Lord Sewell proves sticking to your day job is always best

28 July 2015 by Catherine Holdsworth in Business and finance, Current events

It’s almost August and Parliament has recently broken up for the summer. Sadly, David Cameron will not be pointing at fish like he has done every year since winning the election in 2010, but never fear, one politician has gifted us a nice scandal to take us into the summer holidays. Perhaps due to the fact that things were winding down for the summer, Lord Sewell took it upon himself to spice up the news during what the business world would deem, ‘cucumber time’.

This morning Lord Sewell announced his resignation from the House of Lords. Apparently he was a UK representative to Nato, and has run for Parliament several times. But the first time he registered on most of our consciousnesses was when he was caught red (or white) handed snorting cocaine off a prostitute’s breast. Nice work if you can get it, Lord Sewell, was that in your job description?

This latest scandal to rock the British elite has got us very puzzled in the Infinite Ideas office this morning. It’s the sort of wonderment that makes us wonder ‘Is enough never enough?’ Was Lord Sewell not happy with his high-paid job, comfortable living quarters and important social status? (We’re not sure that drug-taking with a sex worker is the best way to boost social reputations but, whatever floats your boat, My Lord.)

We like to find the silver lining in everything and perhaps we can all learn something from Lord Sewell’s blunder (apart from not hooking up with prostitutes and cocaine, a combination guaranteed to get you fired unless you work for a pimp). Though Sewell would have done better to stick to the benches in the House of Lords, it’s never a good idea to mix work and pleasure. It’s all very well to have banter with your boss, but you wouldn’t want him or her to catch you coked up to your eyeballs on a night out now, would you? In the grown-up world of being over twenty-one, it’s perhaps appropriate to act accordingly. We’re not trying to ‘kill your groove’ but perhaps encourage you to take a more positive attitude to work which means you won’t be tempted to resort to the ads in a telephone booth on the weekend.

So while it’s curtains for Lord Sewell’s career, it doesn’t have to be for you. If you get far too drunk at the office summer party and tell all your co-workers about THAT trip to Malia when you were nineteen, you’ll most likely to be the laughing stock of the office. But it is unlikely to get you fired. Unless you committed arson or murder, in which case your colleagues would do well to inform the police. It’s all fine and well to enjoy the social aspect of your job, after all, you spend most of you time there, but be wary of how you come off or you may find yourself out in the cold in need of a prostitute for company.

Infinite Ideas has lots more business tips and a range of books to help you get ahead in the office as well as loads of great summer deals on books. Perhaps Lord Sewell would have done well to heed some of our advice.