Project Zero

Been thinking about the flight that went down in the Alps recently and the comments on PPrune about the pressures pilots are put under – “buy your own training”, and the consequent debt, no job certainty, do more in less hours – and it’s such a familiar tune.

 

My own daughter, graduated with a 2:1 degree and is running herself ragged in 2 service industry jobs barely making a wage let alone a living wage.  And she’s not an isolated incident, many of her contemporaries are in the same boat, working far below their education level, swimming in debt incurred by 3 or 4 years of education, no prospect of saving enough to get on the housing ladder.  Even if you could afford a mortgage.

 

What have we done to and for future generations?

 

Those old enough to have walked out of university having used a grant and into a job and unbroken, ever-upward career appear to fail to appreciate just what and how little faces people getting into jobs these days.

 

And it’s not just their current situation, their future is hopelessly compromised with no company pension pot and a later and much diminished state pension.  I wonder, as an aside if the current “sanctions” will be applied to pensioners soon?  “I’m sorry you are ancient, blind and infirm, but you failed to apply for 6 jobs this week and didn’t totter 10 miles into town to collect your pension Mrs Blah.  I’m afraid you’re gong to have to manage without again”

 

I think the rot set in when computer became a business tool and the accountants took control of the board.  Now they could calculate where every penny went, it became apparent that your workers were far from an asset but an expense.  Wasn’t it about the same time that “Personnel” was replaced by “Human Resources”?  And you have to work those resources until they squeak.

 

We’re all too in thrall to those big organisations that seem to have lost any ounce of compassion or understanding.  as long as my job’s all right, Jack, I don’t care if you go home without the expectation of the same wage every week, let alone a decent wage.  and if we don’t want you, then we’ll subvert employment law and reduce your hours until you are forced to leave just to get paid somewhere else.  Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!

 

And government is in thrall to them too.  Sees people as “assets” to make money out of, not a society where supporting the weakest members benefits us all incalculably(is that a word?).  Where showing by example how to support others demonstrates our expectations from and to each other.

 

As the organisations get bigger and bigger and more and more multinational they care less and less about responsibilities.  You want to charge us tax?  We’ll just keep moving our taxable address around so you can’t catch up with us.  You want us not to test on animals, we’ll find somewhere in disarray where we can  pay for the privilege of doing what we like.  Paying below a living wage, making people work inhuman hours in inhuman conditions so a that someone can buy a new top from Primark every week.

 

I know I exaggerate, but not by much.  And the trend, the rot, is going in that direction.  How soon before exaggeration becomes truth?

 

So that pilot.  I don’t know the truth.  And neither, let’s be honest, does anyone else.  Its’convenient to make a scapegoat out of someone who may have had  psychological problems in the past (and if you haven’t, you’re a robot) who had their last emotional support knocked away from them and isn’t here to defend or explain themselves.  Even as a relatively uninformed citizen I can think of reasons why someone would appear to continue to breathe normally whilst physically incapacitated although I admit the blocked door does pose questions.

 

But I do feel the truth lies more deeply and the fingers should be pointing more at those over-stuffed fat cats who may have created situations like this.  and I fear this won’t be the last occasion where over-stretched people take a final revenge against unwilling and unwitting bystanders.

 

Get out of the corporations now!  Go back to self-employment where you can be the master of your own destiny and not the tool of someone else’s

 

sorry, I feel this is less coherent than usual so may comeback to edit as thoughts settle