The Daily Mail keeps poking the (work-shy) bear and it is GLORIOUS. On the heels of Ingrid Seward’s throwdown column about Prince William & Kate’s work-shy drama, the Daily Mail noted yesterday that William was finally back at work at the EAAA. The headline? “It’s a hard life! Prince William gets down on his hands and knees to prepare helicopter for action as he gets down to his 24th day of work this year.” My schadenfreude knows no bounds.
He’s faced criticism over his lack of royal engagements and hours at work, but after dismissing such ‘workshy’ accusations Prince William today returned to his day job for the first time in a month. The Duke of Cambridge was seen on his hands and knees as he checked over his helicopter at the East Anglian Air Ambulance base.
It is the first time he has been on duty as a helicopter pilot for the charity since mid-February, after taking time out for a family ski holiday in France and attending a number of official engagements. In the first three months of the year he is believed to have only worked 15 shifts, whilst air ambulance pilots usually work nine and a half shifts on a four-on, four-off rota. William, who is believed to have started work at 7am this morning, was seen checking the helicopter before heading into the base at Cambridge Airport to await a call out.
Prince William, who has recently been criticised as ‘workshy’, has carried out a number of official engagements over the past week. His packed schedule – which included 11 public engagements in the space of just four days – made him twice as busy as other members of the Royal family with a diary of events including investitures, church services and a TV interview.
Last week he also stepped in for wife Kate by handing out shamrocks to the troops at the St Patrick’s Day parade, an engagement believed to have brought his total days at work this year to 24. The sudden onrush of highly visible engagements for William is likely to be seen as a response to recent criticism of his workload, although Palace sources insisted that the timing was just a coincidence. Before last week, he had carried out just three official engagements since the start of 2016.
I love that it’s somebody’s job to actually double-check how many shifts/days William has worked at the EAAA. I still don’t get how “24th day of work” = 15 shifts though? Are they saying he’s worked 24 days total, with the EAAA and his royal work? I think that math might be correct – he swarmed around last week, making sure to look busy, and then he finally sauntered in to his part-time job at the EAAA and pulled his first shift in a month.
As for what counts for royal work with William and Kate in particular, I’m actually pretty clueless. I don’t have the time or the energy to check and double-check what they get to “count” as a royal event, but I do know that the rules for Will and Kate are different than the rules for other royals. The Express’s Richard Palmer noted days ago that William got to count “two internal meetings” as royal events last week. And as blogger Love Lola Heart pointed out, Will and Kate have literally been zipping through their real public appearances. They apparently only spent 20 minutes at that preventing-suicide discussion event a few weeks ago, and Kate barely spent 30 minutes at the EACH Charity shop opening last Friday. Because, you know, they’re so keen.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
Keeping poking DM – the fallout is going to be epic.
On another note, as the Invictus Games is in Disney in Florida wanna bet who turns up with their kids to steal all the press with the American media who are so in love with the Ginger Prince. I can totally see them pulling a stunt like this.
Yup. On days of special events for Charles and Harry, W&K pull some kind of PR stunt which competes with them in the news cycle. One would think that with all the time in between their own days making news by showing up to ‘work,’ W&K could hold off on pushing something out that they could have held onto until the next day or so.
” his packed schedule made him twice as busy” is bullshit. Charles and camilla did something like 74 engagements in four countries last week. William will never be that busy.
But what does he do all day? That’s what I wanna know. He doesn’t seem like he’d be interested in ANYTHING. Not even reading a book while lying in bed. Hanging out with friends? Too exhausting. Does he veg out in front of a TV?
TV and cheese crackers is what I envision. He probably has movies memorized line by line.
I think this is why he wants privacy from the media so much. He wants to hide what he does (or doesn’t do) all day, every day, in between the long stretches of finally showing up for ‘work.’
he watches football all day
I have wondered what rich people do all day too. Do they play candy crush? Do they comment on Reddit Walking Dead threads? Do they wear pajamas all day?
I think he lives in his man cave on cheese toast, avoids the phone and kids, hangs with his buds and drink, does a little bike riding, hangs with his mistress/hookers, sneaks away for holidays with said mistress/hookers, and when he’s really bored, goes out and slaughters a few hundred innocent creatures. And when he has sex with Waity, he lies back and thinks of England.
@hmmm
What you said is probably closer to the truth than anything else we’ve heard. The other thing I’d add is, avoid his clingy wife like the plague.
