22-07-2025
EUAN MCCOLM: Thirty years ago I had my first clash with a member of the 'lanyard class'. Sadly, it was only a taste of things to come
It was supposed to make my life easier, but within an hour I was the most loathed man in the room.
Thirty years ago, while working as a reporter for a newspaper in the North-East of England, I was compelled by my employers to attend a 'stress management' course. Over two days inside a stuffy meeting room at St James' Park, I would be taught techniques to make me happier and more efficient.
The course leader decided to begin proceedings with a general knowledge quiz. This, he said, would place us in a real-life stress situation.
The quiz was not in the slightest bit stressful. The aftermath, on the other hand…
I came top in the quiz, by some distance. I'm not saying my fellow stress managers were idiots but I'm hardly the fizziest drink in the fridge and I didn't get a question wrong.
Having marked myself out, by knowing the name of the capital of Brazil, as having airs and graces, I was treated with suspicion by the others.
Over the following two days, we sat in that airless room listening to a man with the most punchable face I'd ever seen suggest a variety of ways in which we might reduce our stress levels.
What he did was this: every night, as he drove home, he'd pass a service station a mile from his house. At this point, he would tell himself that he was no longer in 'the work world'. If this wasn't enough, he might light some candles and have a long soak in the tub.
Reader, I am what you might call a smart-a*** and so I took great pleasure in irritating this charlatan, who was being paid handsomely so that my bosses could tick a box that said they were doing the right thing by their staff.
When he asked whether, if I was in a plane and the engines died, I'd parachute to safety, I played it deadpan.
'Dunno,' I said.
'But if you don't, you'll die,' he said.
'I get that,' I replied. 'It's just I don't know whether, in the moment, I'd be able to jump.'
'But the plane's going to crash,' he continued, his exasperation mounting.
'Yeah, I know,' I said. 'And I hope I'd be able to do it but, you know, how can I say I would?'
I was annoying everyone in the room by this point. A woman from advertising sales snapped that she'd jump and the course leader told us all this was evidence that, under terrible pressure, the human mind can find reserves of strength.
I went for lunch alone on the first day and then let the afternoon drift past in a hoppy haze.
On the second day, the stress management expert managed his stress by ignoring me.
When I returned to my desk after two days of sessions, my news editor demanded to know what stories I had for the coming Sunday's paper. Well, none, I said. I've been on a stress management course.
Under pressure to catch up, I felt more stressed than before.
It isn't healthy to hold grudges but, three decades on, my contempt for the man who ran that course has only intensified.
He was at the vanguard of the trend for employers to bring in consultants and workshoppers. Rather than creating genuinely comfortable working conditions and paying decent wages, companies could run a series of expensive – and pointless – courses and declare themselves committed to the Government's 'Investors in People' scheme.
The contemporary equivalent of those consultants are the activists who, over recent years, have been let loose across the public and private sectors to conduct courses on equality and inclusion.
Just as my bosses didn't give a hoot about my stress levels 30 years ago, today's employers don't care about the damage these consultants cause.
This lanyard-class is perfectly personified by Isla Bumba, equality officer at NHS Fife.
In evidence last week during the tribunal of Sandie Peggie – suing the health board and trans-identifying doctor Beth Upton for sexual harassment and discrimination after she was suspended for complaining about the presence of a biological male in a female-only space – Ms Bumba exposed the vacuity of these box-tickers, employed to ensure their employers comply with whichever target or objective is currently in vogue.
In the case of Ms Bumba – a £60k-a-year equality officer with seemingly no understanding of the Equality Act – this meant giving advice that not only left Sandie Peggie victim of a shocking witch-hunt but also left her employers, funded by the Scottish taxpayer, open to costly legal action, such as the tribunal now taking place.
But the hapless equality officer cannot be a scapegoat for her employers. The chief executive of NHS Fife, Carol Potter, and the board –chaired by Pat Kilpatrick –must all go.
And they must go as publicly as possible.
This is not only necessary for the good governance of NHS Fife, it is essential if the grip of gender ideologues on public bodies is to be loosened.
Carol Potter, Isla Bumba, Pat Kilpatrick and every member of the NHS Fife board must become examples of what happens when those in authority ignore their responsibilities to both employees and the law.
Right now, lurking in offices across Scotland, there are overconfident and under- qualified men and women who hold in their hands – and seem indecently eager to exercise – the power to destroy careers.
These people, with their courses and their talk of 'best practice', are a danger.
Fortunately, there already exist robust equality laws which, among other things, protect the sex-based rights of women.
There should be no need in any organisation with a functioning legal department
to employ someone to ensure compliance with the law, especially when that individual doesn't have the faintest idea what they're talking about.
For decades, workplaces have been invaded by clipboard-wielding, power-tripping consultants and experts who – in order to justify their salaries – make life unnecessarily difficult for the rest of us.
Once you've clashed with one of these exhausting little tyrants, no number of stress management courses will help you forget.
