Village people and workplace precarity

So I lost my job. Again. It was brutal, made necessarily unpleasant by the fact they had to search for reasons to get rid of me and make it my fault when in reality the world economy is in a delicate state, and clients are reducing spend on flim-flam. It would be easy to spiral and blame myself, just as I was blamed by a workplace that only had half a role, but none of this is helpful. Many workers hang in the balance of this precarity and for those, like me, who took a punt and moved jobs last year, there is little or no protection.

So, now the funk of the first week has cleared, and I’m able to re-calibrate my life around the more concrete axise of school, home and impending festivities, I actually find myself feeling remarkably positive. It’s occurred to me, for the last five years, I have existed on stress. The stress of finding work, keeping work, doing work, getting to work, workplace politics, and unnecessarily extended probations. In that time, I’ve not had a lot of fun, so anxious was I about financial matters that all frivolity and a lot of friendship, and time with my family went out of the window.

Now, for once in my life, I actually don’t have to worry about finding work immediately – a consequence of Tom’s storming year at the helm of the financial services industry. So I can concentrate on feeling better, being better to myself and others and working out, once and for all, what it is I really want to do with my life, such of it as remains. I realise working for someone else is a mug’s game, in this day and age where power is being concentrated in the hands of the few, and all of us are dispensable. I’m lucky that now, I have the chance to set up something on my own, but exactly what that will be, I’m not quite sure. I do know, though, for the right idea, there is a lot of money sloshing around my ends, now I have the time and wherewithal to work out how to funnel it my way.

In the meantime, there is a deep sense of relief in not having to put my battle gear on for work once more, or get tense with the kids for having things I have to remember on top of my first deliverable, and instead, ensconce myself, barefaced and in trackie bs, back in the bosom of the urban village I have called home for more than ten years. Amid the other unmade-up faces I see in a blur of school drops off, and rare trips to the pub, there remain the stalwarts, people who’ve known me and my family for years, local business people and parents who I’ve exchanged the time of day with over coffee, wine or at school or local events; people, who like me, work hard to stay here, when all around is increasingly out of reach of everyday people, and where a cup of coffee will easily set you back a fiver.

This latest setback will not see me off, although I’ve thought about it – whether or not our quality of life might not be better somewhere less soul-crushingly expensive. But what would be the point? My whole life is here; and over a (free) cup of tea at the local cafe where Reprobate Kate now earns a crust, the sense of kinship and understanding I get from these people, who perhaps I speak to twice a year, is a testament to the compassionate side of human nature, as well as its tenacity in the face of everyday hardships; far more so than when we’re placed in competition with others as if some of us should be so much more highly valued than the rest.

Case in point, as I was exercising away my stress in the park on the rather more diverse side of the village – the cheap side where I was lucky enough to secure a reasonable home before prices rocketed again – I sprained my ankle and the Asian chap who’d studiously ignored me, perhaps for fear I might have preconceptions, came rushing over; and in a moment of true human kindness, stretched out my leg, asking carefully beforehand if I was okay with him touching me, and helped me to my feet. It almost brought tears to my eyes, and that was only partly in pain. How sad it is that the powers that be in this world and the economies they control seek to divide us, when, when it boils down to it, most of us would far rather be sociable and help one another than keep our distance.  But life and everyday practicalities force us to be cruel so much of the time.

I returned home to my cleaner suggesting to bathe my swollen ankle in warm water and vinegar, and telling me how she was having to move out of her rented room again, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I would have to cut down her hours; instead, I offered her our spare room – for all that would feel weird – and scratched around the kids’ piggy banks to put Christmas money in her card.

If only we could all admit we are only responding to the pressures we have on us, so rather than turning blame on individuals, or even whole groups of people, as so many of us do for self-preservation, surely it’s better to be honest and admit that here comes a point when we have no choice, that we are sorry, and if we could help it, we would. But the world’s not like that.

It’s easier to treat people as if they are strangers of no consequence and blame them for their mistakes and the situations they find themselves in, than recognise we are all fellow human beings who are vulnerable to the forces around us, and admit that we’re all just trying to get through life as best we can. But then, all our good fortune comes at the expense of someone else. And by imposing hard times on others, we are only hurting ourselves.