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.txt The Muddle Rules
They are serious about work, but not too serious.
They believe that work is a duty, but the ybouldn't go so far as to call it a sacred duty.
They comstantly moan and complain about work, but they also take a kind of stoical pride in douing their best.
They disapprove of thouse who avoid fork - not because of the sanctity of work itself, but because it is just not fair, when smb doesn't do anything, while they are working.
They'd rather not work, but their personal and social identity is bound up with work.
They don't like the subject of money.
Into a work place they carry rules of humour, embarrassment, inhibition, privacy, modesty, moaning, courtesy,fairness, most of which are incompatible with productive and effective work.
But despite all this, they seem to muddlethrough somehow,andsome of their work is not bad.
Humour Rules
Jokes is an integral part of almost all English social interaction. English people areso used to this humour, that they don't notice it, but foreigners do.
The Importance of Not Being Earnest Rule
If in many other cultures taking oneself too seriously may be a fault, but not sin, in British one it seems ridiculous and is mocked at. If you are too much of a workaholic, you canbe regarded as sad and pathetic and it will be suggested that you should get a life.
Training in Not Being Earnest starts early: among English schoolchildren, there is an unwritten rule forbidding excessive enthusiasm for academic work. Working hard for the exams it permitted, but you should moan about it a lot. Otherwise you can be called nerd.
The English are often accused of being anti-intellectual, but in fact it's a combination of anti-earnestness and anti-boastfulness.
Irony and Understatement Rules
Because of understatement they often fail to show the required degree of enthusiasm for their work and also compound the error by making remarks such as 'Well, it's not bad, considering' and 'You could do a lot worse'. They also say: ‘Well, I expect we’ll manage somehow,’ when we mean ‘Yes, certainly, no trouble’ and so on. (Another typically English response to, say, a catastrophic meeting where a million-pound deal has fallen through, would be ‘That all went rather well, don’t you think?’)
The most important, it'shard to say looking at their faces when they arebeing serious and when it's irony. But it's mostly irony.
THE MODESTY RULE – AND THE ‘BUMPEX’ SCHOOL OF ADVERTISING
While the English are no more naturally modest or self-effacing than other cultures – if anything, we are inclined to be rather arrogant – we do put a high value on these qualities, and have a number of unwritten rules prescribing at least the appearance of modesty.
During her research on the world of horseracing, I suggested that they could domore to publicize the unique social attractionsof racing to generate more business. nut they answeret that it would be boasting. She said I'd call it marketing.
Universal distaset for hard sell, for pushiness.
The humorist George Mikes claimed in 1960 that ‘All advertisements – particularly television advertisements – are utterly and hopelessly un-English. They are too outspoken, too definite, too boastful.’ He suggested that instead of ‘slavishly imitating the American style of breathless superlatives’ the English should evolve their own style of advertising, recommending, ‘Try your luck on Bumpex Fruit Juice. Most people detest it. You may be an exception.’ as a suitably un-boastful English way of trying to sell a product.
THE POLITE PROCRASTINATION RULE
In a business meeting it occurs after everybody has met and exchanged handshakes. They procrastinate politely with the usual weather-speak, enquiries about journeys, the obligatory wryly humorous traffic-moan, courteous comments on the host’s excellent directions and rueful jokes about one’s own poor navigation skills, interminable fussing over tea and coffee. Because the processof doing businessmakes them uncomfortable and embarrassed.
THE MONEY-TALK TABOO
They have a deep-seated but utterly irrational distaste for money-talk of any kind. It's better to talk about money in e-mail.
Our distaste for money-talk in everyday social life is well established: you never ask what someone earns, or disclose your own income; you never ask what price someone paid for anything, nor do you announce the cost of any of your own possessions.
Variations and the Yorkshire Inversion
The money-talk taboo is a distinctively English behaviour code, but it is not universally observed. There are significant variations: southerners are generally more uncomfortable with money-talk than northerners, and middle-class and
upper-class children are often brought up to regard talking about money as ‘vulgar’ or ‘common’.
Class and the Vestigial Trade-prejudice Rule
There might be historical explanations for this. It comes from vestigial traces of a prejudice against ‘trade’, left over from the days when the aristocracy
and landed gentry – and indeed anyone wishing to call himself a gentleman – lived off the rents from their land and estates, and did not engage in anything so vulgar as the making and selling of goods.
