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.

Removing The 'Shield' From The Vulnerable

In the UK we’ve been steadily releasing the lock down for a few weeks, despite our scientists advising it’s too early, to be fair it had to happen at some point and our conservative government was always going to put money above human lives. As part of the pandemic response we have a category of people referred to as ‘shielded’, these are vulnerable people, the elderly and people with underlying health conditions. As a group they’ve been locked down the longest and have had the strongest restrictions imposed on them. As of today they’re allowed out for the first time in weeks, and it really shows. I went out first thing this morning for a few essentials, the supermarket was full of very confused looking very elderly people. They were milling around like zombies, not following the social distancing rules, ignoring other people's protests and, for some insane reason, none of the staff were doing a thing about it. 

The really crazy thing is that, when they were first restricted, there was an uproar about it being unfair to those 'shielded’ people who are still capable. The fact that now we’ve eased restrictions on them and had an influx of vulnerable people not following the guidelines, either because they don’t understand them, whether that’s willful or not, or because they are just refusing to, shows exactly why it was necessary. A line had to be drawn somewhere and protecting the most vulnerable, even though our government completely failed, and is still failing, to do so, should always be a high priority. It was inevitable that people just falling to either side of that line were going to feel hard done to, but it was a necessity and, having several vulnerable people in my family who would almost certainly not have survived catching the virus, I'm glad that it happened.

Bojo The Clown

After Boris Johnson’s most recent announcement, it’s looking very likely that I’ll be going back to work at some point over the next few days.

Last week Britain surpassed 30,000 deaths, meaning we have the highest death rate in Europe. Given that at the beginning of all this the government suggested 20,000 deaths would be a good number, the fact that we’re already 50% higher and our prime minister is suggesting people should be “actively encouraged” to return to work, from tomorrow, is absolutely baffling.

What’s more baffling is that we’re going back to work, but outside of work we’re still supposed to isolate from friends, family and other people outside of our household. It’s a completely ridiculous, and quite frankly backwards, policy clearly designed to protect the financial interests of the wealthy rather than the health of general population. What would make more sense is to continue with restrictions on businesses whilst easing those on people visiting family members, and potentially friends, outside of the household. It is far easier for someone to ascertain whether or not a family member is experiencing covid-like symptoms, and if so continue to isolate from them, than it is someone they work with. My thoughts are that we’re now on course for another surge in cases, a second peak and potentially a much higher cost to the economy in the long run, however, given our governments track record with sharing accurate figures on Covid-19 cases, it may not be reported this way.

Whilst ultimately I am aware that protecting our economy is important, and I do want to return to work, I only want to return to work when it is genuinely safe to do so. For me being in lockdown has been great for both my mental and physical health and, thanks to being furloughed, hasn’t even been that hard on me financially. Not having to commute has greatly decreased my outgoings and having plenty of free time has allowed me to plan my meals, put together a thorough and thought out shopping list and left me with plenty of time, and energy, to push myself to exercise on a daily basis.

Knowing that this is all about to change, and it being before I feel it is safe for it to do so, my mood is at the lowest it’s been in weeks and I can only see it getting worse from here on out.

Missed Opportunity

We had the opportunity to say no to dishonesty, no to bigotry, no to massive corporations avoiding taxation, no to pandering to the whims of the richest 1%.

Instead of this we chose to say no to having more say in the Brexit process, no to protecting the NHS for future generations, no to helping the most vulnerable in our society, no to a fairer distribution of taxation.

To say that I'm massively disappointed in the outcome of the general election is an understatement, to say I understand why people choose to vote the way they did would be a lie. What I do understand is that the majority of people who voted Conservative, the rich, the misguided elderly, the middle class with poorly informed views on climbing the social ladder, the outright bigoted, are the people least, or think they are, likely to be affected by their policies and that all they've really done is shown the rest of us just how little understanding they have of the world at large and just how little empathy they possess.

For those of you who voted Conservative 'to get Brexit done' or just because you're sick of hearing about it, you seem to have forgotten the most important fact. They are the party that put us in this mess to begin with, the one that kicked off the whole process with little to no understanding of what that would entail, who, after months of nothing but bickering and infighting, invoked article 50 with no deal, or even a deal in principle, in place, who to this day have no viable option for our withdrawal on the table and seem to care very little about actually doing so. You have voted for a party that is literally incapable of getting Brexit done and will allow us to free fall out of Europe with nothing to stop us but our face and the jagged, broken, rocky ground that is reality. 

We are in for years, if not decades, of economic slowdown and potentially even recession. Don't worry though whilst the Conservatives are in power they won't let this hurt the wealthy, they'll keep tax on high earners low, they'll still use tax payers money to bail out failing big businesses and continue to give the most lucrative government contracts to their already massively wealthy friends. They do have plans to fund this... They'll cut funding to the social support structures that help the most vulnerable amongst us, they'll make it even harder for the disabled to claim benefits, they'll further cut funding to police forces, fire brigades and other emergency services, they'll cut funding to our schools and education systems, they'll cut funding to and further privatise the NHS.

This may all seem like liberal scare mongering, but you only have to look around to see that this is already happening, the truth is out there to see if you're willing to look for it. I'm not even that politically minded and I can see this, how are so many people living in willful ignorance?

Thursday Evening

Metal Hammer is my favourite magazine, these days it's more or less the only one I bother to read, it's certainly the only one that I read with any regularity. Unfortunately I find myself with increasingly less time to just sit and read, so when I do find the time I tend to pick up a book, rather than a magazine, and this often leads to me having a backlog of several months worth of issues. Tonight I'm going to try and at least partially rectify that, I've made myself a large pot of tea, broke out a couple of sweet, energy rich, treats, wrapped a cozy blanket around my shoulders and settled in for the night with the intention of reading at least one issue. I know I could just stop buying copies for a few months, but I also know that if people don't buy it then it will simply disappear, and I really don't want it to disappear, so I actually have a long standing, prepaid, subscription. I also know physical print, particularly when it comes to potentially wasteful, throw away products like magazines (please remember to recycle whenever possible), is a dying medium, but I just love the tactile experience, I'm a fairly tactile person, of holding and interacting with something. I know digital mediums are on the rise, and to a large extent I actually support this, but I just don't find myself able to engage with them in the same way as I do a physical product. I know this is something of a personal failing, I know that it's hypocritical, but unfortunately it's the way I am.

A While Ago This Image Came Up On My Tumblr Dash...

A while ago this image came up on my Tumblr dash and, being currently somewhat dissatisfied with my employment/general living situation, I ended up going off on a bit of a self indulgent rant. I re-read it this morning and came to the conclusion that it's a perfectly valid opinion, though it doesn't contain any information that most people aren't already aware of, so I've decided to post it on here too:

There's a fairly simple explanation, traditionally as people get older they get richer. Conservative values and policies generally benefit the rich, so the older people get the more they benefit from being conservative. That is not happening with this generation, largely thanks to conservative values and policies, the financial landscape has changed. Rates of pay at the lower end of the job market have stagnated, the majority of employers are no longer interested in their employees happiness and general well being, as they’re seen as an easily replaceable commodity. Meanwhile, house prices, and housing costs in general, have risen at way beyond the rate of inflation, meaning that many young people can no longer afford to get on the housing market and are forced into the rental trap. Couple this with rises in the general cost of living and it's gotten harder, and continues to get harder, for normal, working class, people to make and retain money. Basically we're poor, we’re getting to a stage in our lives where we should be seeing our hard work pay off, but we're not and as such conservative values and policies do not benefit us in anyway and are, more than likely, only making things worse.