would be back in the office five days a week in the future. In 2021 the response was 50 percent; now it’s down to 20 percent.
[source](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/16/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-anne-helen-petersen-charlie-warzel.html).
Also:
>A study by the Stanford Graduate School of Business found that employee performance was boosted by 22% by working at home, and consultancy firm Mercer surveyed 800 employers with 94% of them saying that productivity was the same or better since employees began working remotely.
It’s almost like when you take away people hope, desire and any feeling of achieving something and instead replace it with uncaring work where you’re treated as a replaceable robot built to take abuse while at the same time removing all hope of every owning something in your life and even bringing the ability to have food into question; that people stop caring about any BS propaganda to work for minimum wage or barely above after real hours worked
It was all over when the Romans left and they stopped thrashing slaves with comically long whips. The Saxon lifestyle is mostly farm and community based woke nonsense
I guess British papers are good for the lolz. Angry cokehead journos watching their beloved British state go down the toilet. Delicious.
UK productivity was an issue long before the pandemic. It’s not working from home that is the issue.
Any evidence? Thought not.
Maybe some old people are struggling financially in retirement with costs of living the way they are?
I can imagine it would be difficult for some to get to grips with office work. My mums never even touched a typewriter let alone a PC. I work with a lady who has been doing this job for twenty years, who can’t quite get her head round opening her webpage in chrome
Productivity might increase if work were to feel genuinely rewarding.
Not survival, but affording the lifestyles of the “boomer” generation.
Tory news really are going out of their way with their astroturfing.
An article attacking work from home from the Telegraph the same day they come out with an article talking about the benefits of fasting as we prepare for a poverty ridden winter.
Throw in all the articles talking up the positive side of our economy dying, as well.
Blatant shameless attempts to manipulate public opinion in favour of their vested interests.
Yet WFH culture hasn’t made all the other countries lazy.
Almost like the problems they are referring to – like short staffing – are much more likely to be down to brexit, something which was exclusive to the UK.
Well, obviously if you are one of the many self-employed and work from home you are lazy too?
putting in 80 quid worth of petrol a month plus paying for parking which amounts to about 50 quid a month so thats 130 out of my own pocket.
I can stay home and pocket the 130 for myself. eat shit office landlords, I am keeping my own money
What utter tosh.
​
My own mental health is more important than grinding away in an office on a low wage in shit working conditions with shit air-conditioning while having to wear uncomfortable clothes for 9 to 5 and deal with annoying people just so the CEO and the board can award themselves a nice fat bonus at the end of the year.
​
If I can do my job sat at home in my pajamas with a glass of port, some music on, fan blasting in my face and my cat sat on my lap then I should be allowed to.
People also forget that WFH measures can have a positive impact both financially and for the envrionment.
Is it bollocks. The lockdown lifted the veil on all the bullshit of work and the insane inbalance of the employer employee relationship. We’re here to live not to be somebodies ticket to another fucking yacht.