THE MODERATION RULE
They work fairly diligently, and have a modest amount of fun in our free time.
Safe, Sensible, Bourgeois Aspirations
In our survey, when asked where they would like to be in ten years time, nearly three quarters (72 per cent) of young people chose the safe, sensible options of being ‘settled down’ or ‘successful at work’, compared with just 38 per cent of the older generation. Only 20 per cent of 16–24 year olds chose the more adventurous option of‘travelling the world/living abroad’, compared with 28 per cent of 45–54 year olds. The older age group was also twice as likely as the youngsters to want to be ‘footloose and fancy-free’. In focus groups and informal
interviews, when we asked about their aspirations in life, almost all young working people wanted to be ‘financially secure and stable’. Home ownership was a long-term goal.
Future Stability More Important Than Fun
The Dangers of Excessive Moderation
The young people are increasingly affected by the culture of fear, and the risk-
aversion and obsession with safety that have become defining features of contemporary society.
THE FAIR-PLAY RULE
‘Fair play’, with its sporting overtones, suggests that everyone should be given an equal chance, that no-one should have an unfair advantage or handicap, and that people should conduct themselves honourably, observe the rules and not cheat or shirk their responsibilities.
When they hear about bribery, corruption and cheating, they are shocked.
MOANING RULES
The Monday-morning Moan
It is universally understood that everyone hates Mondays; that we all
had trouble dragging ourselves out of bed; that we really could have done with an extra day to get over the weekend; that the traffic/tube/trains/buses just seem to be getting worse and worse; that we have far toomuch to do this week, as per bloody usual; that we are already tired and our back/head/feet are hurting, and the week’s only just started, for God’s sake; and, look, now the photocopier is on the blink again, just for a change, huh, typical!
The Time-moan and the Meeting-moan
Everyone moans about time, for example, but junior and low-grade employees are more likely to complain that it passes too slowly, that they have another seven sodding hours of this shift to get through, that they are bored and fed up and can’t wait to get home, while more senior people usually whine that time just seems to fly past, that they never have enough of it to get through their ridiculous workload, and now there’s another bloody meeting they have to go to.
To admit to enjoying meetings, or finding them useful, would be the secular equivalent of blasphemy. Meetings are by definition pointless, boring, tedious and awful. But we have to have a lot of them, because of the fair-play, moderation, compromise and polite-egalitarianism rules, which combine to ensure that few individuals can make decisions on their own: a host of others must always be consulted, and a consensus must be reached.
The Mock-moaning Rule and the ‘Typical!’ Rule
One of the most important ‘rules of moaning’: you must moan in a relatively good-humoured, light-hearted manner. However genuinely grumpy you may be feeling, this must be disguised as mock-grumpiness. Serious moaning may take place in other contexts, such as heart-to-heart conversations with one’s closest friends, but it is regarded as unseemly and inappropriate in collective workplace moaning-rituals.
Moan-ritual catchphrase ‘Typical!’ which you will hear many times a day, every day, in every workplace in the country, – a generic, all-purpose term of disapproval, it can be applied to any problem, annoyance, mishap or disaster.
THE AFTER-WORK DRINKS RULES
Employees who go to the pub for after-work drinks with their colleagues suffer less stress than those who don’t. No hierarchy. It doesn't matter what youdrink,evena Coke is okay. The anti-earnestness rules state that you can talk with colleagues or work-mates about an important project or problem in the pub, but pompous, self-important or boring speeches are not allowed.
OFFICE-PARTY RULES
English workers like to talk about their annual office parties as though they were wild Roman orgies, but this is largely titillation or wishful thinking. The reality, for most of us, is that our debauchery consists mainly of eating and drinking rather too much; singing and dancing in a more flamboyant manner than we are accustomed to; wearing skirts cut a bit too high and tops cut a bit too low; indulging in a little flirtation and maybe an illicit kiss or fumble; speaking to our colleagues with rather less restraint than usual, and to our bosses with rather less deference – and perhaps, if we are feeling really wanton and dissolute, photocopying our bottoms.
