Post Christmas Blues...

The decorations are down, the seed trays ready for off and the house seems to be breathing out a sigh of satisfaction after a job well done.

I love Christmas, but that is because I don't perform all the mandatory rituals that used be expected like eating trifle and watching television until one became blue in the face.
Some people feel unhappy after all the celebrations and work kicks in again. Housewives, if they have any sense, don't feel let down. As members of the voluntary workforce they can choose when and how to get on with chores, (or not do them if they are not in the mood), put life before the curse of seeming to reach their potential or achieve targets and generally enjoy themselves.

If people think that housewives are stupid or unable to get a "proper" job, this is one way of working out if these critics would make boring company (the usually do), are misogynistic or workaholic or just plain silly.

There is a grotesque proposition that people on this island should be frog-marched to "work". This is such an 19th century way of thinking. Bill Nighy was on radio recently explaining about how auditions kill the spirit. "They sense the desperation", he said (or something like that).
Housewives... or for the more PC mind, "domestic engineers" hope never to have to meet "them".

And if there's any tint of blue here today it's because it's difficult to type while wearing gloves...

Productivity

Thanks to a conversation in a chat room on the subject of "work" I'm tempted to think more about how the workplace was a place of boredome and stress in the past and how it curtailed productivity and was sometimes a cause of illness.

This is not some fantasy, as I worked as a teacher for several years and one way of getting every airborne bug known is to be in an overcrowded, overheated space in winter with a group. I tend to keep the temperature in our house quite cool, mostly because the much praised insulation systems now available are not installed and I'm not in a hurry to spend a lot more money just to save putting on an extra jumper. Also, heat breeds bugs.

Of course I was very pleased to be offered work in the past, as it meant survival. But when I look at life today compared with all the activity spent placating taskmasters and equally bored employers I wonder I did it for so long.

This is at odds with the experience of many of my generation. People who are approaching retirement are, to my surprise, apprehensive of change and wonder how to fill time. Also, those who have reached a position where status is quite high are faced with a sense of loss. I had a feeling that I would just wait round for my friends to retire as well and things would go on as before. However, our lives have taken such different directions that I find that the boredome of the workplace, though absent in reality, seems to come along with some of them, like a shadow they cannot shake off.

I remember laughing when Charles Lamb admitted that he spent so long at his desk the wood had entered into his soul. It seems less amusing now.

Writing for money is a chore, but a good training. Writing for pleasure is so much more fun.

Jobsworthy?

There is a lot of chatter about work these days. The truism that everybody should have the right to earn their living is beginning to look very irrelevant in a world where people are wearing themselves out with often meaningless activity in return for a basic living wage.

The grumbling continues so it was a pleasure to see a programme on TV during the week where John Humphrys explored the reality of the welfare state in both the US and Britain. Civilized societies have safety nets for their citizens, which is why we have social security and, for those who are unable to join the workforce, a system of benefit that ensures quality of life. I signed on in the early 1980's, as friends queued to leave the country, never to return. Between the jigs and the reels, I cobbled a job of sorts together that finally became untenable.

While I missed the people I used meet while working as a hack, it was not cost effective to keep going.

I wish that somebody would explain the realities of low paid employment to all the over-talkative experts who talk down to those who scrabble for a living daily.

Some jobs are simply not worth doing...