In their bid to become 2021’s answer to John Lenin and Woko Ono, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have said some pretty irritating things in recent months. “Imagine there’s no Ellen/It’s easy if you try/No personnel below us/Above us, only hue and cry.”
But the gospel according to Harry and Meghan plumbed “progressive” new depths this week with the prince’s declaration that people should leave careers that are damaging to their mental health.
The suggestion came in an interview with Fast Company magazine to promote Harry’s role as “chief impact officer” for BetterUp, a firm which “combines coaching with dynamic and personalised digital experiences to accelerate members’ long-term professional development and drive personal growth”, according to its website.
Harry is apparently being paid a “seven-figure sum” by this San Francisco-based startup. Nice “work” if you can get it.
Insisting that job resignations during the pandemic “aren’t all bad”, publicity-shy Harry guaranteed his words would have “chief impact” as he added: “Many people around the world have been stuck in jobs that didn’t bring them joy, and now they’re putting their mental health and happiness first. This is something to be celebrated.”
“In fact,” he said, “it is a sign that with self-awareness comes the need for change.”
Notwithstanding the irony of a former royal, living in an £11 million Montecito mansion, preaching about “self-awareness” while blithely advising people to quit work, how is this anything but an insult to anyone who has ever had a proper job that they have stuck to?
I appreciate that Harry twice served on the front line in Afghanistan and I genuinely thank him for his service to Queen and country, but the idea that this person – who is literally being paid millions of dollars to do very little – thinks he is in a position to lecture others on what they should or shouldn’t be doing with their lives is frankly, offensive.
At the last count, Harry and Meghan have been paid $18 million to record just 35 minutes of a podcast with Spotify. It is this sort of WINO (Work In Name Only), money for old ropeism, that depresses people, especially those trying to make an honest living.
It’s also surely infantile of Harry to suggest that work should always be enjoyable. In the same week he came out with this claptrap, his brother William recorded a podcast (for free), describing how he was left feeling like “the whole world was dying” after attending the scene of a car accident involving a child as an air ambulance pilot.
His job depressed him, and his mental health suffered, but in the spirit of his grandmother – and indeed all the grafters for which Britain was once world-renowned – he kept calm and carried on.
The timing of Harry’s intervention could not have been worse, coming not only after we heard that a Zoom mentality failed poor Arthur Labinjo-Hughes but also as we discovered how Foreign Office civil servants trying to achieve a work life balance had terribly let down the people of Afghanistan.
The warmth with which it was received by younger people does make me worried for the future. Apparently, “quit my job” searches exploded by 458 per cent afterwards, according to analysis of Google search data.
I’ve always lived my life by the words of that great philosopher Eddie Stobart, who once famously said, probably in a layby somewhere off the A17: “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
Yet it seems that, as a child of Thatcher, I am in a minority, sandwiched between over-entitled millennials who expect the world to be handed to them on a plate, and a generation of state-subsidised Blairites who want to receive everything for nothing. Meanwhile, my Baby Boomer of a Dad is still slaving away well beyond retirement age, at 75.
Of course there are exceptions, and this week a Generation Zer in the form of a 25-year-old Foreign Office whistleblower exposed exactly what happens when employees take the Sussex-endorsed “me, me, me” approach.
In his 39-page evisceration of all that went wrong with the evacuation of Kabul in August, junior diplomat Raphael Marshall revealed how he was, at times, the only person left dealing with hundreds upon hundreds of emails, almost all of them pleading for help, while his colleagues either refused to come into the office or remained on holiday.
During an excruciating Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting on Tuesday, his boss Sir Philip Barton said he now regretted not vacating his sun lounger until August 28 – by which point countless innocent Afghans had probably been murdered by the Taliban. Why the hell is this man still in post, let alone still in possession of a knighthood?
Yet this sort of lackadaisical, buck-passing behaviour is endemic. We experience this “computer-says-no-such-thing-as-customer-service” every single time we try to do even the simplest of things.
And it’s become even worse with the pandemic. The lockdown basically gave the shirkers-from-home licence to do even less.
We already had swathes of the population suffering from sticky mattress syndrome. Now they appear to have taken Boris Johnson’s latest coronavirus restrictions as a Plan to B even lazier. Christmas starts here, folks.
