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Episode III - Back in the Real World







This morning I was trawling through the mass of new Linkedin post that appeared since my last visit, skipping past the motivational pictures, scarcely relevant to anything quotations and other detritus that people post to raise their profile with pseudo-intellectualism when I clicked onto this wee gem :




Mr. McGregor, the author who had posted this… wisdom … a while ago and received so much feedback he wrote a followup by way of reply to the mostly enraged people who felt compelled to comment. His full reply can be found here :  Offensive Bollocks

Yours truly can be a tiny bit grumpy in the morning so it was with no small measure of disappointment that I felt my pulse quicken and my teeth clench as I began to read this offensive nonsense.

I think a summary reply to the basic points is in order before I really get going.
  1. Yes, tell me something I don’t know. The 2016 Prize for Stating the Flippin Obvious goes to……
  2. Really? No shit Mr. Holmes. Thank you for pointing out yet another obvious thing that adds to the daily stress by reminding me of the guilt I have for not being able to spend more time with my wonderful family.
  3. See my point above.
  4. You don’t say. Perhaps I might ask my friends and family to pay for the education of my child, something I work very hard for and you seem to class as meaningless.
  5. Oh, Point 5. Where do I start. This has got to be one of the most offensive, inaccurate points of absolute bullshit I have read in a long time. Probably ever. Top marks for finding one point that will offend, piss off and enrage most of the world’s work force who don’t have cloud 9 jobs. Much more to follow…..
  6. What?
  7. Yes…..and?????? So will we risk the income upon which our families rely because you think this rose tinted excrement will stop a boss being a monstrous twat?
* Long sigh… *

Let’s get some basic stuff straight from the getgo. Most normal people do not want to work until all hours at the office. They want to go home, have a couple of G&T’s, watch Game of Thrones and start worrying about the next working day. Ok, so I admit there are some people who are workaholics and really like having no life, but that’s not the majority. I fanatically love my wife and daughter and every minute spent without them is a waste of life, but this is a very real world. We gotta have money, lots of money.
Most of us work in companies that are very far from perfect, we work with people who would stab us in the back for the fun of it and some have a boss who actually enjoys being on a power trip trying to stress people out for self gratification. But in order to provide a good standard of living for those whom we love so much we have to go through this “never-ending” purgatory.

I really do believe that Mr. McGregor and the other inhabitants of that particular ivory tower need to walk for a while in the shoes of the not-so-blessed before crapping out these sweeping generalisations all over people who are just trying to get by. Good, honest, competent, skilled, dedicated and hardworking individuals who are sat in the office at 9pm desperately fighting to keep their job in ever worsening economic conditions.

In summary, a little more empathy with those of us who do not live in your perfect world would be nice. We are all very familiar with your points, we deal with them every single day and it’s a bit smug to preach this nonsense to those who have no choice.