
|
The
"blurb" from the BBC
website describes this series as follows:
"Comedian and writer Richard Herring explores some of the bad habits
and personal failings which directly or indirectly affect all of us
in our daily working lives."
And
Jane Anderson, Radio Times reviewer, has this to say:
"Richard Herring makes no pretence that his theories on working
life and the bad habits that it can encourage are filtered entirely
through his own experience.
The five subjects that he covers in this series are procrastination,
lateness, laziness, perfectionism and, today's opener, workaholism.
He suffers from all of them himself, even though laziness and perfectionism
are odd bedfellows. It's fortunate that, as a comedian and writer, he's
his own boss: nepotism runs riot in his office. What lifts this above
a quirky look at working life and into the league of enthralling documentary
is the way Herring's moderately paced quips are suddenly jacked up a
gear by his contributors - Oliver James, for instance, who after this
may be held responsible for an uprising of angry British workers..."
The
show broadcast over November & December 2008 in 5 parts on Radio
4, and is now here for download.
|
|
Show
1 - 4th November 2008 - Workaholism - DOWNLOAD
Richard
explores the rising problem of workaholism. He talks to a City
lawyer who works 20 hours a day, visits Pricewaterhouse Coopers
to see how they tackle the issue and writer Jon Ronson confesses
to being a workaholic. |
Show
2 - 11th November 2008 - Laziness - DOWNLOAD
Richard explores the problem of laziness. He investigates what
Royal Mail did about thousands of staff going off sick each
day and visits Google's UK headquarters to find out how having
fun can breed success. The programme also features the author
of How to Be Idle, Tom Hodgkinson.
|
Show
3- 26th November 2008 - Lateness - DOWNLOAD
Richard explores the problem of time-keeping.
He visits a call centre that had problems with punctuality,
meets a factory worker from Scotland who blew the whistle on
draconian time-management practices and hears from Diana DeLonzor,
author of How to Never Be Late Again, who explains why lateness
is a pathology that deserves our sympathy. |
Show
4 - 2nd December 2008 - Perfectionism - DOWNLOAD
Richard examines the impact of perfectionism
and goes inside a double Michelin-starred restaurant to see
how chef Marcus Wareing strives for food utopia. Douglas Broadley,
CEO of global design agency Imagination, talks frankly about
how his perfectionism affects the company and an ex-employee
gives his perspective on working for a perfectionist boss. Also
featuring psychologist and perfectionism expert Cary Cooper.
|
Show
5 - 9th December 2008 - Procrastination - DOWNLOAD
Richard investigates how much time British
workers spend on personal emails and what managers do to crack
down on it. He also speaks to the writer Charlie Brooker, who
blames the internet for his tendency to continually put things
off.
|
|