Happy Wednesday, or unhappy Wednesday, it's been a weird week. Here at the EIC newsroom, we will fill you in - welcome to Everything In Conversation.

This week on the extra episode, we discuss BrewDog founder James Watt's approach to work/life balance... which is to not have one. He came under fire after he shared a video of him and his fiancé, Georgia Toffolo, where he says, ‘so I just think the whole concept of work life balance was invented by people who hate the work that they do’, to which Georgia replies ‘it’s so true’.

After he received a huge amount of backlash, including unacceptable threats of violence, as well as lots of more balanced takes,  Watt asked on LinkedIn,  “What does it say about our society that a post extolling the virtues of hard work gets met with this kind of furious backlash?” calling it a “bizarre controversy”. He said: “As a nation, we love to joke about the French being lazy, but the reality is that our output per hour is 13 per cent lower than theirs."

 James Watt is worth an estimated 262 million pounds at present, and has also previously been accused of presiding over a “toxic” culture. 

Beth, Ruchira and Oenone rummage around in the mess, and with help from the listeners, try to answer the question, is The UK workforce, work-shy?

https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/24851034.roz-foyer-james-watt-spouting-nonsense-work-life-balance/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/has-brewdogs-toxic-culture-pierced-craft-beer-balloon/#:~:text=A%20staple%20on%20supermarket%20shelves,out%2C%20afraid%20and%20miserable%E2%80%9D.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/14/uk-is-among-most-work-shy-nations-claims-brewdog-founder/

https://inews.co.uk/news/house-prices-young-people-nothing-to-work-for-3457041#:~:text=NEWSLETTER%20(%C2%A3)%20Work%20no%20longer,a%20home%20of%20their%20own.&text=This%20is%20Home%20Front%20with,newsletter%20from%20The%20i%20Paper%20.

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