Just A Bit Of A Rant About Employment

I’ve just received confirmation that all staff will be expected back in the office, on full working hours, from the 8th of March. I guess it’s back to 90 minute, traffic hell, commutes to and from work and skipping lunch breaks because of the extra pressure to perform that being in the office brings with it. 

Now I’ve got used to it and adjusted my body clock to account for it, losing those 3 hours from my day and my 30 minute workouts over lunch are really going to hit both my mental and physical health hard. 

So much for the pandemic permanently changing office work for the better, it seems far more likely to me that it’s going to change it for the worse.

If you don’t want to read the rantings of a perpetually working class, over opinionated, generation rent, aging millennial (yes, I am currently wearing skinny jeans… fucking zoomer.) I’d suggest you stop here… Otherwise, have at it.

I might not be a business analyst, but I’ve worked in industry for a long time and have weathered many a storm and remained relatively unscathed whilst doing so. This is thanks to being quite technically minded, trying my best to be an “information sponge”, having a reasonable level of insight into how things work and being a good judge of things to come. As I see it, thanks to business closures, caused by a mixture of the government mismanaging both the pandemic and brexit, it’s going to give the surviving employers greater scope to work their employees harder than ever. Surviving employers are going to want to take advantage of diminished competition to expand their market share and claw back lost revenue, but they’re going to want to do it without increasing costs because of the long term uncertainty that brexit has caused. 

This is likely to lead to them relying on a mixture of expendable “zero hour” contracted agency staff and expecting their existing full time work forces to increase productivity. A decrease in the amount of competition for employers generally leads to an increase in the amount of competition for employees, essentially a hell of a lot more people are now competing for a hell of a lot less jobs. Couple this with the fact that there’s now a massive influx of very talented, very experienced individuals who are currently unemployed and will be looking to start a new job ASAP and you have a situation where previously indispensable, relatively well paid, staff are now fairly easily replaced by equally capable people who are willing to accept lower pay out of desperation.

The foreseeable future is looking bleak from an employee standard point. The glass ceiling is going to be lowered, expanded and reinforced. Anyone below it will find themselves pushed into a more cramped, more competitive, higher stress environment. They will find themselves working harder and longer hours for the same or lower rates of pay. People at the lower end of the scale will find themselves suffering from stress caused by poor work/life balance, job insecurity and financial strains.

People above the glass ceiling will almost certainly experience the opposite of this, widening the gap between rich and poor. Basically because it’s been made harder for low level workers to break through, competition for high level jobs will decrease and therefore high level job security will increase. Meanwhile lower levels of business competition and an increased level of productivity to fill this void, whilst working to keep costs as low as possible though pressure on the workforce, is likely to create higher profits and therefore higher pay or bonuses to those upper echelons. 

Needless to say our current conservative government will be working hard in the background to ensure that this is the case, slowly chipping away at employee rights whilst firming up the control an employer can exert over their staff. As is generally the case with conservative policies, this will help to strengthen the stranglehold that large business concerns have over the economy, making it ever harder for smaller, independent businesses to compete on any level.

Basically if you’re already rich, and you’ve weathered the covid storm, you’re going to be doing great. If you’re poor, you’re basically screwed and as long as you continue to work, spend, repeat, whilst you’re capable at least, the government couldn’t give a damn if you sink or swim, live or die.

Ok, rant over… I’m perpetually tired and my bones hurt.

I Binged Today...

I binged today, it’s been the worst binge I’ve had in a long long time.

About 2 years ago, over the course of 10 months, I lost 8 stone (that’s 112lb or 51kg for anyone outside the UK). The last 2 years have been a real struggle to keep the weight off, a struggle that I’ve been slowly losing. As I relaxed my calorie count old habits re-emerged and I started to occasionally binge eat again. Since the peak of my weight loss I’ve managed to regain a around about a stone (14lb or 6.5kg) and I currently weigh in at almost exactly 17 stone (238lbs or 108kg).

Whilst this is nowhere near what I used to weigh, that being 25 stone (350lb or 159kg), it is by no means small and I’m still classified as clinically obese for a man of my height.

