Britain’s army of workshy WFH wastrels are wrecking productivity – but here’s why they’re so morally bankrupt as well
‘It’s true hard work never killed anybody,’ said the late US President Ronald Reagan, ‘but I figure, why take the chance?’
He was joking.
However, it would seem many Brits have taken his quip seriously.
Our country isn’t working in many alarming ways, ravaged by a global pandemic, a war in Europe, the worst cost-of-living crisis in living memory, a Brexit that isn’t functioning as promised, and a series of shockingly incompetent governments.
But one of the biggest problems is that we’ve literally stopped working.
Official UK unemployment numbers are at a near-record low of just under 4%.
Yet staggeringly, a quarter of the people of working age – that’s over 10 million – don’t currently have a paid job.
That includes students and carers, but it also includes vast numbers of people claiming to be sick and disabled and living off government handouts, or who’ve just taken early retirement.
Significant swathes of the workforce enjoyed the supposedly hellish covid lockdowns so much they decided not to go back to work at all when the coronavirus retreated and quit their jobs.
Many more chose to continue working from home when they did go back to work, which meant they didn’t really go back to work at all.
This group includes half of the civil service – the machinery of government itself – where in some departments, 71% of staff are running the country from their kitchens, seemingly more concerned with the capacity of their fridge than the buses or trains.
Yet rather than tackle this ruinous workshy malaise, union boss Dave Penman, who represents many of these civil servants, has instead focused on telling Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that ministers must be banned from calling officials ‘lazy, woke, inefficient snowflakes’ even if some of them are demonstrably lazy, woke, inefficient snowflakes.
A staggering 44% of ALL British workers still spend at least part of the week at home despite our woefully under-performing economy, and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer wants to enshrine in law their right to do that if he gets to No10, and ban bosses from sending emails and texts outside of working hours, presumably lest the lazy, woke, inefficient snowflakes get offended at this triggering distraction from their Netflix binge-watching.
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Add the enormous number of people on some form of benefits – estimated at over 5 million, many of whom are clearly gaming the easy life system – and Britain’s become a nation of shamefully unhealthy, entitled, couch potatoes.
Even many of those who HAVE been going into work have spent much of the past year on strike, so they’ve been staying at home too.
No wonder a recent poll had the UK being No1 in the world for having citizens who would most want to quit their jobs and do nothing if money was no issue.
How the hell has it come to this?
We’ve always been a country of ambitious and industrious grafters who’ve taken pride in putting a shift in.
But lately, a highly infectious disease has ripped through our labour markets.
I call it the workshy wastrel virus.
Never mind the threat to jobs from artificial intelligence, the far more immediate threat is the mindset of people who just don’t want a job at all, let alone one that may one day be replaced by a robot.
This workshy wastrel virus is not only wrecking productivity it’s also a wilful act of morally bankrupt selfishness.
As Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest and most successful men, and the hardest-working (he works seven days a week and has two days off a year), said in a new interview for CNBC: ‘I think that the whole notion of work from home is a bit like the fake Marie Antoinette quote, ‘Let them eat cake.’ It’s not just a productivity thing. I think it’s morally wrong…like really, you’re going to work from home and you’re going to make everyone else who made your car come work in the factory? You’re going to make people who make your food that gets delivered – they can’t work from home? The people that come fix your house? They can’t work from home, but you can? Does that seem morally right? That’s messed up. People should get off the goddamn moral high horse with the work-from-home bulls***,” because they’re asking everyone else to not work from home while they do. It’s wrong.’
He’s right, and other self-made billionaires agree with him.
‘A large percentage of people who work from home are lazy gits who got to like the life created by the pandemic,’ raged Alan Sugar. ‘What about nurses, doctors, cleaners, restaurant staff, builders and decorators, taxi and truck drivers they can’t work from home but provide the lazy gits a service?’
For once, I agree with the grizzly old Lord.
And while we’re at it, what about all those small businesses who depend on commuters but have seen their customer numbers plummet as office foot traffic has collapsed?
These are tough times which require a tough response from the public based around resilience, stoicism, and hard graft.
But unfortunately, many of my fellow countrymen have chosen to pull an Arsenal and throw in the towel.
And as I said about my beloved football team’s supine surrender to Manchester City in the race for the Premier League title, it’s not just disappointing – it’s pathetic.