In order to make ends meet at the moment I work behind a bar.
I enjoy the job. It's minimum wage, minimum responsibility. It fits in pretty well with being a part-time student and with me starting up my own business. It provides me with a bit of stable income and it's casual so I can (to some extent) dictate how often I work.
The hours are obviously anti-social and the work is rarely intellectually stimulating but so long as I'm busy that's the least of my worries. I'm fortunate because the shifts aren't back-breakingly long. Ultimately I guess I'm there out of choice and (sorry team!) I don't imagine that I'll be there forever.
That's probably not the case if you work in an Amazon warehouse. But to be fair, I really don't know.
What I do know is that menial work seems to be very unpopular in this country.
I was working with a woman from Ireland last night who was pretty damning in her critique of the English work ethic. She feels there is a tendency in this country to talk more about the work that needs doing rather than actually get on and do it. She said she'd noticed that the phrases used in relation to work are pretty passive, e.g. 'I'll give it a go', 'I'll see what I can do'....
It's a point of view, rather than a definitive condemnation of course. But I'm interested, reading the Amazon 'expose' on the BBC website earlier today, to understand what it is we actually want in this country in terms of work. According to the article Amazon have invested £1bn in the country and created 5,000 new permanent jobs. We want work, right? Just not that kind of work I guess.
A dear friend of mine believes that this country is being run down precisely in order that it can become the packing factory of the west. He may well be right. Although for my money I think that credits 'the powers that be' with more control and ability to direct things than I suspect they really have.
My trouble is this - we (collectively as a nation) want 'stuff' for hardly any money at all. And that's the root of the issue.
We're happy to pay two pounds for a tee-shirt, to buy one-get-one-free at the supermarket or to buy our books and whatnot online significantly cheaper than we can at the bookstore down the road but then, on the other hand, we think it's outrageous if people (in our own country...) are being made to work ten and a half hour shifts and walk eleven miles (which by the way is the extreme rather than the median measurement) during their working day/night.
Here's the thing. Every cheap item of clothing or jewellery or food that you buy I can promise you someone somewhere down the supply chain got shafted. They may or may not live or work in this country but that doesn't mean they are not being done over and in a way that is equal to or much worse than working in conditions which 'increase the risk of mental illness'.
I'm not saying it's okay the way that Amazon workers are treated. I'm not saying it's okay to live in a country which accepts that there is a distinction between a 'minimum wage' and a 'living wage', but I am saying that whilst we buy cheap all of us are buying into and condoning a system which is doing people over. Globally.
So, workers of the world unite?
Well, yes. But whilst we're at it could somebody please work out an economic plan in which the world functions without it being that we simply push out all the work we disapprove of being passed onto another nation, another person, elsewhere in the world....?
Showing posts with label BBC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BBC. Show all posts
Monday, 25 November 2013
Monday, 21 October 2013
The Stigmatism of Loneliness in the UK
A BBC poll last week suggested that half the adults in the UK experience a significant sense of loneliness some or all of the time.
A blog was posted on facebook several times last week by various friends of mine. '7 Ways to be Insufferable on Facebook' was as dull and cynical as it sounds. And long. Really long.
A blog was posted on facebook several times last week by various friends of mine. '7 Ways to be Insufferable on Facebook' was as dull and cynical as it sounds. And long. Really long.
To summarise, 'waitbutwhy' suggested that there were seven deadly 'status' sins committed on facebook. People posting these statuses were categorised as being motivated by one or more of the following: narcissism, image crafting, the wish to induce jealousy, attention seeking/craving and loneliness.
I felt quite sad at this categorisation of people, especially the sense of criticising people for being lonely.
Listening to Clare Balding's Good Morning Sunday show on Radio 2, she raised the issue that being alone is stigmatised in the UK. This is strange given that a third of us now live alone, whether through choice or circumstance.
