Always Coming Around Again

I feel I have a chronic inability to enjoy Sundays, due to the gut-wrenching sickness that eventually overcomes me as the spectre of Monday looms every larger.

It's not even as if I'm totally paranoid about it: the start of the last two weeks has been the shrapnel of bad news explode in my trench, sending me scarpering for cover. Last week, I found out a colleague of mine had been "let go" and would not be replaced. This essentially means more work for me, unsurprisingly. I did half expect this would happen at some point, but the vibe seems to be that if could be anyone next, myself included.

In truth, I wouldn't care too much about getting the chop: it's the waiting that kills you, the not knowing from one day to next whether that next phone call is going to be from management asking you to "pop round" for a talk. I like having some control over my life, and this situation isn't talking a lot away.

Then, today, I return home and see I have an email from my landlord. They're looking to sell the building and it could mean I'll be on my uppers in a few months. Superb.

Returning to the point of employment, I noted the Daily Mail did a hatchet job against public sector workers a couple of days ago. An apparent 'whistle-blower' penned an article stating he and his colleagues at one local authority basically lazed about all day, took long lunches, plenty of sick leave and turned in whatever time they wanted.

Now, I don't doubt there may well be some workers like this in some council offices, as I'm sure in any other office. No doubt there's a few journos out there who've put a liquid lunch or two on expenses over the years. But this kind of extreme propaganda strikes me as being nothing more than softening public opinion against one section of workers before cuts are made.

We seem to be getting to a point again now where people will be saying "well, you're lucky to have a job". Is that a healthy attitude? Lucky to have a nice car, yes. You might be lucky to have a Playstation 3 and plasma TV, of course - we're all privileged to be able to obtain such luxury items. But lucky to have a job?

Perhaps I'm being extreme and it won't come to that point, yet with the top bods in power talking about "pain" in the future, I can't help but feel the future is looking pretty bleak for a lot of people.