They are serious about work, but not too serious.
They believe that work is a duty, but the ybouldn't go so far as to call it a sacred duty.
They comstantly moan and complain about work, but they also take a kind of stoical pride in douing their best.
They disapprove of thouse who avoid fork - not because of the sanctity of work itself, but because it is just not fair, when smb doesn't do anything, while they are working.
They'd rather not work, but their personal and social identity is bound up with work.
They don't like the subject of money.
Into a work place they carry rules of humour, embarrassment, inhibition, privacy, modesty, moaning, courtesy,fairness, most of which are incompatible with productive and effective work.
But despite all this, they seem to muddlethrough somehow,andsome of their work is not bad.
Humour Rules
Jokes is an integral part of almost all English social interaction. English people areso used to this humour, that they don't notice it, but foreigners do.
The Importance of Not Being Earnest Rule
If in many other cultures taking oneself too seriously may be a fault, but not sin, in British one it seems ridiculous and is mocked at. If you are too much of a workaholic, you canbe regarded as sad and pathetic and it will be suggested that you should get a life.
Training in Not Being Earnest starts early: among English schoolchildren, there is an unwritten rule forbidding excessive enthusiasm for academic work. Working hard for the exams it permitted, but you should moan about it a lot. Otherwise you can be called nerd.
The English are often accused of being anti-intellectual, but in fact it's a combination of anti-earnestness and anti-boastfulness.
Irony and Understatement Rules
Because of understatement they often fail to show the required degree of enthusiasm for their work and also compound the error by making remarks such as 'Well, it's not bad, considering' and 'You could do a lot worse'. They also say: ‘Well, I expect we’ll manage somehow,’ when we mean ‘Yes, certainly, no trouble’ and so on. (Another typically English response to, say, a catastrophic meeting where a million-pound deal has fallen through, would be ‘That all went rather well, don’t you think?’)
The most important, it'shard to say looking at their faces when they arebeing serious and when it's irony. But it's mostly irony.
THE MODESTY RULE – AND THE ‘BUMPEX’ SCHOOL OF ADVERTISING
While the English are no more naturally modest or self-effacing than other cultures – if anything, we are inclined to be rather arrogant – we do put a high value on these qualities, and have a number of unwritten rules prescribing at least the appearance of modesty.
During her research on the world of horseracing, I suggested that they could domore to publicize the unique social attractionsof racing to generate more business. nut they answeret that it would be boasting. She said I'd call it marketing.
Universal distaset for hard sell, for pushiness.
The humorist George Mikes claimed in 1960 that ‘All advertisements – particularly television advertisements – are utterly and hopelessly un-English. They are too outspoken, too definite, too boastful.’ He suggested that instead of ‘slavishly imitating the American style of breathless superlatives’ the English should evolve their own style of advertising, recommending, ‘Try your luck on Bumpex Fruit Juice. Most people detest it. You may be an exception.’ as a suitably un-boastful English way of trying to sell a product.
THE POLITE PROCRASTINATION RULE
In a business meeting it occurs after everybody has met and exchanged handshakes. They procrastinate politely with the usual weather-speak, enquiries about journeys, the obligatory wryly humorous traffic-moan, courteous comments on the host’s excellent directions and rueful jokes about one’s own poor navigation skills, interminable fussing over tea and coffee. Because the processof doing businessmakes them uncomfortable and embarrassed.
THE MONEY-TALK TABOO
They have a deep-seated but utterly irrational distaste for money-talk of any kind. It's better to talk about money in e-mail.
Our distaste for money-talk in everyday social life is well established: you never ask what someone earns, or disclose your own income; you never ask what price someone paid for anything, nor do you announce the cost of any of your own possessions.
Variations and the Yorkshire Inversion
The money-talk taboo is a distinctively English behaviour code, but it is not universally observed. There are significant variations: southerners are generally more uncomfortable with money-talk than northerners, and middle-class and
upper-class children are often brought up to regard talking about money as ‘vulgar’ or ‘common’.
Class and the Vestigial Trade-prejudice Rule
There might be historical explanations for this. It comes from vestigial traces of a prejudice against ‘trade’, left over from the days when the aristocracy
and landed gentry – and indeed anyone wishing to call himself a gentleman – lived off the rents from their land and estates, and did not engage in anything so vulgar as the making and selling of goods.
