A Cushy Number

A Cushy Number

John Holden

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 John Holden

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Table Of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preamble to A Cushy Number

Chapter 1: What is a Cushy Number?

Chapter 2: Job Demand

Chapter 3: Job Rewards

Chapter 4: The Cushy Number Index

Chapter 5: The Public Sector Factor

Chapter 6: Nepotism

Chapter 7: Lawyers

Chapter 8: The Law Makers

Chapter 9: Law Enforcement

Chapter 10: The Law Breakers

Chapter 11: Doctors

Chapter 12: Teachers

Chapter 13: Academia

Chapter 14: Whitehall

Chapter 15: The Town Halls

Chapter 16: Quangoland

Chapter 17: The Fat Cats Part One - Business Tycoons

Chapter 18: The Fat Cats Part Two - The City

Chapter 19: The Privatised Utilities

Chapter 20: Engineers

Chapter 21: The Clergy

Chapter 22: Journalists

Chapter 23: A Pot-pourri of Jobs

Chapter 24: The Cushy Number League Table

Chapter 25: How To Get a Cushy Number

Appendix: Reform of the House of Lords - A Modest Proposal

Acknowledgments

After completing this book in 2004 I tried and failed to find a publisher. The manuscript then lay on a shelf for a few years as I considered the alternative courses of action open to me. These were to abandon the idea or to update the manuscript and try again.

I opted for the latter and the outcome was the same as that for my first attempt, ie a series of rejections. I was on the point of consigning the book to the bin men when my son suggested that I explore the option of Internet publishing.

I rejected his suggestion on the grounds that I do not have the faintest idea how the internet works, and am far too senile to find out. However I was sufficiently interested to modify his suggestion so that he would explore the internet option on my behalf. What follows is the outcome of his efforts.

Accordingly I would like to acknowledge his contribution whilst making it clear that the views expressed are my own.

To my wife Patricia, my son Windsor, and my grandsons Max and Rhys: all my love.

Preamble to A Cushy Number

I completed the first draft of A Cushy Number back in 2002. I tried then to get the book published in time honoured ways, in part via direct approaches to publishers, and in part via literary agents. My hope, if not my dream, was to see the book between covers, either hard or paperback or both. It was not to be. All my approaches were rebuffed, my submissions, mostly via a printed rejection slip, and a few others via a more personal letter. The outcome was the same in every case.

I was motivated to try another route by three considerations, two linked and one separate.

The first of the two linked considerations was the publication by the Telegraph newspapers of the details of the startling and imaginative looting of public funds by Members of both Houses of Parliament in 2009. This looting by our professional legislators had been going on for years and doubtless would have carried on for many more had it not been for the intrusion of the Fourth Estate.

The second consideration, linked to the first, was the unseemly and dishonest behaviour of the financial classes in general and that of the banking profession in particular in the first decade of the 21st century. The direct consequence of this misbehaviour in the USA and in the UK was the onset of the worst depression since the 1930s.

In my first draft I had highlighted the ease with which employees in the financial sector could transfer funds intended to lubricate enterprise and business in the wider economy from these intended purposes and into their own pockets. However I had not foreseen that a Labour government, even one diluted by the adjective New, and no matter how feeble its commitment to social justice, could and did continue to preside over such sharp practice.

Equally the sheer scale of the dubious means employed by the legislators to enrich themselves at the expense of the voters startled me. I had been critical of their conduct and the lack of principle only to the extent of my then very limited knowledge.

Accordingly I sought an alternative to the conventional publishing route in order to bring my earlier draft up to date, and, with luck, the sharing of my views with a wider audience. The conventional publishers were understandably pre-occupied with the memoirs of Wayne Rooney and other literary notables. How in these unpropitious circumstances might I proceed?

