He asked about my work and when I told him excitedly about the SIU, he suggested I get “a proper job” and not one involving “trying to knit yoghurt”. I had a sense of what he meant by this but sought clarity. He confirmed what I thought and suggested the work of the SIU wasn’t real. To summarise his thoughts – dirty hands whilst working+immediate gain = good; policy/strategic/academic work+medum to long-term gain = bad.
I suggested to my friend that Einstein’s E=MC2 would fit into his concept of ‘yoghurt knitting’ as well as the nucleus of almost every other everyday activity, object and gadget we use to make our lives a little easier.
The wider impact of this position on policy work is interesting. When the Coalition Government recently went to war on the civil service, the underlying thought was that those civil servants made redundant should establish social enterprises, but to do what?
The SIU has some excellent work planned and can deliver outstanding results locally by drawing upon national and international good practice, and we’ve planted some work seeds that will take a little time to come to fruition and we’re confident that these will have a lasting positive impact but we only do this by being in the ‘yoghurt knitting’ business. The difficulty arises from the attitude of people, like my friend, who see no value or worth in what we're trying to do. It's obvious to me that our professional roles are symbiotic so how can we ensure everybody understands that?
So, I take my stance in defence of yoghurt knitters everywhere – without us, my friend wouldn’t have the ladders he needs to do his work because their genesis was possibly the result of someone ‘yoghurt knitting’.
Andrew Lee
Co-Managing Director
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