THE MODERATION RULE
They work fairly diligently, and have a modest amount of fun in our free time.
Safe, Sensible, Bourgeois Aspirations
In our survey, when asked where they would like to be in ten years time, nearly three quarters (72 per cent) of young people chose the safe, sensible options of being ‘settled down’ or ‘successful at work’, compared with just 38 per cent of the older generation. Only 20 per cent of 16–24 year olds chose the more adventurous option of‘travelling the world/living abroad’, compared with 28 per cent of 45–54 year olds. The older age group was also twice as likely as the youngsters to want to be ‘footloose and fancy-free’. In focus groups and informal
interviews, when we asked about their aspirations in life, almost all young working people wanted to be ‘financially secure and stable’. Home ownership was a long-term goal.
Future Stability More Important Than Fun
The Dangers of Excessive Moderation
The young people are increasingly affected by the culture of fear, and the risk-
aversion and obsession with safety that have become defining features of contemporary society.
THE FAIR-PLAY RULE
‘Fair play’, with its sporting overtones, suggests that everyone should be given an equal chance, that no-one should have an unfair advantage or handicap, and that people should conduct themselves honourably, observe the rules and not cheat or shirk their responsibilities.
When they hear about bribery, corruption and cheating, they are shocked.
MOANING RULES
The Monday-morning Moan
It is universally understood that everyone hates Mondays; that we all
had trouble dragging ourselves out of bed; that we really could have done with an extra day to get over the weekend; that the traffic/tube/trains/buses just seem to be getting worse and worse; that we have far toomuch to do this week, as per bloody usual; that we are already tired and our back/head/feet are hurting, and the week’s only just started, for God’s sake; and, look, now the photocopier is on the blink again, just for a change, huh, typical!
The Time-moan and the Meeting-moan
Everyone moans about time, for example, but junior and low-grade employees are more likely to complain that it passes too slowly, that they have another seven sodding hours of this shift to get through, that they are bored and fed up and can’t wait to get home, while more senior people usually whine that time just seems to fly past, that they never have enough of it to get through their ridiculous workload, and now there’s another bloody meeting they have to go to.
To admit to enjoying meetings, or finding them useful, would be the secular equivalent of blasphemy. Meetings are by definition pointless, boring, tedious and awful. But we have to have a lot of them, because of the fair-play, moderation, compromise and polite-egalitarianism rules, which combine to ensure that few individuals can make decisions on their own: a host of others must always be consulted, and a consensus must be reached.
The Mock-moaning Rule and the ‘Typical!’ Rule
One of the most important ‘rules of moaning’: you must moan in a relatively good-humoured, light-hearted manner. However genuinely grumpy you may be feeling, this must be disguised as mock-grumpiness. Serious moaning may take place in other contexts, such as heart-to-heart conversations with one’s closest friends, but it is regarded as unseemly and inappropriate in collective workplace moaning-rituals.
Moan-ritual catchphrase ‘Typical!’ which you will hear many times a day, every day, in every workplace in the country, – a generic, all-purpose term of disapproval, it can be applied to any problem, annoyance, mishap or disaster.
THE AFTER-WORK DRINKS RULES
Employees who go to the pub for after-work drinks with their colleagues suffer less stress than those who don’t. No hierarchy. It doesn't matter what youdrink,evena Coke is okay. The anti-earnestness rules state that you can talk with colleagues or work-mates about an important project or problem in the pub, but pompous, self-important or boring speeches are not allowed.
OFFICE-PARTY RULES
English workers like to talk about their annual office parties as though they were wild Roman orgies, but this is largely titillation or wishful thinking. The reality, for most of us, is that our debauchery consists mainly of eating and drinking rather too much; singing and dancing in a more flamboyant manner than we are accustomed to; wearing skirts cut a bit too high and tops cut a bit too low; indulging in a little flirtation and maybe an illicit kiss or fumble; speaking to our colleagues with rather less restraint than usual, and to our bosses with rather less deference – and perhaps, if we are feeling really wanton and dissolute, photocopying our bottoms.
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