Children in charge
Poverty is a relative concept; there are those, (indeed most people), who earn more than I do, but I feel infinitely richer than them. Others need money for mortgages and for expenses associated with cars which I don’t have, as I can’t drive. And let us not forget those souls who need ever increasing sums to feed their cocaine addiction. I would like to earn more, simply because I would see this (and I don’t want to blow my own trumpet here) as recognition of my talents and abilities. Yet I am a lowly individual in our society, pretty near the bottom in fact. I could huff and puff for more money but no one would listen to me. I am, let me repeat, a nobody, and I no doubt owe my lowly stature in the world to my own lack of talent.
But money doesn’t really interest me. I wouldn’t know what to do with the stuff. OK, I’d know how to spend a small amount, but anything larger would leave me at sixes and sevens. And one thing I most certainly wouldn’t do would be to snort it up my nose.
Income disparities are alas an integral part of modern capitalist society. But they seem indefensible to me. People might say they are based on educational achievement. Yet returning to yours truly, I have a PhD, amongst the highest degrees you can get, and in purely materialist terms any achievements I may have earned in the world of education have been of bugger-all use. People earning large amounts of money may also say they have more responsibility, or have to deal with greater levels of stress. I remember about fifteen years ago a study which was carried out on stress levels amongst different categories of workers. The people who had the most stressful jobs, it was found, were bus drivers. Having spent some of my happiest moments as a bus passenger I know how tough life can be for bus drivers. They have a hugely responsible job, looking after their passengers, some of whom can be most awkward customers. Then there is the traffic, not to mention having to keep to schedules often drawn up by morons in suits who’ve never been on a bus in their lives. I think being a bus driver in a large city must be exceptionally stressful. I remember one driver who had moved away from Dublin, in favour of driving busses on regional routes. When asked if he’d like to go back to the city he replied he wouldn’t do so “for all the tea in China.”
The occupation with the lowest stress level, according to the survey, was that of university lecturers. a group about whom I suppose I know a great deal. The survey obviously was referring to academics with permanent positions. Those without tenure in universities have an incredibly high stress level caused by the knowledge that no matter how hard they work or how well they do their job there is absolutely no guarantee that this will be translated into a permanent position when 0ne becomes available, and that at the end of their contracts they won’t be told merely “Bye-bye, stand aside for the current blue-eyed boy or girl or the next wide-eyed sucker who we can screw”. Academics are the most ungrateful people on the planet. Once someone is inducted into the hallowed hall of permanent university academic posts, stresses, while not non-existent, are fewer. Yes, there is the fact that you hate your colleagues’ guts with an intensity which is only the rightful due of such a talentless group of little upstarts. There may also be fears about being found out for “borrowing” aka plagiarising some graduate student’s work, but these present fears, to quote the bard, are never anything more than horrible imaginings. Even if the graduate student does make a fuss he or she can usually be reassured by being told that they’re not doing their careers any good, as your colleagues (who possibly hate you as much as you hate them) will always stand by you against the outside world and will get the wagons to form a circle. You’re in; they’re still out. And if the stress levels really get on top of you there’s always the pub, or the drinks’ cabinet or a splurge at the next all-expenses-paid academic conference you attend. And if you get really pissed, no-one will notice. Returning to the comparison with bus drivers I remember once hearing of a driver who, with nothing to do between routes, whiled away the hours in a local snug. By the time it came for him the drive the bus back to Dublin he was barely able to walk, yet, luckily for him, he still possessed enough presence of mind, so that when he saw his bus being flagged down en route by an inspector he pretended not to see him and drove past, earning a suspension. This was a far lesser penalty than that which awaited him if the inspector had found him scuttered in charge of a bus with forty or more passengers on board. Going back to the academic world the sight of a lecturer “under the weather” is far from uncommon. It may not be as egregious a display as Michael Caine in Educating Rita. The problem manifests itself in irritability, short temper etc., - all tell-tale signs of the morning after the fortnight before, or maybe you might just not bother turning up for work at all, take a sicky and stay away from the hoors er other lecturers altogether. Now I know of an academic whose drink problem was an urban legend. I approached him with caution, yet I always found him the nicest, most courteous man I ever met in the academic world, unsparingly kind and helpful. Indeed owing to the fact that some of his colleagues did the dirty big time on me I came to the conclusion that if I were working alongside such snakes I too would hit the bottle.
But I’ve gone off on a tangent. So bus drivers have a high stress job; university lecturers by contrast have a comfy life. But who do you think gets paid more?
It’s unjust and unfair and I could rail against it indeffinitely, but I’m not going to. As Bill Gates once said: “Life’s unfair - get used to it.”
One thing that is in my opinion indefensible is the ease with which those already earning salaries many times in excess of others can award themselves pay raises. Take the rises awarded by the present Irish cabinet to itself. Not only is it unjust, it is hypocriticaal for such people to turn round and say to others earning far less that they should “tighten their belts” and show pay restraint. But worse than the injustice and hypocrisy is the fact that it demonstrates a lack of maturity and childishness, bordering on an infantile psychosis. The current government has sought to defend the decision in any number of silly ways, but basically what they are saying is that they want more money – so do we all – but only they are in a position to make it happen.
Anyone who observes very young children playing or maybe who remembers their own childhood, will recall how there might be the child who wants to play with all the toys and who doesn’t want to share them with anyone else. If they don’t get what they want they throw a tantrum or bawl and cry. This is common enough amongst four or five year olds. Yet as they grow older kids learn that they have to share and that they can’t always get what they want, at least not always directly. This is part of growing up. People at the top of organisations (not just the Irish government alas), don’t always seem to have grown up, or they demonstrate narcisistic tendencies showing that they want to get back as quickly as possible to the nursery and the play-pen. And that is how I view the present government: a group of irresponsible children, like oversized four-year-olds in suits. Recently I attended an event which was also attended by a government minister. He knows me, but he didn’t come over to speak. I wasn’t in the least affronted, as had we come into contact I wouldn’t have been able to prevent myself from asking: “Does your mammy know you’re out this late?”
