Love or loathe them, senior Royals like no-nonsense Princess Anne could teach lazy millennials a thing or two about work
“SORRY I won’t make it into the office today but I’ve been kicked in the head by a horse and I am currently in hospital suffering from concussion.”
As excuses go for not turning up to work, you have to say this one is pretty solid.
If I was the boss receiving it, I’d duly nod it through — because I’m all heart — perhaps adding a “GWS” (get well soon) to my reply.
I would probably be equally as receptive if I had a call from a member of staff who declared they were suffering from cancer and would I mind just keeping them off the rota for a bit while they tackled the bloody thing.
No worries. Just make sure you tell HR so they can mark you down as sick.
By now you have caught up with me and realise that the people I’m referring to here are current members of the Royal Family.
Princess Anne remains “unable to recall” exactly what happened when one of her horses clonked her this week.
King Charles is still not back to full service while he battles with his unnamed cancer — the same goes for Kate Middleton.
Yet what unites these royals is not just their ailments — and my God, what a heartbreaking run of bad luck for one family — but their attitude to them.
Anne is apparently desperate to get back to work and is only not doing so “on doctor’s advice”, the Palace has said.
You may wonder what work this is but suffice it to say, she undertook 457 engagements in 2023, more than any other royal — mostly meeting ordinary Brits who are delighted to see her.
Likewise, King Charles was characteristically put out that he had to cut his schedule and was duly back at it after just two months of cancer treatment.
Ditto Kate who, despite myriad health issues, managed to attend Trooping the Colour.
These people are not working for the money (they’ll get that anyway, thanks to the annual £86.3million Sovereign Grant).
Nor are they doing it all for the love of it.
For every jovial chat with an inspiring charity there are numerous tedious meet-and-greets with foreign dignitaries at stuffy banquets.
No, the royals turn up for the day because they have a tremendous work ethic, drilled into them from birth (and, yes, often in place of love, but that’s another column!).
‘Bare minimum Mondays’
They call it “duty” or “service” but ultimately it is about getting up, firing the internal cylinders and cracking on with the job without complaint (unless the Biro you’ve been handed doesn’t work, of course).
Compare this outlook with that of millennial and Gen Z workers, some of whom see work as just a great big inconvenience.
This is a generation that has invented the concept of “lazy girl jobs”, “quiet quitting” and “bare minimum” Mondays.
A workforce that views even simple instructions as microaggressions.
They think nothing of emailing or texting — they never phone — with some spurious reason why they won’t be in on time, or at all.
These range from the baffling “it’s too hot today” to my all-time favourite “sorry I’m late, I had to have sex with my wife”.
On the surface you would think getting more of your life back is a good thing.
But this new code is about getting away with the bare minimum — if you even turn up at all.
Research from the Health and Safety Executive showed that those claiming stress, depression or anxiety took an average of 20 days off a year.
That’s an entire month.
No wonder productivity in Britain is stagnant — 16 per cent below the US and Germany.
I wrote here last week that AI would soon make all our jobs redundant and we could sit back and do bugger all.
But that utopia will not arrive for some time.
Until it does, we still need to get out there and put our backs into it.
If a bloke currently being treated for a disease that kills 460 British people a day can manage it, then surely the rest of us can too.
Looks like Taylor may wanna give forever
I DIDN’T manage to make the recent Taylor Swift concerts at Wembley (my friendship bracelet-making kit didn’t arrive in time).
But I’ve been touched by everyone’s stories of how much the show meant to them – not least Piers Morgan cutely discovering his inner Swiftie.
And, yes, there were also tales of sky-high-priced merch and all the usual avarice that goes with these types of corporate pop shows.
Yet I have most enjoyed the accounts of the many charities who the billionaire balladeer has been quietly syphoning off cash to as she travelled the country.
You don’t get many superstars who spray their money around like this and – as her mostly Gen Z fanbase would say – I’m here for it.
SOME concern that England midfielder Phil Foden won’t be back in time for our crunch match against footballing minnows Slovakia on Sunday after he jetted back to the UK to be there for the arrival of his baby son.
Allow me to calm the nerves.
Despite looking like a baby himself, this is 24-year-old Phil’s THIRD child, so he knows full well what to expect now the newborn is out in the world.
After about 45 minutes of changing meconium-sprayed nappies and otherwise making himself completely useless, he’ll be back on that plane to Germany before you can say: “Southgate out!”
Debate winner Robert
REAL heroes are few and far between but let’s all just give a quick standing ovation to Robert Blackstock.
The 73-year-old retiree captured the mood of the nation by asking Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak at the BBC’s leaders’ debate on Wednesday night: “Are you two really the best we’ve got to be Prime Minister of our great country?”
It was a cry/laugh emoji moment and the most insightful intervention of this interminable campaign.
But it wasn’t just a stand-out moment because Mr Blackstock spoke so perfectly for every one of us – it was also for the simple fact that he was able to do so at all.
At times you can think our politics could not be more corrupt, stuffed as it is with self-aggrandising charlatans betting on their own downfall.
But at least we live in a working democracy that allows its citizens to publicly embarrass their leaders with little or no comeback.
If Mr Blackstock tried that in Putin’s Russia or his fellow nutjob pal Kim Jong Un’s North Korea he’d be frogmarched off by a brace of sunglasses-wearing goons, never to be seen again.
LOVED the heatwave this week.
The rancid reservoir of stagnant water in my back garden fire pit – that has been sitting there for about three months – has completely evaporated, saving me the gruesome job of emptying it.
Now all I need is a quick monsoon to come along and wash the car and a nice typhoon to whip out all those weeds I can’t be bothered dealing with.
Over to you, Zeus.
Cheddy, steady, go…!
AS a dedicated turophile – that’s “cheese lover” in new money – it came as no surprise to hear this week that Cheddar is still Britain’s favourite cheese.
There is nothing quite like a nibble of extra-mature or vintage – a sliver of Black Bomber on the lips has the ability to stroke your soul.
But this news once again got my hackles up about the fact we hardly celebrate our cheese in this country at all.
Go to Amsterdam and you can’t move for shops dedicated to selling shrink-wrapped Gouda – a nothing-fancy hard cheese.
I even saw a shop in Dusseldorf the other weekend that sold exclusively German cheese all packaged up as if it was a precious metal rather than the collection of aged milk solids it actually was.
It’s high time we started celebrating one of our most delicious foodstuffs.
Let’s put the GRATE in Great Britain.
Gas no laugh for me
I ARRIVED home from work the other night to see a car with its hazard warning lights on and two cretins sitting in the front sucking on laughing gas balloons.
This pair of space cadets sat there for ages inhaling from catering-strength cylinders – and, naturally, depositing the empty barrels on the pavement for me to deal with (could they go in the recycling, I wondered?)
I’m sick of people littering the streets with these wretched canisters that just look like spent tank rounds.
Doing nitrous oxide has finally been made illegal and it is now classified as a Class C drug.
So, theoretically, the cops should be clamping down on this stuff and making arrests.
But do you think we’ll see this happen when there are far more important things to do, like nicking people who are rude on Twitter?
Don’t make me laugh.