Fair play to PwC chairman Kevin Ellis for pointing out that the benefits of in-person meetings can never be replicated at home, particularly at what is a busy time for deals.
I have nothing against working from home – I do it myself every Thursday and Friday – but the idea that this country is going to be more productive, or indeed, mentally healthier, with everyone out of the office all week, is for the birds.
The ever burgeoning Human Resources departments of this world are not helping either, as they while away their days largely promoting wokery rather than protecting their employers from financial ruin.
As with the “all victims must be believed” phenomenon that continues to undermine rational thinking, despite the exposure of self-serving brazen liars like Jussie Smollett, everything an employee says is immediately taken as verity.
God forbid their horrible bosses should have the audacity to insist that they might actually want to consider earning the money they are being paid every month.
Or – shock horror – have a Covid jab to work with the elderly. Then it’s all the way to the tribunal for the responsible employer who is trying to feed their own family as well as all of those who work for them.
The irony, when it comes to Harry’s outburst, is that he grew up with the perfect exemplar of good, old-fashioned grit: Her Majesty The Queen. As she herself once said: “Work is the rent you pay for the room you occupy on earth.”
Where on earth would he, or we, be if she had quit at the first sign of trouble?
Where would we be if Winston Churchill, who famously suffered from what he described as “black dog”, downed tools after the depressing defeat at Dunkirk?
BetterUp? Grow up would be more appropriate.
And the same applies to a Government that has this week betrayed a disturbing lack of seriousness. Do your bloody job. Work harder. We deserve better than this.
Yeah ok Torygraph, all you are doing is describing our PM.
Rathere rambling rage bait column. /u/casualphilosopher1 was there some part you thought had relivance to well anything?
>“Many people around the world have been stuck in jobs that didn’t bring them joy, and now they’re putting their mental health and happiness first. This is something to be celebrated.” “In fact,” he said, “it is a sign that with self-awareness comes the need for change.”
It’s good that people are making the difficult choice to step away from jobs they dislike. We only get one life, so why spend the majority of it doing a job you hate to generate profit for shareholders who probably don’t even know you exist? No point driving your mental health into the ground for a company that ultimately doesn’t care about you.
By about half way down this article I was convinced it would conclude with the words “Arbeit macht frei”.
> Prince Harry is emblematic of a culture in which ‘wellbeing’ is put ahead of a hard day’s work
Is this satire? We shouldn’t care about people’s wellbeing? Being worked to the bone by your employer is far more important?
[removed]
Classic Torygraph. Seething resentment and vitriol masquerading as journalism
> John Lenin and Woko Ono
Sheesh, the Telegraph has really gone off the deep end this week. Guess they’re desperate to get people talking about their war on woke rather than the latest Tory scandal.
> while his colleagues either refused to come into the office or remained on holiday.
What a confused article. Now I remember why I don’t usually bother with Torygraph links.
90% of workshy is caused by poor motivation
Or to put another way pay peanuts get monkeys
Same as yesterday’s article from the Torygraph
>Work-shy Britain only cares about ‘me, me, me’
Says Journalist posting their last column before resurfacing some time in Mid January with an article ruminating on how crap Christmas is now.
That’s a brilliantly Telegraph headline. 10/10. Perfect. Exactly what I expect from them.
Old Tories: ‘There’s no such thing as society, all individuals are self interested and should make decisions only for themselves’
Younger people: ‘Cool, my decision is to prioritise my health and mental well-being over other people’s profits.’
Old Tories: ‘You can’t do that! I need you to work yourself to the bone so that I get to increase my wealth even in retirement! What I said before is not about *you* as an individual, it’s about *me* as an individual!’
i dont think newspaper writers have any right to talk about work-shy. after all, journalism is not a real job because middle-class people do it.
If the Telegraph hate Britain so much, why don’t they just leave?
>Meanwhile my baby boomer of a dad is still slaving away well beyond retirement age, at 75
That’s remarkable, because most of the baby boomers I know retired in their 50s.
Hey, this country repeatedly voted Tory – the party of “me, me, me”.
I work hard because I have a job that pays me well, allows me to work at home, and treats me as a human
18 comments
In their bid to become 2021’s answer to John Lenin and Woko Ono, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have said some pretty irritating things in recent months. “Imagine there’s no Ellen/It’s easy if you try/No personnel below us/Above us, only hue and cry.”
