tim's experiment

Well I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or throw up. We’ve seen some rum stuff in the Post lately but the piece of the front page of the City section today plumbed new depths. Our top politicians must take a break to stay on track, said the headline. “All work and no play” lifestyle of government’s two top jobholders are a cause for concern, said the second deck.

The only new piece of information in this story was that Carrie Lam has lost weight. Ms Lam has “revealed”, we were told, that the weight loss stemmed from lack of sleep. This is scientifically rather unlikely and Ms Lam is not a doctor. But we did not linger over this, “The number two in this busy city, Lam has been seen almost everywhere of late”, burbled author Tammy Tam, carelessly implying that working in a busy city makes you busier, which is also rather unlikely.

We then got a list of Ms Lam’s more public obligations since July: national education row, plastic pellet disaster (sic), Kai Tak sports complex non-cancellation and negotiating with school principals over class sizes. This does not seem excessive for five months. But Ms Lam has also “made public appearances almost every weekend”.

People close to Ms Lam now appear, suggesting that earlier quotes from this source were second hand. They told the South China Morning Post, apparently, that Ms Lam had lost 9kg by not sleeping. This does not add up. You lose weight by not eating. Not sleeping produces madness, not thinness. Ms Lam needs to start eating and sleeping.

But wait, there was more tearjerking stuff to come. Ms Lam was sometimes (another secondhand quote, attributerd to students) lonely in her mansion on the Peak. Goodness. Only the resident servants to talk to. Her husband and son are in the UK. Well Ms Lam’s domestic arrangements are her own business but I do not recall having your husband exiled was a condition of the job. Many Hong Kong people endure this sort of separation. Including me. Skype helps.

Having wrung our withers with the plight of Ms Lam, we were now treated to the even more heartbreaking circumstances of the Chief Executive, whose “routine of non-stop work is more or less similar to Lam’s”. Mr Leung apparently started working seven days a week even before he was elected. He had five days off in August, a factlet which runs over three paragraphs. Then he was “Back to the super-hot kitchen of his government headquarters” where he is immersing himself and luckless officials in “deep-rooted” problems such as housing and poverty.

Our scribe then provides some healthy advice, including the observation that Ms Lam, who will be visiting the UK this week, should spend some time with her family. Gosh, I bet that never crossed her mind.

The piece closes with a rather ominous paragraph suggesting that the overworked twosome will have to “get the pulse of the latest Hong Kong policy from Beijing’s new leadership to prepare the city for a smoother implementation of the one country two systems”. Not sure what that means. Actually I am not sure what the whole piece means. It reads like Barbara Cartland crossed with Han Suyin. Leung is a many-splendoured thing.

Let us, however, add a few small details to this heartrending picture of overwork and lack of sleep. First of all, nobody is forced to take these jobs. Lam and Leung were not hustled onto a plane like the gentleman who was sent to Libya with his family to help the local secret police with their inquiries. Mr Leung tried particularly hard to get his new job — a bit too hard for some of us. One of those magical moments in Hong Kong’s legal history came when a judge commented that Leung’s criticism of Henry Tang’s basement would not be taken by other people to mean that he had no illegal structures of his own. Sorry your Lordship, but that is exactly what people would take it to mean. They would suppose that someone who criticised other people for any defect would himself be free from the same defect. Otherwise he would be a hypocrite, and if his own defect was obvious either a brazen liar or terminally stupid. Those of us who thought Mr Leung was quite bright and honest for a man of his background are entitled to be disappointed.

Secondly, people in jobs of this kind are supposed to be able to organise their workload properly. Before you can make good decisions you need to be able to prioritise, delegate and make sensible use of your time. It is a necessary part of the job to be available for public functions at weekends. Take time off on weekdays.

Thirdly, being what is effectively the mayor and deputy mayor of a “busy city” is not the most onerous job in the world. Our leaders do not have to worry about the deficit which we don’t have, or the bond markets which we don’t need, or riots against the austerity measures which we don’t need either, or Islamic terrorism, or earthquakes, or religious strife, or Iran getting the bomb, or the oil running out, or a military coup, or a Russian invasion, or protesters setting themselves on fire, or lady singers engaging in sacrilegious protests, or paedophile popstars, or plagues of locusts, swarms of venomous toads, etc, etc.  Yet they are much better paid than the people who do have to worry about some or all of these things. Mr Barack Obama, who merely leads the Free World, gets a fraction of their salaries.

And this means that, fourthly, these people are not irreplaceable. Any time the burden feels too onerous, feel free to put it down.