AIBU to think lots of engagements are not "work"?

[babsanderson]

Just reading the Court Circular and I am struck once again by the reality that many engagements can not remotely be called work.
So just looking at January so it is clear I am not cherry picking over many months, there are the following engagements.

1. Anne went to a Dinner with the Caledonian Hunt
2. The Duke of Kent attended a carol service
3. Duchess of Gloucester, Patron, the Arts Society, today held a Meeting via telephone with Dr. Florian Schweizer (Chief Executive). So basically a phone call.
4. Anne attended lunch at the Royal Yachting Association.

It is not even the time of year to attend Film Premiers, tennis matches, football matches and theatre premiers.

And I'm sure that who-ever-it-is that you are complaining about, doesn't either

If you've ever entertained clients or manned a conference stand for a day, you definitely would say that engagements are work. It's exhausting! I'm always much more tired after doing something like that than even a stressful day at normal work

The Duchess of Gloucester is 76. The Duke of Kent is 87.

Of course they aren't doing a full week's work.

Worth remembering that the individuals named in the OP, are all 70+. Many other people wouldn't be working in any sense. They would likely be retired, or happily volunteering time to causes and charities that they wish to support. So, in that sense, it's similar.

I guess the other way of 'working' as an extended member of the Royal Family is airing your recollection of the family's dirty washing in public. And whilst you're doing that the staff who haven't walked or been sacked of your charitable foundation (which incidentally has a VERY low turnover despite the amount of work and visibility their no-longer-Royal Patrons bring) checks news "plant trees." Doesn't sound like work to me, I hope they weren't paid...

I really think MN should put a limit on the number of threads one poster can create. This is getting ridiculous now.

I hardly doubt you are in your job either

I honestly don't think @babsanderson thinks of anything else. Maybe this is what they do for a job 😂

But the working royals don’t just make one call a week either.

This OP is an expert on how staff should respond to a request/how royal staff should respond to a request/what the protocol is for requesting a tiara/family dynamics/Royal family dynamics so hardly surprising she has an opinion about what counts as 'work' if you are a member of the RF.

I hope she's not posting all these while doing what passes for work in her job.

You could say that about many occupations though. Lots where many do it for free, only the privileged few get paid.

Lottery funded athletes. Get paid to go to the gym and do something you enjoy and would do anyway.

acting. Enjoy being in a play for a few nights a week. See also dancers. Also quite often people are successful by accident of birth and who they know.

the thing about royal life I think I’d really struggle with is having to eat 3 course dinners every night, while expected to stay thin or be vilified by the press.

Meetings and business lunches and dinners are a standard part of many jobs, how can you think they aren’t? And in this case the carol concert will have involved chatting to the clergy, choir, and church management and probably a lot of stuff about fundraising, so it’s no different to having to go to a presentation.

Yes that’s work. Work is whatever your job is.

But as you do think you know better than everyone else, I am not sure why you keep starting these threads.

So it's not work unless it's heading down the coalmines?

When an actor attends a film premiere in a designer outfit, is that work?

When a model poses in exotic locations wearing expensive clothes, is that work?

Seeing as they get paid to do it and will likely be contractually obliged to be there, I'd say it is.

And making small talk with strangers, knowing you'll be under intense scrutiny the whole time, sounds like work to me.

What about posting increasingly silly and desperate threads about the royals. Is that work?

Anne seems pretty busy, the rest of them not so much

Sounds like work to me...what a chore. I do not envy them one little bit!

I was just wondering where the antelopes had got to...

This bunch of free-loading grifters need to get proper jobs, pay tax, pay their own bills, get a mortgage, have wills available for all to see and stop being the biggest benefit scrounges known to man. And while I’m at it… the British public need to learn not to be forelock tugging, subservient, daily mail influenced sheep! Now I’m off to the pub…paying with my own money!

Antelopevalley disappears, babsanderson materialises. Coincidence? I think not!

Oh look. MN has it's very own Robespierre. What a rebel.

Did your grandparents still work in their 70's or even 80's.

One grandfather did yes. My other grandfather had already died and one grandmother had dementia by her seventies.

Well, I suppose it’s ‘work’ but they’re hardly down the mines, are they?

That’s cos Thatcher closed them all.

Last seem by a girl somewhere close to Bradford.

😂