How sad things turn out

"I use to complain I had no shoes, till I met a man who had no feet" (an old saying)
With regards to working overtime, which is a choice by the way.
Two examples of Filipino's working for the NHS in my local hospital.
The first one was a friend of mine for a number years.....He complained to me that he had work so much overtime, he had gone into the higher tax bracket ( Need or Greed )
When needing medical eye treatment myself one weekend, I met a young lady ( filipina nurse)
She told my wife she actually works in a London hospital, she was filling in staff shortages at my local hospital in Merseyside.
She was being paid £300 per day Sat/Sun, hotel accommodation and meal allowances plus her full return journey paid for, on top of her weekly salary.

No I was not being sarcastic, I was stating facts.
Low paid workers are struggling to earn a living in UK , many dont have the opportunity to work overtime if needed.
In an ideal world nobody should need to work overtime, but life is not that kind in reality.

 

Do the two not go hand in hand? If the pay was substantially more, there would be no shortage of people who want to work there.

 

Yes you would think so Dave, but how much is enough?
Correct me if I'm wrong it takes four years to train a nurse to the basic level, so due to the shortage of trained nurse's the NHS is playing catch up, trying to recruit student nurses, meanwhile qualified staff are retiring or leaving for employment elsewhere.
No matter how much money you throw at it, the problem will continue because not sufficient numbers of people are interested in Nursing as a profession.
As I stated before, if money is the only reason to become a nurse, once qualified and provided one is willing to work extra hours, you can achieve considerable amounts even under the present day pay agreements.
The chap I know who is not a nurse but a clinical support worker, hit £40,000 and complained to me that he was put on to a higher tax bracket.
The NHS at present, because of staff shortages and has for sometime been offering substantial incentives which can practically double in some cases a persons salary for working extra shifts.

 

If the system is anything like the US the higher hourly pay is at the expence of benefits.
Paid more but without medical insurance, paid sick/holidays or any other security of work. Also, if hired for a contract, it may be as little as 30-60 days, and then you start again someplace else.
You work, you get paid
You dont work, you are not paid and still subject to same disciplinary actions for attendance and diligence (if not more) than the regular employees.

 

That's exactly what's happening in UK, short term gain, but long term losses.
Not only that but "Agency Staff" working in the NHS, are not given access to computer data, which means they cannot do certain parts of their shift, which then falls back on NHS nurses. ( being paid less )
And that adds to the reason many NHS staff are discontented

 

Those who work in the sh*ttiest of jobs (sometimes literally!) get paid the least - the Elite get the best jobs and the biggest pay BY FAR! They do this by protecting entry to those premium jobs where in most cases it depends on family background, who you know and which private school you attended.

Workers' Unions were criticised and often destroyed because they operated 'closed shops' but that seems fine if the Elite are doing it.

 

And many of these jobs are dangerous - make a simple mistake with medication or an error in accounting for a resident's money in a Care Home and you face interrogation by the police who would count it a notch on the truncheon (a step up the promotion ladder) to find a caring-type worker to pulverize via the press and the courts (especially if foreign and from a poor country - this, in part, is appeasement to the racists in society, of which there are very many).

 

How much is enough? generally speaking I think the mindset of the working classes has gone right off the rails and that very word 'enough' has now become an infinite interpretation to them, I am working class born of parents from that same class and have for the most part been content to remain that way.

Two close family members of mine had a long periods of Illness and in Hospital, one of which was in and out for 5yrs and in that time I met many Nurses and I never did form a good opinion of them, most being quite thick and many did not seem to care all that much and often devoid of any compassion, I think a Degree in Nursing is very Mickey Mouse, how they would need to study for 4yrs to gain this is beyond me? my first Wife worked in an NHS Pay Office, she started this job when she was 16 and still works there today attaining a managerial position, she is soon to be 70yrs, she had many stories to tell me about nursing care is the NHS and also the crazy enhanced payments they could receive and this perhaps somewhat coloured my view of the Profession?

I just googled the average wage in UK at this time and it stands at £31.2K so it would appear that a Nurse has around 4K above that, then there could be enhanced payments on top of that, when someone takes a Job in health care it is a given that it is not a 9 till 5 job, I know of a Nurse who works 4x10hr nightshifts =40hrs per week for this she is paid 50% more than the national average wage, she is quite nuts and spends most of her enhanced pay on cosmetic surgery.

23yrs ago I moved into my present house here in UK which was a bungalow only 4yrs old, opposite me stands old council houses from the 1950s, they were prefabs with a lifespan of 25yrs, however they renovated them and extended their life and they are still there today, most of them are now privately owned, but have a low market values, at this same time I was driving a 10yr old Volvo saloon, but my neighbour opposite in the prefab had just bought a brand new one in the latest style which was an estate version, I thought this odd as he was an old fart with just him and his wife in the house, I made a joke with him saying I admired his Car and to let me know when he is finished with it and has 100K on the clock, he then goes on to say that he got a good deal on it and it only cost him £22K and suggested I go and buy one, to this I just laughed and said in my 30yrs of driving, my total spend on cars was much less than the price of his car new, this man worked as a kind of doorman/security Guard in the the NHS offices on minimum wage, when I asked him of his job he just said he worked in an office, however his wife was an overpaid Nurse and that has allowed him to buy top of the range cars and change them every 3yrs, a total waste on money in my view?

Fools and their money are easily parted and that is my view of the majority of the working class today and that make do and mend attitude we once had, has long since flown out of the window, I'm dam sure spending tons of money on top range Cars, Large TV's and all other manner of luxury goods is unlikely to enhance theirs lives all that much.

Now that I am an old coffin dodger of 3 score years and 10 I can look back on my life and ask the question; would I have had a better life if I had more money, for some that may be an easy Yes, as to myself I do not know? what I can say is; when I do look back on it, my life has been good and all things considered I never did have much to complain about and I lived within my means, I can never remember a time when I may have said I was not paid enough for the job I did, where many I worked with did and most of them, had me thinking they were paid twice as much as they deserved.

There is no doubt about it the high rate of inflation at this time will be having a major impact on the working classes, the price of take away food has rocketed, as are mobile phone contracts, not to mention PCP's to enable the buying a top range new car, then the is the price of fuel to run them, what can one do in these circumstances?
maybe they will have to return living like we did in the dark ages of last century, they will have to learn to cook their own food and go back to speaking to each other face to face, perhaps they may even have to walk or use public transport, well rest assured that is how I lived for the first 50yrs of my life and it was not at all bad, my life today living back in UK is much the same apart from having a low value car which I rarely use and inflation is no great concern to me.

 

John I think they overpaid!