It was it this point that I was advised to try the Internet. It would be tedious and embarrassing to relate my conversations with the young of my acquaintance about the opportunities afforded by net publication. I should add that I am about to enter my eighth decade and, among a myriad of drawbacks associated with that milestone is a difficulty in understanding much of what passes for technical progress. Suffice it to say that I was persuaded to launch my second and final version (the one which follows) into and onto the trackless wastes of the net. Who are my potential readers? What are their tastes? Their interests? I haven’t got the faintest idea. However, and given that my alternative was a clear cut total of nil readers - here goes.

One further point which will double as an explanation of, and an apology for, what follows. In my 2002 version I tried hard to avoid fixing my story in the present, and this approach has meant that much of my earlier material required no changes and revision. The expenses scandal at Westminster was a straightforward story to summarise given that there can be scarcely anyone in the UK who is not familiar with the details.

The task which proved beyond me was to tell to the full the sheer chicanery of the financial fraternity in the last two decades. It would take the technical expertise, the literary prowess, and, crucially, the realism of a J. K. Galbraith to tell the story in all its incredible Alice in Wonderland complexity. Sadly many of those who even now are telling their version of events were strangely silent whilst the looting was in full spate. Pride of place here must go the account soon to be served up by Gordon Brown. It is beyond belief that the man in sole charge of our finances from 1997 to 2010 should seek to add his trade mark incompetence further to confuse these turbulent events.

I have got over the difficulty of the selection of new examples to make my points by retaining my earlier examples in the confident belief that readers will accept that the basic features are common to all the unseemly practices that were endemic during these years, namely an indifferent public, a supine government and, the key critical core central feature which was the readiness of those in the financial sector to establish as their primary objective to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us, and then to pursue that objective with commendable energy.

Chapter 1: What is a Cushy Number?

"Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken"

Genesis 3,23

"You and I and the editor of the Times Lit Supp, and the Nancy poets, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and Comrade X, author of Marxism for Infants- all of us really owe the comparative decency of our lives to poor drudges underground, blackened to the eyes, with their throats full of coal dust, driving their shovels forward with arms and belly muscles of steel"

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell

The cushy number has a long and honoured place in the history of mankind. Genesis 2 described the very first cushy numbers arranged by the Lord God for Adam and Eve. They were not required to work, and the only limitation placed upon them in terms of consumption was to give a miss to the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Sadly Eve was unable to resist the wiles of the serpent and she, and, a little later, Adam, sampled the forbidden fruit. The Lord God took a very dim view of their offence, and immediately put into effect the relevant disciplinary procedures. By the end of Genesis 3 their cushy number in the Garden of Eden had been cancelled, and our illustrious ancestors became reluctant founder members of the working class.

The quote from Orwell brings the story quickly up to date. The world has moved on since Orwell wrote the above words in 1936, but the point he made then is equally valid today. In order that the lucky minority can hold down cushy numbers, the majority of us are required to work in mundane, repetitive, low paid jobs. This book sets out to explore why some jobs are more desirable than others. This immediately raises the question - desirable in terms of what? Desirable in terms of this all important aspect of cushiness.

The most usual starting points in any job search are the recruitment sections in the national and local papers, and, increasingly, the recruitment sections of the Internet. We scan these eagerly in order to initiate the job search project. What is it that we are seeking? We are seeking a cushy number, that’s what. But when did you last see an advertised vacancy for a cushy number? Do they exist outside of dreams?

This book has two purposes. Firstly, to demonstrate that cushy numbers do exist, and, secondly, to explain to readers how to secure and retain a cushy number. An ambitious plan, but rest assured, by the time you have reached the end of the book, you will know all there is to know about the subject, and, more importantly, you will be well equipped to go out and get a cushy number.

Let us begin our analysis with some definitions. We will define a cushy number as a well rewarded sinecure. The word sinecure is defined as an office of profit with no duties. We are looking for a lot more than an office of profit, although we are quite happy with the absence of duties. We are looking for, indeed we insist upon, a job which combines the minimum of effort with the maximum of reward. It must be stressed at the outset that we cushy number seekers insist on having both criteria satisfied. We don't want a demanding well rewarded job although we accept that this would be a step in the right direction. Equally we don't just want a sinecure. We want a well rewarded sinecure.

