I'm just thinking out loud, so don't give me grief over this...
If you really don’t want to go back to work because you are terrified of coronavirus, don’t go back. You have every right not to. If you've been gaming the system all the while, it doesn't really make a jot of difference anyway, so no skin off your teeth there - no amout of other people's money will ever be enough. If you worked the grey market, well, I'm so terribly sorry for you - Karma can be quite the bitch.
Some of us old-school types feel a bit uncomfortable about not earning our keep. This is not misplaced machismo or toxic masculinity or whatever new-fangled monicker you metrosexuals are tossing about these days, it really isn't. It's about fulfillment instead of the 'just add water and stir pot-noodle self-gratification' ethos so many live by these days.
Thing is, all this time that you have been at home, other people have been working to keep the basic functions of society going.
Supermarket workers have been taking a risk for a salary much lower than yours, probably even lower than state benefits pay out, little shopkeepers have been putting in 18-hour days to stay stocked up, the police have been taking a risk keeping the peace in the face of hostility they often encounter as usual, nurses and carers have been at the forefront, right in the trenches, actually looking the virus in the eye insulating the rest of us from what could be.
Similarly, firemen, bus drivers, lorry drivers, the people who keep water flowing from your taps and electricity flowing through the grid, engineers who work so your internet, your mobile phones and the nation's networks keep up, hell even the people who make sure your drains and sewers are free from all the results of your attempts at lockdown cooking, all have quietly been muddling along with nary a whimper. So don't think, even for a moment, that you or anyone in any sector of work are special. You aren't. None of us are.
UK Plc must get back to work. We cannot wait until there is no risk at all, risk begins the second you step out your front door, virus or no virus. After all, the national debt we are plunging into is not fictional. Debt will always have to be paid back. If you don't, someone, somewhere will have to work hard and pay it for you. People who worry about this are not wicked and evil. They think about this because it is real and it is true. Many of them don't have very long to live, so it's their children and grandchildren that will be doing the paying. That's who they're worrying for.
Right now, we are paying people not to work, and taxing people who are taking a risk and working.
There's a flaw in there somewhere, don't you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment