What follows is an experiment using Chat GPT to work as a scriptwriter.

I started with this as a prompt, to initiate a response:

You are a script writer, with an expertise in writing dialogue. Can you write a screenplay from this short story, including dialogue for the characters?

FADE IN:

EXT. GLASGOW – NIGHT

Gerry and his colleagues are drinking heavily at the office Christmas party.

GERRY: (slurring) Hey boss, you’re a f***ing miserable git.

BOSS: (offended) Excuse me? You’re fired!

GERRY: (shocked) What?! You can’t fire me!

BOSS: (angrily) Watch me!

INT. PAISLEY HOME – MORNING

Gerry wakes up in the spare room to the sound of his wife’s scream.

WIFE: (angrily) What the hell is this?!

Gerry sees that he is in bed with his much younger sister-in-law, Loreta.

GERRY: (defensive) Nothing happened, I swear!

WIFE: (skeptical) Don’t lie to me!

Loreta is too scared to speak up and corroborate Gerry’s story.

INT. AIRPORT – DAY

Gerry is boarding a plane to Germany.

GERRY: (to himself) I need to get out of here before Mario and Romolo catch up with me.

INT. BAR IN PHOENIX – NIGHT

Gerry is working as a bartender in the bar owned by Paul Gambetta.

PAUL: (to Gerry) You should try stand-up comedy. You’ve got the gift of the gab.

GERRY: (skeptical) I don’t know, Paulie. I’ve never written my own material.

PAUL: (nonchalantly) Just borrow some jokes. Who’s gonna know?

INT. TV STUDIO – DAY

Gerry is appearing on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

CRAIG: (to Gerry) These jokes sound familiar. Are you from Glasgow?

GERRY: (nervously) Uh, no. I’m from Phoenix.

CRAIG: (skeptical) Really? You sure you’re not Scottish?

Gerry breaks down and confesses to stealing the material from old-time Scottish comics.

INT. TV STUDIO – LATER

The Di Mascio brothers and the Gambetta family confront Gerry on stage.

DI MASCIO BROTHERS: (angrily) We’re gonna kill you, Gerry!

PAUL: (to the brothers) Back off, boys. He’s my client.

The Gambetta hoods arrive and attack the Di Mascio brothers.

INT. LAS VEGAS THEATER – NIGHT

Gerry is performing classic comedy routines with a modern twist.

GERRY: (to the audience) Thanks for coming out tonight. And a special thanks to Chic Murray for all the laughs.

The audience applauds and cheers.

FADE OUT.

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This is an accompanying blog to go along with my recent online Recruiter Zone show.

If you have been absorbing the headlines from the mainstream media in the past 2 weeks, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it is commonplace for employers of all types (not just the BBC) to systematically pay women around 18% less than they pay men for the same job. That they have noticed women will accept less, and are taking full advantage of that in either hiring new staff, or raising the salaries of existing male colleagues. You’d be wrong, but that just gets in the way of a good headline.

Now the issue is a very real one, and like any real-life issue is much more complex and nuanced than you might think. Simply stating that on average women in the UK earn 82% of the salary paid to men just doesn’t cut it.

Here are some real-life statistics.

• In April 2016 the gender pay gap (for median earnings) for full-time employees was 9.4%.