At several stages during the writing of this book the need arose for a word which denoted the opposite of cushy. For a while the somewhat cumbersome compound word uncushy was used, but it lacked elegance. An alternative was sought and found, the adjective augean. A word of explanation may be appropriate. Augeus was the king of Elis in ancient Greece and he had a problem. His problem was that he owned 3,000 oxen whose stalls had not been cleansed for 30 years. If you do the calculation you will see that Augeus had on his hands, metaphorically, and, arguably, literally, a lot of bullshit. He, King Augeus, arranged with Hercules that if he could clean the said stalls in a single day, he would receive 300 oxen in return, ie a straight 10% cut. Hercules succeeded by resorting to a highly imaginative irrigation technique, and went on to claim the rewards from the contract. King Augeus, like many of his fellow monarchs at the time and since, was not averse to a spot of sharp practice and queried the terms of the deal (were they in writing? - the text does not make this clear) and the upshot was that Hercules remained oxenless. The term Augean has come to mean filthy, difficult and bereft of reward, the perfect contrast to the cushy number. Hercules had landed a job which combined high demand, zero reward and, another common feature, a lot of bullshit to clear away. None of the labours of Hercules was a cushy number, but his arrangement with Augeus was the one most apposite to our requirements.

I can confirm from personal experience the validity of the augean model. As a young student I got a summer vacation job on a farm. One of my duties was to clean out a cowshed which, like that of King Augeus, had been allowed to accumulate a substantial quantity of manure. The irrigation method employed by Hercules was not available to me and the only solution was to use a combination of pitchfork and wheelbarrow for relocation of the offending material. The task took a lot longer than one day, and the memory of the emerging odours as I dug into the many layers remain powerfully entrenched. Recollection of the same odours may well be entrenched in the memories of my fellow passengers on the bus journey home, and, indeed, I was instructed by the bus conductor to remain on the platform, and, on no account, to pass down the bus.

A cushy number has been the dream of those who combine indolence and cupidity from the earliest days of social organisation. In our times and with the breakdown of social and class barriers, the desire is stronger and more widespread than ever before. Most of us - let's admit it - yearn for a job which combines the minimum of effort for the maximum of reward, and this aspiration is likely to intensify in the years to come. We want a cushy number, we fume whenever we hear that one of our friends has got what we believe to be one, but that's about as far as the analysis goes. Given this widespread demand for a cushy number, it is astonishing how little work or even thought has gone into this crucial issue. We need to think through what we mean in order to get what we want. How on earth can we get a cushy number if we don't know what we are looking for? How exactly will we know one when we see one? What are the defining features of the cushy number, the features that separate it from your job and from all the jobs I ever had?

Our time in work occupies by far the greater part of our waking life from leaving full time education to our retirement. Just think for a moment about how we spend our time during these forty years or so. We get up to go to work, we travel to work (a sore point for those of us unfortunate enough to live in the south east of England), we are in work for the obligatory eight hours, we travel home, we have a few hours of family life, and then it’s off to bed for eight hours of the blessed barrier between day and day, only to start again next morning. Outside work our jobs are an unfailing source of conversation in pubs and clubs, in trains (on time or otherwise) and planes, and in all forms of social intercourse.

Let us put a little flesh on these bones. On average we spend well over half of our waking hours getting ready for work, travelling to and from work, being in work, and talking about work outside working hours. For purposes of accuracy we should delete that amount of time spent in work but not engaged in the activities for which we are on the payroll. We shall have more to say on this point later. Suffice it to say at this point that jobs with significant scope for non contractual activities are to be immediately identified as potentially cushy.