My mum was widowed when she was in her mid 50s. She married my dad when she was 19. She had no idea how to exist without her other half. I don't mean she wasn't socially and economically capable but emotionally, spiritually her heart wasn't in it. What was the point if my dad wasn't there.
It took her nearly ten years to get the point, to get comfortable with living again.
She felt the stigma of being a woman on her own. She felt people weren't interested, as if her right to exist was now called into question. With bereavement comes the sense of being a burden on everyone.
She found a route through her loneliness, which involved all the things that make up life for everyone - through friends, through family, through a job, activities in the local community, through radio and television.
I lived with my mum for a few months a couple of years ago. My head was full of my own exciting and changing life. I would run in and out of the house much like teenagers are fabled to do only probably with more attitude, cos, like, I'm an adult right?
One evening I was dashing through the house, running to get a cuppa and go to my room to log back on and respond to some emails that my 'important' job 'needed' me to attend to when I suddenly stopped. I got us both drinks and sat down on the sofa opposite mum.
She looked shocked that I didn't have to go do something else. She looked pleased that I had chosen to sit down and chat, to ask questions, to engage with her as a friend, keen to know her thoughts and share opinions.
Our relationship changed that day. There was something in that look, in the almost grateful reaction to my having the time that provided an unflattering mirror on myself.
I'm still pretty rubbish at being at and staying in touch with my family and my friends, especially face to face, but I know how important it is and I strive to be better at it.
We're sociable creatures, even the more solitary ones amongst us, and loneliness is not something we should be criticising people for. Maybe people making those 'sinful' facebook status updates want attention, maybe they are lonely, maybe they feel they've failed in life and want to show a better image of themselves.
I'm not sure why showing it on facebook is any different really to demonstrating those things in real life, barring the medium. That and the fact you've accepted their friend request/the ability to see everything that is posted on their wall. In which case, who really is the narcissist?
I felt quite sad at this categorisation of people, especially the sense of criticising people for being lonely.
Listening to Clare Balding's Good Morning Sunday show on Radio 2, she raised the issue that being alone is stigmatised in the UK. This is strange given that a third of us now live alone, whether through choice or circumstance.
My mum was widowed when she was in her mid 50s. She married my dad when she was 19. She had no idea how to exist without her other half. I don't mean she wasn't socially and economically capable but emotionally, spiritually her heart wasn't in it. What was the point if my dad wasn't there.
It took her nearly ten years to get the point, to get comfortable with living again.
She felt the stigma of being a woman on her own. She felt people weren't interested, as if her right to exist was now called into question. With bereavement comes the sense of being a burden on everyone.
She found a route through her loneliness, which involved all the things that make up life for everyone - through friends, through family, through a job, activities in the local community, through radio and television.
I lived with my mum for a few months a couple of years ago. My head was full of my own exciting and changing life. I would run in and out of the house much like teenagers are fabled to do only probably with more attitude, cos, like, I'm an adult right?
One evening I was dashing through the house, running to get a cuppa and go to my room to log back on and respond to some emails that my 'important' job 'needed' me to attend to when I suddenly stopped. I got us both drinks and sat down on the sofa opposite mum.
She looked shocked that I didn't have to go do something else. She looked pleased that I had chosen to sit down and chat, to ask questions, to engage with her as a friend, keen to know her thoughts and share opinions.
Our relationship changed that day. There was something in that look, in the almost grateful reaction to my having the time that provided an unflattering mirror on myself.
I'm still pretty rubbish at being at and staying in touch with my family and my friends, especially face to face, but I know how important it is and I strive to be better at it.
We're sociable creatures, even the more solitary ones amongst us, and loneliness is not something we should be criticising people for. Maybe people making those 'sinful' facebook status updates want attention, maybe they are lonely, maybe they feel they've failed in life and want to show a better image of themselves.
I'm not sure why showing it on facebook is any different really to demonstrating those things in real life, barring the medium. That and the fact you've accepted their friend request/the ability to see everything that is posted on their wall. In which case, who really is the narcissist?
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