• When part-time employees are included, the gap decreased from 19.3 per cent in 2015 to 18.1 per cent in 2016, the largest year-on-year drop since 2010. In 1997 the gap for all employees was 27.5 per cent.
• For part-time employees separately, women are paid more on average, resulting in a “negative” gender pay gap of minus 6%. That’s right, for staff working between 10-30 hours per week, women earn (on average) more than men. But that in itself gives a skewed view of the stats.
• The composition of the male and female employee workforces are quite different, with more women working part-time than men (41 per cent and 12 per cent respectively). Because the hourly earnings of part-time employees tend to be less, on average, than the earnings of full-time employees, women are more likely to receive lower hourly rates of pay. This helps explain why the gender pay gap for all full-time and part-time employees is greater than the gender pay gap for full-time employees only.
• Investigating the difference in the gender pay gap between part-time and full-time employees by the number of paid hours worked shows that typically, more men are employed in jobs that involve working a higher number of hours, and for these jobs, it can be seen that the gender pay gap is in favour of men.
• For high earners (top decile), the gap for full-time employees has remained largely consistent, fluctuating around approximately 20 per cent (18.8 per cent in 2016).
• For low earners (bottom decile) the gap has narrowed over the long term, to 4.9 per cent in April 2016, the largest year-on-year decrease in the full-time gender pay gap for the bottom decile since records began in 1997. This is likely to be connected to the introduction of the National Living Wage, as women tend to work in lower paid occupations. For example, the lowest paid occupation group – caring, leisure and other service occupations – has a higher proportion of women working full-time. (78 per cent).
• The gender pay gap for full-time employees in the private sector decreased from 17.4 per cent in 2015 to 16.6 per cent in 2016, the lowest since the series began in 1997, continuing the long-term downward trend. The gender pay gap in the public sector has also decreased from 11.8 per cent to 11.3 per cent, continuing its longer-term trend of fluctuating around 10 to 12 per cent since 2003.
• When looking at the differences for full-time employees, the gap is relatively small up to and including those aged 30 to 39. From 40 to 49 and upwards, the gap is much wider, with men being paid substantially more on average than women.
• The gender pay gap also varies by occupation and ranges ranging from 3.9 per cent for sales (a decrease) and customer service, to 25.1 per cent (an increase) for skilled trades occupations in April 2015.

In no way could you say that the problem is solved, but we are beginning to see real progress, and perhaps now is a good time to accelerate this. For my part, I would be keen to see some or all of the following measures deployed by small and large, public and private sector organisations.

1. It would prove very messy to simply increase a large number of women’s salaries, or to decrease men’s, so harmonising of earnings must be done in a controlled logical fashion over time.
2. All measures must be communicated with the wider workforce in an easily explained way. The process should be as transparent as possible, with the end goal clear for all.
3. Truth and reconciliation. Many local authorities delayed even admitting there was a problem because they knew there would be a significant penalty when they did. The price of back pay has actually prevented them from doing the right thing sooner. Forgiveness of past inequality should help real fairness be implemented much sooner.
4. As much as is possible, organisations should offer transparency on salary levels, and staff can work within recognised bands.
5. Employers need to recognise that a policy of hiring staff for the lowest possible salary inevitably leads to inequality, which of course disrupts the workforce. Pay for the value of the job, and not according to the salary a new hire was earning before (which would simply perpetuate previous inequalities)
6. Wherever possible, instill equality of opportunity, both at the hiring stage of new trainees, and right through the organisation to the boardroom.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I believe could be a great start. Perhaps more seasoned HR professionals would think me naïve, but I believe we are all entitled to an opinion on this.

KNOWING THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING, AND THE VALUE OF NOTHING

Debate has raged online this week amongst recruiters about the efficacy (and moral right) of employers demanding to know a candidate’s salary history as part of the hiring process. Not only do they want the question answered, but they want undeniable proof, in case a sneaky applicant tries to pull a fast one.

There are two reasons for doing this. The first is due to ignorance; they have always asked for this information, but cannot really justify why. The second reason is much more alarming. It’s that they cannot trust their own judgement when assessing a candidate’s worth, but seek instead to rely on the judgement of other employers, and hiring decisions made months, or sometimes years ago.

This admission of ineptitude is of course wrapped up in the perceived inalienable rights of employers to know every detail of the goddamn truth, and then use it to negotiate the best deal possible for their organisation. The thinking here is that if IBM were willing to pay you £100k per annum, then you must be worth £100k per annum, or at least be in that vicinity. At no point is anyone suggesting we should call IBM and ask if this individual represented good value for money, or even stunk the place out. The mere fact that he or she has a pay slip with that figure is seen as the equivalent as a certificate from a surveyor valuing a property.