But the gospel according to Harry and Meghan plumbed “progressive” new depths this week with the prince’s declaration that people should leave careers that are damaging to their mental health.
The suggestion came in an interview with Fast Company magazine to promote Harry’s role as “chief impact officer” for BetterUp, a firm which “combines coaching with dynamic and personalised digital experiences to accelerate members’ long-term professional development and drive personal growth”, according to its website.
Harry is apparently being paid a “seven-figure sum” by this San Francisco-based startup. Nice “work” if you can get it.
Insisting that job resignations during the pandemic “aren’t all bad”, publicity-shy Harry guaranteed his words would have “chief impact” as he added: “Many people around the world have been stuck in jobs that didn’t bring them joy, and now they’re putting their mental health and happiness first. This is something to be celebrated.”
“In fact,” he said, “it is a sign that with self-awareness comes the need for change.”
Notwithstanding the irony of a former royal, living in an £11 million Montecito mansion, preaching about “self-awareness” while blithely advising people to quit work, how is this anything but an insult to anyone who has ever had a proper job that they have stuck to?
I appreciate that Harry twice served on the front line in Afghanistan and I genuinely thank him for his service to Queen and country, but the idea that this person – who is literally being paid millions of dollars to do very little – thinks he is in a position to lecture others on what they should or shouldn’t be doing with their lives is frankly, offensive.
At the last count, Harry and Meghan have been paid $18 million to record just 35 minutes of a podcast with Spotify. It is this sort of WINO (Work In Name Only), money for old ropeism, that depresses people, especially those trying to make an honest living.
It’s also surely infantile of Harry to suggest that work should always be enjoyable. In the same week he came out with this claptrap, his brother William recorded a podcast (for free), describing how he was left feeling like “the whole world was dying” after attending the scene of a car accident involving a child as an air ambulance pilot.
His job depressed him, and his mental health suffered, but in the spirit of his grandmother – and indeed all the grafters for which Britain was once world-renowned – he kept calm and carried on.
The timing of Harry’s intervention could not have been worse, coming not only after we heard that a Zoom mentality failed poor Arthur Labinjo-Hughes but also as we discovered how Foreign Office civil servants trying to achieve a work life balance had terribly let down the people of Afghanistan.
The warmth with which it was received by younger people does make me worried for the future. Apparently, “quit my job” searches exploded by 458 per cent afterwards, according to analysis of Google search data.
I’ve always lived my life by the words of that great philosopher Eddie Stobart, who once famously said, probably in a layby somewhere off the A17: “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
Yet it seems that, as a child of Thatcher, I am in a minority, sandwiched between over-entitled millennials who expect the world to be handed to them on a plate, and a generation of state-subsidised Blairites who want to receive everything for nothing. Meanwhile, my Baby Boomer of a Dad is still slaving away well beyond retirement age, at 75.
Of course there are exceptions, and this week a Generation Zer in the form of a 25-year-old Foreign Office whistleblower exposed exactly what happens when employees take the Sussex-endorsed “me, me, me” approach.
In his 39-page evisceration of all that went wrong with the evacuation of Kabul in August, junior diplomat Raphael Marshall revealed how he was, at times, the only person left dealing with hundreds upon hundreds of emails, almost all of them pleading for help, while his colleagues either refused to come into the office or remained on holiday.
During an excruciating Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting on Tuesday, his boss Sir Philip Barton said he now regretted not vacating his sun lounger until August 28 – by which point countless innocent Afghans had probably been murdered by the Taliban. Why the hell is this man still in post, let alone still in possession of a knighthood?
Yet this sort of lackadaisical, buck-passing behaviour is endemic. We experience this “computer-says-no-such-thing-as-customer-service” every single time we try to do even the simplest of things.
And it’s become even worse with the pandemic. The lockdown basically gave the shirkers-from-home licence to do even less.
We already had swathes of the population suffering from sticky mattress syndrome. Now they appear to have taken Boris Johnson’s latest coronavirus restrictions as a Plan to B even lazier. Christmas starts here, folks.
Fair play to PwC chairman Kevin Ellis for pointing out that the benefits of in-person meetings can never be replicated at home, particularly at what is a busy time for deals.
