Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spanish politics- It looks like the Franco exhumation really is going to take place, despite monkish resistance.
- But what does all this mean for Galicia?
- Spain's coolest barrio, says someone.
- An interesting bit of Spain's (fascinating) history.
- HT to Lenox of Business Over Tapas for the news that: There's outrage over the dismissal of 2 flamenco teachers for not having a degree: "We are the teachers who teach the teachers", they said. The Junta de Andalucía has dismissed 2 virtuoso flamenco teachers for lacking a degree that did not exist when they were originally hired’. Rules are rules, Except when they affect you and you don't like them . . .
- The police have stopped a driver doing 221kph(137mph) on the A8 near Vilalba. But at least he was going down the correct side if the autovía. So not actually one of our rather numerous kamikazes.
- Japan is not alone; Galicia is on the alert for 'intensive rains'. Not a lot new there
- The USA - a true federal state - has one working language. The quasi-federal EU has 24. It can't make things easier. And, with Brexit looming, it's hard to envision the EU ever going with only English, even if it is the world's lingua franca.
- We live in a golden age of workplace narcissism. This thought occurred to me earlier in the week when I caught 10 minutes of The Apprentice. It is fashionable these days to say that you have not watched the programme in years [or, in my case, never.] But what struck me is that the show is now more relevant than ever. We live in the world of The Apprentice. . . . Those of us who are not narcissists will just have to accept that we live in an age of unchained ego and that the meek will not be inheriting the earth any time soon. See the full article below.
- Déjà vu? . . . In Donald Trump, the most important office in the world is occupied by an individual whose defining — and perhaps only — qualities are narcissism and ego. He is literally Mr Apprentice.
- This will come as absolutely no surprise to learners of Castellano . . . It’s not just a perception but a scientific fact that Spaniards speak faster on average than English speakers. More here.
- More satnav/GPS nonsense on Thursday. Leaving Liverpool for Heald Green, it eschewed my usual route and directed me further north and then south from the Manchester outskirts. Five minutes after passing my normal turn off from the M62, it told me it had 'found a route which will save you 10 minutes' and suggested I went back to the turn I'd normally have taken. Irritating. But, as I've said, it does come in very handy sometimes. Smooth with the rough.
- I discovered yesterday that a Scots Gaelic site about Pontevedra cites my (ancient) web page. Fame at last!
- I'm not a true rugby fan but the current World Cup has been stupendous so far, with great performances from the 'minnows'. But as of today, there's going to be cancelled matches because of an approaching typhoon, and quite a lot of people are unhappy about what this will mean in terms of points attributed and passage to the next round.
- Having noted that totals of a few months ago have been at least doubled since the day after the post, I continue to be confused by Google's reporting of hits to this blog. Looking at this, I noted one post of last year which had 4,263 visits. Possibly because it referred to a spam message headed FUCK YOU!!!. Which suggests today's will be quite high too.
You have a gargantuan ego and total disregard for others . . . you’re hired: Rhymer Rigby, a journalist and author.
We live in a golden age of workplace narcissism. This thought occurred to me earlier in the week when I caught ten minutes of The Apprentice. It is fashionable these days to say that you have not watched the programme in years. But what struck me is that Lord Sugar’s show is now more relevant than ever. We live in the world of The Apprentice.
From 2009 to 2013 I wrote a careers advice column. During that time I probably trotted out the line that being a narcissist at work is a bad thing at least a dozen times. Basically, don’t be an Apprentice contestant. Reader, I was wrong. Totally wrong. I now see that one of the best ways to get ahead at work is to focus on your own needs and worry a lot less about everyone else’s.
You can hardly ignore the evidence for this. With Boris Johnson, the most important job in the country is held by a man whose breathtaking self-regard is matched only by his disregard for others. And with Donald Trump, the most important office in the world is occupied by an individual whose defining — and perhaps only — qualities are narcissism and ego. He is literally Mr Apprentice.
You might argue that politics is a special case. But the business world is full of go-getting narcissists too. You only have to look at the likes of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to see that an ego of gargantuan proportions is pretty much a prerequisite for modern-day technology titans. Of course, this is not an entirely modern phenomenon: in the 1920s Henry Ford built an “ideal city” in the middle of the Brazilian jungle and named it Fordlândia. You don’t do this without a healthy dollop of self-love, do you? Even so, the prevalence of ego today is something else.
Personally I count the dot.com boom as the start of the modern era of workplace narcissism. It popularised the idea of the heroic chief executive-entrepreneur who was going to change the world. This was recognised by the American psychoanalyst and anthropologist Michael Maccoby in his 2003 book The Productive Narcissist. Crucially, as the title suggests, Maccoby did not think narcissism was all bad. Writing in Harvard Business Review he noted: “Productive narcissists have the audacity to push through the massive transformations that society periodically undertakes.”
Given its prevalence, the idea that narcissism may have upsides at work is an appealing one. Sure, narcissists can be irritating and annoying, but who among us has not worked with a capable, talented colleague who shuns the limelight and thought: “I love it that you’re not a God-awful self-promoter but honestly you could really learn something from those God-awful self-promoters”?
The good news here is that you do not have to be a platinum-tier narcissist like Elon Musk to benefit from a bit of self-love. A study published last year by an international team led by Kostas Papageorgiou at Queen’s University Belfast suggests that narcissism has positive aspects. Dr Papageorgiou said: “People who score high on subclinical narcissism may be at an advantage because their heightened sense of self worth may mean they are more motivated, assertive and successful in certain contexts.” Indeed many of the attributes the study associated with narcissism, such as “mental toughness” and “the ability to perform at their very best in pressured and diverse situations”, sound like a checklist from a job advert.
Other studies have focused on different types of narcissism. Randall Peterson, of the London Business School, has examined the difference between “agentic” and “communal” narcissists. The former are often negative in their impact but the latter, whose narcissism is rooted in traits such as being the most helpful member of a group, can have upsides for businesses. Professor Randall says that organisations need to select “the right type of narcissist”.
Those who wish for a return to less ego-driven times may be hoping in vain. In 2009 Jean Twenge and W Keith Campbell published The Narcissism Epidemic, which talks about a massive generational shift towards self-admiration. Worse still, this was before social media took off and influencers made narcissism in its pure form a viable career option. Recently naked self-promotion has even made it to the once staid world of Linkedin. If you are curious there’s a Twitter account — @stateoflinkedin — that consists of curated braggadocio from the professional network.
One glimmer of hope is to be found in a recently published paper entitled You’re Still so Vain; Changes in Narcissism from Young Adulthood to Middle Age. This suggests that narcissism declines as we get older. Even so, as I read the findings I found myself recalling interviewing Jeff Bezos in the early 2000s. At the time he struck me as pretty normal but today’s Jeff, with his pumped muscle physique, spaceships and recent divorce, strikes me as considerably more narcissistic than the online bookseller I spoke to almost 20 years ago. And that is before we get to the likes of Mr Trump.
I suspect that those of us who are not narcissists will just have to accept that we live in an age of unchained ego and that the meek will not be inheriting the earth any time soon. If we want to get ahead in our careers we need to find ways of coping with narcissists. We need to work with the good points, such as charm, drive and resilience, and ignore or mitigate the downsides. We need to learn what we can from productive narcissists such as Mr Bezos and avoid the destructive ones such as Mr Trump. We need to become just narcissistic enough because, like it or not, we are all Apprentices now.
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