If I was buying a house, priced at £300k, and discovered that it had been previously bought for £100k, would I begrudge the profit of the current seller, or consider the value of the property on its merits, and compared with similar homes in the area? The sensible answer of course, is the latter.

So should an employer seriously use the current salary of a candidate as a benchmark for a new job offer? Or instead, should they consider their own valuation of the candidate for this role against whatever salary the applicant says they want or need?

As we already know, remaining with an employer can mean your income stagnates, when compared to those who switch employers regularly. New staff may join your firm on higher rates of pay, but with less experience and ability of current staff. They held out for more money, and your employer felt compelled to pay it, without extending the same to existing employees.

However, I say that it’s bullshit to refer to the increased salary with a new company as a raise. It’s a fresh start, not a continuation of employment, and the worth of the candidate should be considered on its merits, and what the company know the job to be worth.

Please also bear in mind that higher paid individuals who are willing to accept a lower salary for the right job, are very often excluded on that grounds that the job is (perceived as) obviously beneath them, and they will leave as soon as a better offer appears. Employers, whilst always looking for a bargain, can be extremely suspicious when one appears, and hiring managers fear for their own job if they hire someone who previously earned more than them. Yes, it is stupid, but yes, it does happen.

So should an employer still fish for that information on current and previous salary history (whether legal or not)? On balance, I’d say yes, but on these conditions.

1. The current salary of an individual is not the sale price sticker or accurate valuation of their worth
2. What this individual negotiated in the past, is not necessarily what they want or need today.
3. The headline salary of an individual rarely gives the full picture. Other tangible benefits are a crucial part of the equation.
4. There are a great many intangible benefits or to working for a company, such as prestige, training, mentorship etc
5. There are often huge costs associated with working in most jobs, including the costs of commuting, time away from home on business, reputational damage in working for a small player (even for a larger salary).
6. At different points in a person’s career, they will place more (or less) importance on cash salary, and their work / life balance. This should be considered seriously.

Let’s face it, employers always want a bargain. Recruiting a £70k employee for only £60k is terrific, but could be storing up problems for the future, just as much as paying over the odds would. The answer is not to avoid or disregard information on salary, but to be much more open and candid about it. Employers are scared that this will cost them more money, but I disagree. In fact, I would urge as many workplaces as possible to be transparent about salaries within their company too.

If a hiring manager really wants to know your current salary, ask him to show you his first – and his payslip.

Imagine a world where advertising is a delight, spam email was a treat, and unsolicited approaches via social media were always welcome. Believe it or not, that’s precisely what the people and companies marketing to you are hoping to achieve. Not that you are an undiscerning moron, who knows no better, but rather that despite you being a busy person, whose time is valuable, that their targeting has been so pin-point accurate, you greet their every message with unsurpassed glee.

OK, so maybe that kind of thinking is a fantasy, but seriously, that is their goal. They really, really do not want to waste your time, and their money on poorly targeted marketing that is disregarded, avoided, and that offends those who receive it. That situation is negative marketing, and the very opposite of what they want.

I never watch adverts on TV. I go out of my way to avoid being advertised to. I flip the channels before they even start, and sometimes even avoid whole channels because of the volume of advertising they try to subject me to. I really cannot remember seeing any TV adverts for the last 20 years. (advertisers hate the remote control) Yet most people accept the reality of advertising, and glumly sit through 5 minutes of pitching, whilst waiting for their show to start again – and the inevitable recap, as the break was so long, they have forgotten the plot to Game of Thrones or CSI.

Being the guy that runs a mile from any form of advertising, it turns out that I am that particular demographic that is either advert blind, ad-resistant, or ad-blocking. Yet I am also a person who loves to spend money on particular things, and would be happy to see targeted adverts for them.

Many of the world’s largest Internet companies, like Google and Facebook, rely heavily on advertising to finance their online empires.  But that business model is increasingly coming under threat, with one in five smartphone users, or almost 420 million people worldwide, blocking advertising when browsing the web on smart phones. That represents a 90 percent annual increase, according to a new report from PageFair, a start-up that helps to recoup some of this lost advertising revenue, and Priori Data, a company that tracks smartphone applications.