The two main points to consider therefore are that work takes up the greater part of our waking lives and, secondly, that we have much more choice and control over the sort of work we do than most of us ever realise, until sadly, it is far too late. Surely most of us would prefer to spend this time in cushy rather than augean activity? It is clear that our choice of profession or job is crucially important, by far the most important that we are called upon to make during our time on earth. Let us repeat this crucial central point. The choice of job is the most important decision of our lives. We suspect that this assertion will be contested by two groups, the young, who are not qualified to judge, and those with cushy numbers, who are understandably biased. We will simply ignore the views of the young on this issue, as we should ignore their views on all issues, and we will make allowances for the bias of the present cushy number holders.

How should we set about identifying, securing and retaining a cushy number? Obviously we need to apply a suitably proportionate level of thought, care and effort. The purpose of this book is to serve as a guide through the tangle of mendacity, prejudice and confusion with which the issue is surrounded.

I began to explore the idea of the cushy number in the early 1990s. At that time I had just retired from a job in the steel industry, having worked for many years in a job which combined low pay and high demand in equal proportions. I took the view at that time that my future in the Steel Industry offered more of the same, and therefore eagerly accepted voluntary redundancy. I started to gather some materials on the general topics of work, the demands of work and the rewards of work with the vague idea of pulling them together in book form. However I then promptly and rashly ignored all my previous experience and forebodings and got myself yet another ill paid, highly demanding job, this time in the plastics industry. The terms and conditions of my new job were slightly better than those of my previous occupation. This improvement was not difficult to achieve. My new employer was a German who spoke no English, and, as I spoke no German, the opportunities for disagreement and the more usual mutual occupational antagonisms were drastically reduced. I recall telling a former steel industry colleague that if your old job required you to receive 10 lashes per day and your new job provided for only five, then you had made a move in the right direction. In the circumstances I postponed rather than abandoned my plan to write up my thoughts on the cushy number theme. I re-retired a few years later, at which point I unearthed my materials and resumed my work.

A point which struck me was that, with very few exceptions, my cushy number jobs of the 1990s remained my cushy numbers of today. Indeed so forcibly did this point strike me that special attention will be paid to the few jobs which have significantly changed their position in the cushy number league table.

One of my notes, written in 1992, reads:

I suspect that many people in their forties and fifties would accept my analysis and, given a second chance, would select a career which combined less demands on their time and energy with better overall financial rewards.

I would not change a word of the above more than a decade and a half later. But sadly I refrained from following the logic of my own arguments and the soundness of my own advice. The outcome has been that the blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene and- in short you are for ever floored. As I am. Thus Wilkins Micawber, thus your sadder, impoverished, but wiser author.

To return to our theme. How do most of us set about making our choice of career? Let us say straight away that most of us choose badly and on the basis of a wholly inadequate method, which, of course, explains why most of us end up in jobs which typically combine high demand of the job holder with poor rewards. Some of us even allow this crucial decision be taken by someone like a careers teacher. It can be said at this early stage that this sub-species of the teaching profession should be marked down for cushy number status.

A key point to stress at the outset is the need to make your career selection early. The reason for this requirement is that most schools operate some form of subject selection at around year four of secondary education. We must ensure that our children avoid the sciences which tend to lead straight to jobs with high demand and low rewards. Instead we must steer them towards soft studies like History, English, Geography and so on. Maths is fine as long as the students get out early and absorb just enough to be confident in their financial manipulations later on. Note that the word manipulation is used here to cover both of its commonly accepted meanings. A modern language is fine and if our selected career choice is the Civil Service or Academia the Classics remain a reasonable each way bet. Sound options are those courses whose titles include the word studies. This category embraces Business Studies, Social Studies, Gender Studies and, best of all, General Studies.

We are not going to cover in detail the issue of the right school for our cushy number candidates. However it should be said that attendance at one or other of the top public schools continues to provide a formidable competitive edge in the later struggle for the cushy number. It is much more doubtful if this is this case for the minor public schools. Your local comprehensive school (soon to be transformed from bog standard into something not yet defined but certainly something much better) will provide as good an education and, crucially, at no additional cost. Apart from the handful of top schools the public schools are simply not cost effective in the long term.

