Best Posts in Thread: How sad things turn out

I heard several stories about nurses in Britain quitting their regular job with the NHS, only to enroll with some employment agency to work for ................. NHS again at much higher pay even with the agency fees.
Seems to me something has been wrong with regular pay for nurses for an extended period if they are resorting to such "tricks" despite the insecurity of working through an agency.

 

They certainly are on a reasonable basic pay Dave, with the opportunity to work extra hours for lifes luxury's.
I worked as a postman, then as a machine operator in a Main Sorting Office, finally as a cycle mechanic/ workshop supervisor for Royal Mail ( the Post Office )
During my early years of marriage with three children and a mortgage, a car was a luxury and I often worked 65 hours a week to give my family a comfortable home.
My late wife died at an early age of 42 years old, I could no longer work the extra hours, I still had a young 9 yr old daughter to look after, a job to hold down and a mortgage to pay off.
By Gods Grace I came through it.
I have the greatest respect for the Nurses and Carers that show genuine concern and compassion for patients, however sadly not all staff have that mindset, for them it's just a job.

 

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.

 

Nurses and others in that profession have been taken advantage of for years. Expected to work for very very little, that's the way it works. Any questioning from them and the Tories play the old you can't strike guilty trip, which after years they are finally seeing through. Public also becoming aware of the lies being sold them, thus all the discontent and rightly so.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

All costs are only relevant to outgoings and if anything is left over or should they perhaps be grateful for existing. When you can't pay bills or pay your increased mortgage and yet for example energy companies increased profits run into the hundreds of millions +++ I'd be right pissed off. It's got zero to do with what others in your similar sphere are paid. They are all taken advantage of in the greater scheme IMO.

Now you might do it for that, maybe you did, maybe you had no choice, maybe you accept your lot in life early on as a to be wage slave. I've no idea, I can only say no way was I going to do it. Nurses don't IMO do it for the pittance IMO they receive and the Tories play that fiddle of a tune for all it's worth.

By the time you take tax off, expenses to from work, the stress, wage slave staus is what's left. For myself I saw this very clearly at 18 or even before probably and thought I'm not going to play that game. Enough said eh (-: