This column began as a Powerpoint, and then suffered a midlife crisis

This article was published today in The National UAE.

Thirty five is the new forty five. And not in a good way. It's the new age for a mid-life crisis.  This social passage was once reserved for us to 'enjoy' in our late forties and fifties. It was triggered as thoughts of status, achievement and being 'over the hill' along with imminent retirement and death came to the fore. We can now worry about all those same issues, and dabble in the usual expressions of midlife insanity sooner than we thought.  Isn't 21st century life fabulous?

My husband assures me that when he does reach this new and improved milestone, he is not planning to grow a ponytail, buy a fast car or find a younger woman. I have told him that I'm not worried about excessive rock-star wannabe hair growth. A sharp implement like pair of scissors or a large meat cleaver in the middle of the night can fix that.  And if he buys a sports car, then I'm likely to follow suit. And as for any female distractions, well, my husband has been given fair warning to banish even any remote thought of this that he may harbour.

According to a study by Relate, a UK-based charity with 70 years experience in supporting relationships, people aged 35 – 44 are the unhappiest in society. Work, money and loneliness are the key factors.

Nearly a third of 35 to 44-year-olds said they had left a job because of a bad relationship with a colleague, (a pedantic slave-driver type boss?) with a similar amount thinking their family relationships would improve if they worked less.

I think the stuffy boss who makes you do complicated and time-consuming work that is completely pointless, is a big factor in this misery. And for office workers, such bosses have an additional torture instrument at their disposal: the demand for useless powerpoint presentations.

Have you ever written a 24 month company strategy in powerpoint? I have. You can only write about 25 to 50 words on one page. The result is that one of your company's most serious documents looks like a children's book.

I used to fight the good fight and insist that strategy documents were written in Word, so that complex ideas could be properly communicated.

The Demanding Boss would say unhelpful things like: "If it can't be said on one slide, then it's not worth saying." Or, "CEOs only have a 15 second attention span. If they can't grasp the powerpoint picture, then you've lost them." And if you can make the pretty pictures whoosh in and out of the slide with clever animations and sound effects, then you can be sure that the company will be saved, product prices will go up and bonuses will be assured. That is of course as long as you – the office slave who has nothing else to do least of all go back to a loving family and a comforting home –  work over the weekend to put together a 100 slide presentation in yet another different template issued by the branding team. Don't forget to include all that clever whooshing.

To be honest, compared to constructing that tome of animated slides, a midlife crisis suddenly sounds very appealing.

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