Before proceeding with our analysis we need at this stage to raise and clarify a few issues which usually cloud discussion of the subject. The first difficulty is that almost all holders of almost all jobs believe that their jobs are uniquely demanding and ill rewarded. They (including you and I) can’t all be right. We need to establish a method to help us to determine which jobs are actually demanding and which jobs are demanding only in the minds of the job holders. The same point applies with equal force to the reward element of the job. How do we distinguish between jobs which are genuinely well rewarded and jobs which are only superficially well rewarded?

In order to establish an objective basis for comparison between jobs a cushy number model has been developed. This model is used to determine the true demand of a job together with the true total reward. These two core elements of all jobs, the job demand element and the job reward element are then combined to give the cushy number index. The model is beautiful in its simplicity, and powerfully effective as a tool for analysis and comparison.

A number of key features have been identified to establish the total demands of a job. They include assessments of job stress, job security, the ease with which the performance of the job holder can be measured, and working conditions. All the various elements are taken into consideration in arriving at the job demand index or JDI.

Our analysis of job reward goes well beyond the usual limited approach of salary. The model takes account of all relevant reward elements including, indeed especially, those arrangements which cover the important period from retirement to oblivion. This latter element is, of course, the all important pension arrangement. The outcome is the job reward index or JRI. The reward element of our job determines our standard of living, it determines where and how we live, it influences who we marry and dictates the sort of lives we and our children will lead. Do you want to know your JRI? Of course you do.

The writing of this book was well advanced when two separate but linked developments came to prominence. The first of these was the scale of the bonuses paid out to the more imaginative members of the financial community, and the second was the substantial scale of and scope for boosting the reward packages of our Members of Parliament. It was necessary to re-write much of the narrative dealing with these two groups to accommodate the sheer exuberance of their acquisitiveness, a hazard facing all authors who rashly attempt to deal with fast moving events at a leisurely pace.

The cushy number model takes full and equal account of both job demand and job reward. Both elements are important and the ideal cushy number combines minimum demands on, with maximum rewards to, the job holder.

It must be stressed that our cushy number model bears no resemblance to the job evaluation models used by and loved by human resource professions and business school academics. Suffice it to say that their models are useless. They are designed to confuse rather than clarify the issues involved, and to perpetrate the pervasive myth that talent and hard work will be suitably rewarded. The models devised in the business schools have an additional fraudulent purpose which is to swell the torrent of pedagogical froth masquerading as scholarship.

It is important that we acknowledge our collective debt to those people amongst us who happily seek challenge, danger, stress and other wholly disagreeable job features. These are the empire builders and we love them for it. Even rarer are those amongst us who seek ill paid jobs. The Catholic Church is in difficulties in the recruitment of people prepared to volunteer for a life of chastity, poverty and obedience, although it is not clear which of the first two disciplines represents the greater disincentive at the dawn of the 21st century. We (you and I) wish these saints well in their endeavours, but this book is not for the seekers after stress and poverty. They will have their different degrees of job satisfaction rewards from their pursuit of those ideals, quite possibly in the life to come.

The early chapters are given over to the exposition of the two elements of the model, namely job demand and job reward. The book then explains how the indices derived from these two elements are combined to produce that all important statistic, all pervasive measure, the cushy number index.

We then take a brief look at two factors which have an important bearing on the cushiness of jobs, namely the influence of nepotism and the significance of public sector employment. Nepotism will be covered in a later chapter. Suffice it to say at this stage that one clear hallmark of a cushy number is a high degree of nepotism. We have only to look at the well known practice of people in the media and in politics to pass their cushy numbers on to the next generation. The Freuds, Dimblebys, Corens and Hoggarts come instantly to mind, and readers will doubtless have their own particular bête noires in this category. Such is my strength of feeling on this issue that I am willing to forgive Mr Rupert Murdoch his own ruthless nepotism on behalf of his own offspring because access to his Sky TV network means that I do not have to endure one or other of the appalling Dimbleby brothers when viewing post General Election inquests.

The book then considers the cushiness of a range of jobs by assessing their