@Christin-
Well, he is beginning to resemble Wallace (of Wallace & Gromit) .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7rzSslub6U
So when KP say he works 20 hours a week at EAAA, they’re …. *lying* (gasp!) must be nice to take a month off whenever you want. How does that phone call go, I wonder? And that business of William working 11 engagements in 4 days (twice the number of any other royals!) Four good days in a row should be the rule, not the exception. He should be doing that every week, not once a year and the have his pr guys brag about it like William invented fire *and* the wheel. God!
Didn’t he take 4 weeks off for Christmas?
Now he takes 4 weeks off for skiing/events. So it’s not a 4 day on/4 day off; its 4 days on/4 weeks off?
Then let’s guess another 4 weeks off to prepare/recover from their 5 day tour?
I hope the EAAA is smart enough not to consider creating the employees’ work schedule with William’s participation in mind. I have a feeling that he has his staff call up the EAAA a day in advance of when he wants to come into work (with another phone call to the paps to get ‘at work’ photos).
William-connected new director of EAAA, William Cubitt. I doubt more stories about William’s lack of work ethic will make it out from the staff themselves. What we’ll get now is from the press camped out at the EAAA location to see whether or not William rolls up to work.
@ notasugarhere
If Cubitt was truly put in to protect William’s crappy work ethics at the EAAA, then whoever did this is only making things worse for William and the image of the BRF. I don’t know why the BRF or the grey men keep up this irrational strategy.
@Anne_000, they’re giving him all the rope he needs. He stamps his feet about saying he wants to do things his way – so they are letting him. They are not going to step into rescue said image as any help will be refused – personally i think that he will have to go to them and ask for that help in repairing the damage (if its still salvageable) but it will come with a price. And that price is that he and her toe the line at ALL times.
Did I miss something? How is 24 days of work when we are nearly 4 months into 2016 something to celebrate and brag about?
Its called clutching at straws.
That’s what I thought. I just didn’t know if I had missed the actual expectations and therefore the 24 days seemed lame to me. So yeah basically he’s a lazy sod.
You missed the snark.
I was still on my first cup of coffee. I have had two now! I’m back on track
well…the birth of Princess Charlotte was put on Kate´s list of royal engagements…so I am actually surprised their ski holidays as well as shopping sprees are not put on the list. They might count as royal engagements too.
Am surprised the conception, for both kids, didn’t appear on there as well.
I don’t understand the numbers and what counts as an event.
Regular working people (office type jobs) may have four or five hour long meetings per day. I assume in royal calendar speak, that would be credited as separate engagements.
jap. Their job fulfillments count not in actual days spent out working (whatever definition of the word “work” they and us might have) but in the number of engagements. It means that if they have three meetings at three different locations during one day it will count as three outings i. e. engagements.
The numbers and what constitutes work was once clearly defined.
Since these two came aboard the royal duties train, they’ve employed such workshy-itis power of avoidance that the palace has decided to call anything and everything they do work.
The Palace will occasionally apply the same method with the other royals eg internal meetings, but usually there is substance to those meetings. Not WK’s version of a meeting which is more drive by.
And i’m willing to bet that they are now only doing 20mins-35mins because they see that is what another busier royal might do. Except busier royal has 3-4appts each day, in different locations.
Recently Anne managed 5 appts in one day in 2 countries.
These 2 do one appt a day and call themselves as busy as Anne.
So much for taking on less in order to do more. Never forgetting that they don’t wish the public to have expectations of them doing events!!!!
I think it’s been reduced to any time they’re in public in their capacity as a royal so in that case her walking out of the hospital and “introducing” George and Charlotte to a wall of cameras would count. I guess that’s the only way their numbers wouldn’t look even more pathetic.
You know all those pictures of W & K with their identical head-tilt and furrowed brows at the suicide-prevention gathering last week?
A Twitterer cinfirmed they stayed 20 minutes (!!) and upon leaving, said, “We will leave you to continue the discussion”.
My God, the condescension just reeks off the pair!
And that was an event billed as an ‘afternoon of discussions privately’ implying what was to be discussed was too harrowing and or the participants didn’t want the media attention.
On the one hand, I understand the reluctance to have a discussion in the media, but on the other, perfect excuse to abandon the meeting once the photogs have their pictures.
What’s infuriating is that the media is sticking to the line of ‘day of blogging’ Which in reality was 45mins, or ‘day to highlight/discuss suicide prevention’ which in reality was about an hour split into 3 20min sessions.