Unfortunately I’ve discovered that losing weight hasn’t really affected my ability to binge large quantities of food, nor has it really altered the maximum portion size that I’m able to eat. Today something in me briefly gave up and in the time it took me to regain control, a period of around 20 minutes, I ate 8 packets of Maltesers, 6 packets of Hula Hoops, 4 KitKats and 2 toasted crumpets. Considering this happened after I’d eaten my main meal, and having already consumed in the region of 1800 calories for the day, I should be feeling horribly bloated and generally ill. The problem is that so many years of constant binge eating has left my capacity to eat extremely high and because of that I barely even feel full. Had I not regained control of myself when I did I really don’t know when I would have stopped or how much I could have consumed.

Needless to say I’m extremely disappointed in myself and am currently feeling quite a lot of self loathing.

Super Simple Salmon

I love salmon, but don't often eat it because of the cost. When I do I like to taste the salmon, I want it front and centre with the rest of the meal complimenting the flavour rather than overpowering it.

Below are two simple, quick and delicious salmon recipes that I've absolutely loved eating.

Watercress Salmon Pasta

Pan fried salmon with tagliatelle in a watercress sauce.

You will need:
400g tagliatelle
1 small onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic
150g watercress
Juice of half a lemon
Salt and pepper to season
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Pinch of smoked salt flakes
4 good sized salmon steaks (around 200g each)

Method:
1. Cook the tagliatelle in boiling, salted water for 2-3 minutes less than the stated cooking time, drain the pasta, but retain the water in a bowl.
2. Add the onion, garlic, watercress, lemon juice, seasoning and 2-3 tbsp of the pasta water to a food processor and pulse until a paste is formed.
3. Add the watercress paste to the pasta, thoroughly stir through, place a lid on the pan, cook over a very low heat for 1 minute, remove from the heat and set aside.
4. Pre-heat the oil in a pan over a high heat, pat dry the salmon, season the flesh side liberally with the smoked salt and pepper, place in the pan skin side down and cook, uncovered, for 3-4 minutes.
5. Drizzle 1 tbsp of the pasta water over the salmon, put a lid on the pan, turn the heat down to low and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
6. Remove the frying pan from the heat and set aside to rest for 1-2 minutes.
7. Serve up the pasta into 4 bowls and place a salmon steak on top of each.

Creamy Salmon Pasta

Pan fried salmon with tagliatelle and spinach in a creamy sauce.

You will need:
400g tagliatelle
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 spring onions, sliced to a thickness of around 5mm
200g reduced fat soft cheese
400g spinach
1 tbsp vegetable oil
4 good sized salmon steaks (around 200g each)
Pinch of smoked salt flakes
Salt and pepper to season

Method:
1. Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water for 2-3 minutes less than the stated cooking time, drain the pasta, but retain the water in a bowl.
2. Add the garlic, spring onion and 2 tbsp of the pasta water to the pasta, stir through, cover and cook over a very low heat for 1 minute.
3. Remove the pasta from the heat, stir through the soft cheese, if needed add in another tbsp of the pasta water, add the spinach to the pan, cover and set aside.
4. Pre-heat the oil in a pan over a high heat, pat dry the salmon, season the flesh side liberally with the smoked salt and pepper, place in the pan skin side down and cook, uncovered, for 3-4 minutes.
5. Drizzle 1 tbsp of the pasta water over the salmon, put a lid on the pan, turn the heat down to low and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
6. Remove the frying pan from the heat and set aside to rest for 1-2 minutes.
7. The spinach should have started to wilt from the residual heat in the pasta pan, season to taste and stir the wilted spinach through the pasta.
8. Serve up the pasta into 4 bowls and place a salmon steak on top of each.

With both of these dishes if you wanted to really boost those salty savoury flavours you could add in a few capers as you're stirring everything through the pasta or grate some parmesan cheese over the dish before serving.

Both recipes could also be made a little more budget friendly by swapping the fresh salmon for frozen prawns, or even tinned salmon, and stirring them through just a few minutes before serving.