I have nothing against working from home – I do it myself every Thursday and Friday – but the idea that this country is going to be more productive, or indeed, mentally healthier, with everyone out of the office all week, is for the birds.
The ever burgeoning Human Resources departments of this world are not helping either, as they while away their days largely promoting wokery rather than protecting their employers from financial ruin.
As with the “all victims must be believed” phenomenon that continues to undermine rational thinking, despite the exposure of self-serving brazen liars like Jussie Smollett, everything an employee says is immediately taken as verity.
God forbid their horrible bosses should have the audacity to insist that they might actually want to consider earning the money they are being paid every month.
Or – shock horror – have a Covid jab to work with the elderly. Then it’s all the way to the tribunal for the responsible employer who is trying to feed their own family as well as all of those who work for them.
The irony, when it comes to Harry’s outburst, is that he grew up with the perfect exemplar of good, old-fashioned grit: Her Majesty The Queen. As she herself once said: “Work is the rent you pay for the room you occupy on earth.”
Where on earth would he, or we, be if she had quit at the first sign of trouble?
Where would we be if Winston Churchill, who famously suffered from what he described as “black dog”, downed tools after the depressing defeat at Dunkirk?
BetterUp? Grow up would be more appropriate.
And the same applies to a Government that has this week betrayed a disturbing lack of seriousness. Do your bloody job. Work harder. We deserve better than this.
Yeah ok Torygraph, all you are doing is describing our PM.
Rathere rambling rage bait column. /u/casualphilosopher1 was there some part you thought had relivance to well anything?
>“Many people around the world have been stuck in jobs that didn’t bring them joy, and now they’re putting their mental health and happiness first. This is something to be celebrated.” “In fact,” he said, “it is a sign that with self-awareness comes the need for change.”
It’s good that people are making the difficult choice to step away from jobs they dislike. We only get one life, so why spend the majority of it doing a job you hate to generate profit for shareholders who probably don’t even know you exist? No point driving your mental health into the ground for a company that ultimately doesn’t care about you.
By about half way down this article I was convinced it would conclude with the words “Arbeit macht frei”.
> Prince Harry is emblematic of a culture in which ‘wellbeing’ is put ahead of a hard day’s work
Is this satire? We shouldn’t care about people’s wellbeing? Being worked to the bone by your employer is far more important?
[removed]
Classic Torygraph. Seething resentment and vitriol masquerading as journalism
> John Lenin and Woko Ono
Sheesh, the Telegraph has really gone off the deep end this week. Guess they’re desperate to get people talking about their war on woke rather than the latest Tory scandal.
> while his colleagues either refused to come into the office or remained on holiday.
Hey, who else do we know who remained on holiday instead of working when it mattered? Oh, yes, that’s right … [Boris](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/michael-gove-fails-to-deny-pm-missed-five-coronavirus-cobra-meetings).
What a confused article. Now I remember why I don’t usually bother with Torygraph links.
90% of workshy is caused by poor motivation
Or to put another way pay peanuts get monkeys
Same as yesterday’s article from the Torygraph
>Work-shy Britain only cares about ‘me, me, me’
Says Journalist posting their last column before resurfacing some time in Mid January with an article ruminating on how crap Christmas is now.
That’s a brilliantly Telegraph headline. 10/10. Perfect. Exactly what I expect from them.
Old Tories: ‘There’s no such thing as society, all individuals are self interested and should make decisions only for themselves’
Younger people: ‘Cool, my decision is to prioritise my health and mental well-being over other people’s profits.’
Old Tories: ‘You can’t do that! I need you to work yourself to the bone so that I get to increase my wealth even in retirement! What I said before is not about *you* as an individual, it’s about *me* as an individual!’
i dont think newspaper writers have any right to talk about work-shy. after all, journalism is not a real job because middle-class people do it.
If the Telegraph hate Britain so much, why don’t they just leave?
>Meanwhile my baby boomer of a dad is still slaving away well beyond retirement age, at 75
That’s remarkable, because most of the baby boomers I know retired in their 50s.
Hey, this country repeatedly voted Tory – the party of “me, me, me”.
I work hard because I have a job that pays me well, allows me to work at home, and treats me as a human
​
otherwise no, it would definitely be me me me me