To even the playing field Will& Kate should only be permitted to count days of work. Not 20 minute appearances so that they’re able to shove 6 appearances into a single afternoon. They’re such crap.
True dat!
On Twitter, someone said W & K left the suicide-prevention meeting after only 20 minutes, telling the group they were going to “leave you to continue the discussion”.
Keep poking that media bear, William, and they are going to fill in the time you aren’t working. And that’s a lot of time to fill in.
+1
Their engagements are not work … just turning up shake a few hands sit a few minutes is not work that is just meet and greet….
these two fools are the downfall of our Monarchy…
We need a republic now and kick these idiots out
DM needs a copy editor or six. Regarding the days or shifts worked, what they probably meant to say is that a shift is 9.5 HOURS and pilots work 4 days on (38 hours probably with a lunch break so call it 40) and 4 full days off. If PW worked 2 shifts per week for the first, say, 6.5 weeks then you get to about 20 hours per week and 15 shifts.
Assuming that a shift is counted as one day (i.e., he didn’t work a shift from 9 pm to 6:30 am and have it count for 2 days) then he would have worked 15 days as a pilot and 9 days as a prince. Which works out to 142.5 hours as a pilot and…10 hours? 20?…as prince. If he worked a full 40 hour workweek as prince over the first 3 months of the year, then he’s averaging about 3 hours of effort per work day at either gig.
They need to get straight whether they count engagements, days, or actual time spent doing something because it is only to PW’s benefit when the definition is blurry.
The publication Hello! says that an EAAA shift averages 8.5 hours, so 15 shifts = 127.5 hours.
At 4-on/4-off, that’s 34 hours per cycle.
If he’s working the aforementioned ’20 hrs/week,’ then he’s not doing the full 4/4 rota. Based on this figure, that’s on for 2 days + 2.5 hrs then off for 4 days, which corresponds with what commenters here have said was reported, that he doesn’t do full rotas, but only about 1/2 to 3/4.
And using the ’20 hrs/wk’ figure, that comes out to only 6.375 weeks if based on 127.5 hours.
But there’s been 13 weeks this year. Combining the first week of January with this week, let’s say there’s been about 13 full workable weeks this year.
So 6.5 weeks is only half this year. So that ’20 hrs/wk’ figure should actually be about 10 hours per week.
So, 10 hrs/wk at 13 full weeks = 130 hrs, or about 2.5 hrs more than 127.5 hrs.
’13 full workable weeks this year’ should be ’12 full workable weeks this year.’
So 10 hrs/wk at 12 full weeks = 120 hrs, which is 7.5 hrs less than 127.5 hrs.
To put those numbers in context:
– 13 weeks of work for people who work the usual 40 hour week = 520 hours.
– his colleagues working 4 on & 4 off should have logged 340 hours.
– if he logged 127 hours, then you would have worked 410% more than he did.
I think the easiest way to look at it is this: 81 days in 2016 up until yesterday. So colleagues will average out at 40.5 shifts. He has done 15.
When they announced the “about 20 hours” thing, it was to give the impression that he would do half a week as an air ambulance pilot and half a week as a royal, thus making a full time schedule.
Instead, he barely touches the royal stuff and does 35% of a working week at EAAA, not the 50% he intimated he’d be doing.
I think what is happening is this: if William has nothing on in a particular week (see hmmm above for how he spends his time) he pulls the week of shifts at EAAA. Then they don’t see him for a month. Or two months. I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason to it, which is why nobody can work out the hours. He just does a rotation pattern once in a while.
Sixer, I think he stays drunk between flights!!!
All I have to say is MOAR HARRY!
HONK
Honk!!!
God help me, but I look at that header picture and the first image that pops into my mind is one of an overripe ( on the verge of mushy) melon of some sort. Honeydew? Cantaloupe?
Cantaloupe look with watermelon shape?
He’s got the unfortunate combination of Windsor features on the Spencer head – see his grandpa Johnnie spencer….same big egghead and jaw.
I think that the EAAA job was flex time job all along, and these days that is not an unusual thing. I also think that it was expected that there would be days if not weeks of William having few and even no shifts in order for William to carry out certain royal duties like a foreign tour. However I think that normal but caring royal William thought that he had a “left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing” situation and took a lengthy break from both royal work and helicopter piloting to live out the country gentleman life of house parties and shooting and got busted.