So how could advertiser’s deliver better messages to prospective consumers in a way that delights, instead of offends? Simple, they need to know us really well, and recognise us as such wherever we are (physically and virtually).

Knowing who we are has been a central and scientifically defined art for the past 50 years. But even still, given the number of markers we leave as clues to our personalities and preferences in thousands of actions every day, an extremely accurate picture can be built. Not only of what we like to do and spend money on, but how and when we like to do it. On top of that, it is now possible to disseminate how we prefer to be sold to, based on our personality type.

Knowing where we are at the point of message delivery is relevant to, and useful for countless media, including bill boards in the street, on our personal devices, on screens in our homes (even in specific rooms), via our social media channels, and even separating our work and personal emails.

Years ago I pitched an idea that seemed crazy at the time. How about Amazon gave away a free 50 inch smart TV with every Amazon Prime Membership? The only condition being that openly stated that they would collect data on your choices and preferences, and marry that to your activity on your Amazon shopping account, your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media accounts, perhaps even sharing that with additional apps that managed your grocery shopping, and utility bills.

With the immense expanse of data gathered, I bet they could know you (and members of your family) so well that they could accurately serve adverts that were entertaining, educational, informative and welcome. More especially for the advertisers, they would work and deliver actual converted sales.

So when Amazon offers you a free TV, you know what’s going on. Me? I’d grab it with both hands!

For most of the last 2 hours I have laughed so hard, I had tears rolling down my cheeks. Interspersed with that, I had more tears, or at least the threat of them, that I manfully tried to blink off.

As you may well know, I love stand-up comedy. Just in the last week I’ve been to see Richard Herring and Greg Proops (in separate shows) at the Citizens Theatre, as part of the Glasgow International Comedy Festival. So here’s what I need to confess, whilst I have seen her on stage several times before, tonight I saw Janey Godley perform her full set for the first time. Why on earth has it taken me so long? Yes, I know, I’m an idiot.

Performed at Oran Mor, in Glasgow’s West End, the venue is within walking distance of Janey’s front door, and is as much of a home gig as it’s possible to have (or the also very near Stand Comedy Club). I love all types of stand-up comedy, and yes there are a great many styles and variations on the theme, and often find myself watching very clever wordplay and political satire. More than anything though, I just wish these guys (and they are mostly guys) were as funny as they are clever. Finding clever-funny, and falling-off-the-couch-breathless-funny is sadly very rare indeed.

Well, listen you here to me; Janey Godley is thunderously hilarious, disarming fragile, worryingly scary, and brutally honest. But above all, Janey Godley is the funniest comedian I have seen in a very long time. No qualification is necessary – not just the funniest woman, or funniest Glaswegian, but outrageously funny full stop. She won’t like me saying this, but only Billy Connolly has had this effect on me before.

Janey sometimes says that whilst non-Scots find her storytelling in that uniquely Glaswegian way to be all the more comical, fellow Scots simply see her as telling it like it is, like any other Glasgow wummin. Whilst she’s not wrong about the former, I reckon she hits a very particular chord with Glaswegians like me. More than anyone, Janey personifies the character of Glasgow; dramatic, pure gallus, tragic, disarmingly open and heartfelt, generous and immensely funny. Put simply, Janey IS Glasgow.

I shan’t attempt to repeat any of her material, but as she took us from one heart-breaking tale to the next outrageously hilarious story, she had the audience absolutely with her all the way, laughing hysterically, gasping and crying (but mostly laughing). At the very end, immediately after leaving us on a comedic high, Janey closed by reminding us how close to the surface her own emotions were, and how cathartic her comedy was for her own life. In doing so, she brought a roar of applause from the audience, whilst simultaneously pulling a wee tear from all of us in the room. I was moved, and the wet faces I saw as the lights went up told me I wasn’t alone.

Do yourself a favour. Make a point of tracking down Janey Godley as soon as possible at a comedy club near you. If you can, make the effort to see her at the upcoming Edinburgh Festival in August.

PS. Janey is ALL OVER social media, on Facebook, Twitter, Periscope, and produces her weekly podcast with her daughter (and also comedian) Ashley Storrie. You can also buy her best-selling autobiography here.

Only very occasionally do we experience what it’s like for a work colleague to die unexpectedly. And yet, even when it does happen more than a few times, it always feels new and raw, and even quite bizarre (as well as all the usual emotions, of course). Early in my recruitment career, I had three such instances, which have strongly influenced my thinking in many ways. These are those stories, as accurately as I can remember them. I apologise for any inaccuracies.

In 1991 (if I recall correctly), David (I shan’t mention his surname) was employed as the Edinburgh branch manager for Search Consultancy. I knew David as a previous colleague in HMS recruitment a couple of years before, and he was a hugely popular and funny guy, if a little caustic with his humour.  David had recently become the father of twins, and appeared to be doing well at work. Unfortunately, behind this David had money problems, and owed cash to the wrong kind of people. It was discovered that money had gone missing from the office petty cash, and David was given a warning. Sadly when it was discovered again, David knew he would be shown the door – and he was. Whilst I don’t know every detail, I understand he left the office, had a few drinks before taking the train to Falkirk, left that station platform and lay down on the track. Police notified the office soon after, and everyone was universally stunned.

In 1992 Paula Young was only 21 (I believe), and was the recruiter at the very next desk to mine in Search Consultancy.  She was very good at her job, and very popular too. She had a falling out with a colleague she had been seeing, and moved back home to her parents place, in Bo’ness. On the following Monday morning the police arrived at the office to determine the driver of her Ford car. On the way to work that morning, a truck had careered off a bridge, and land flat on top of her vehicle below.  A few days later the entire company closed for the day, and everyone attended the funeral. It was a grim day at that granite church, high on the hillside overlooking the River Forth. The weather matched the mood, as we packed into the church pews. On leaving the church with the coffin, Paula’s favourite Prince song was played (Raspberry Beret). We followed the cortege to the nearby cemetery, where there appeared to be another girl who looked exactly like Paula, but with dark, not blonde hair. Her twin sister was clearly stricken with unbearable grief. I did later understand that she and Paula’s ex from Search subsequently became close, and left together, bound for Australia.

In 1993 I joined a former colleague to start a new recruitment firm, Maxwell Bruce Ltd. Bruce FitzGerald was 10 years older than I, and the majority partner, but initially it was just us two guys in a room making placements. Skip to 7 years later, and we had grown to almost 50 staff, and 2000 temporary workers assembling PC’s for IBM. On c.£12m turnover, we were making a decent profit. However, these things often do, it all fell apart, and I left acrimoniously following various legal tussles culminating in me serving a High Court injunction on Bruce and the company. I sold my shares to him for pocket change, and set off to build a new company. Cut to 2001, and after Maxwell Bruce Ltd had failed and was reborn under a similar name, Bruce died suddenly. As captain of his rugby club, he liked to keep very fit, and suffered a critical heart attack whilst on the running machine at his gym, aged only 49. On hearing the news, I must confess to being torn in my emotions. This was my business partner for many years, and whilst we were never close, I liked him a lot. However, I clearly felt robbed by the way I was forced to part with the company I had built with him. To die so young is always terrible, but I realised that I was still carrying something of a grudge.

So why do I bring up such a morbid topic now, you may well ask. Well I’ll be 50 soon, and just like those end-of-the-year review shows, it’s got me thinking. If I choose to express my age as a percentage (which I do), then I’m only 50%. I’m now older than Bruce, and expect to have the same length of time again. Having seen colleagues and friends die in tragic and sometimes bizarre circumstances, I realise that there are no guarantees in life, only in death.

When this kind of sudden event affects co-workers, it’s important to remember that everyone will try to rationalise the situation in their own way; some requiring support, and many seemingly taking it in their stride. Such traumatic events can also have the power to affect the working culture of companies too, so business managers really need to focus on ensuring the business stays on track, and all sensitivities are considered carefully.

OK, the creepy animation above may be a little inappropriate, but I like it.