I don’t think that there is anything wrong with William wanting to live in the country and enjoying country life. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with William having a civilian job and being a part time royal, in theory, assuming that the head honchos, i.e., the Queen and Charles approve. However William has to realize and accept that he cannot always control the narrative, and that his own actions are going to cause the “normal guy” and “caring and modern royal” images to get challenged.
There is no such thing as a “part-time” royal in the BRF. They are taking the perks of senior royals, they should do the work of senior royals. At age 33, with the rest of the Family Firm aging, ill, and past retirement? If he wants to live the life of a country gentleman, he needs to give back all of the royal perks, remove himself and his kids from the line, and support himself.
There have been numerous part-time working royals past and present particularly royals who have been serving in the military.
The Queen and Prince Charles are the “chief executives” and hold the purse strings and are the ones who should hold accountable the members of “the Firm” that they fund, and they (the Queen and Prince Charles ) should have to answer for how they manage “the Firm.”
Isn’t he the first royal to actually have a paying job though? I know he donates his salary to charity, but what is his actual salary if anyone knows? I do think he and his wife should be doing a lot more charity work. I mean how hard is it to show up and smile, take some pics and shake some hands? They have such a huge platform. I don’t understand what their problem is? At this point, they are going to make a horrible King and Queen. Harry would do a much better job I think. It’s ridiculous that the taxpayers of Britain have to pay for this lifestyle. They are serving no real purpose.
How much salary could he possible even get when he works so little? Yet another nonchalant disrespect of a charity by William – and as far as I know no name of this supposed charity has been declared- so do we know for sure that Normal Bill is donating his “salary”?
Nope, that would be Prince William of Gloucester. Older deceased brother of the current Duke of Gloucester. Incidentally, the person William is named after and also really resembles. Died in 1972 at 30yrs old.
He worked in the civil service and as an investment banker as well as carrying out royal duties as needed.
And actually, there is some debate whether he was truly the first since his uncle, Prince George, Duke of Kent ( George 6’s younger brother) Worked for the RAF rising to rank of captain before being appointed briefly as GG of Australia, new post he didn’t take up due to 2nd world war.
Of the top branch of the royal family, we can’t forget Andrew and Harry’s time. Or Charles. And Edward with his production company.
Or the Yorkies, Zara, Anne and her Olympic career.
William is trying to fool everyone into thinking he is reinventing th wheel.
Edward and Sophie for awhile too. Sophie did more engagements per year when she still had a company to run on the side than Middleton has ever done in a year.
Anne has Gatcombe to run and keep afloat which is like having another job, although a lot of that may fall to Tim. It used to be Mark’s job to run the estate.
Fascinating. Thanks for the info guys !
Interesting to know yet another thing where they have misled people.
They don’t simply show up cut a ribbon shake hands and leave. There’s some planning and they have to have some knowledge of the charity they are visiting. People’s expectations are so unrealistic and the comments regarding these two unfair.
Come on, Maggie, really?? Are you just messing with us??
Ok, I’ll agree, for an event, kate needs to get her hair blown out, she must have gone shopping for her new clothes, and she needs to get her trowel out to put her make-up on. That takes time. But to have knowlege?? She continually makes a fool of herself with her lack of knowledge!! And he is just as bad.
“I am a Prince.”
“I don’t have time to work and who knows what royal works is anyway.”
You must just be pulling our legs. Right?? I can’t imagine defending these two lazy fools.
There is much to speculate, but I feel certain they only dress up and show up. Someone else does the heavy lifting regarding briefing them and supplying speaking points. They are not having to research information or coordinate the details — there is a paid minion to do that.
That’s how it works in private business. The executives show up. Someone else has done the detailed work and supplied a presentation and/or talking points for them.
Planning that other people do. Briefs that probably happen in the car on the way there. Not to mention, Will & Kate have literally been showing up to their engagements, getting in the photo ops, then turning around and leaving.
Jib,
I believe you answered your own questions.
it depends on your definition. The previous Duke of Cambridge was a career military officer as was the Duke of Connaught, Victoria’s son. They were actual and not honorary officers and drew salary. Also the previous Duke of Edinburgh. The first royal to go into private sector work (in a bank) was the former Prince Alexander of Battenberg later the Marquess of Carisbrooke. This was after the war and the titles deprivation in 1917. But he’s still listed in books as the first member of the royal family Togo into private sector employment. Prince George, Duke of Kent worked in the Foreign and Home offices in the 1930s, the first royal to work as a civil servant.