So, I’ve been in my office job for over 15 months now and I have to say that the novelty of it has, in recent months, most definitely lost it’s lustre. Of course, weekends, bank holidays and chimbletide off will never get dull and a guaranteed monthly salary is also very nice but I’ve become more and more depressed by the duplicitous bitching and snitching. Of course, there’s no job in existence that's entirely free of those things but the small office environment, where you essentially ‘live’ with the same small handful of people for the majority of your week (more waking hours than with your friends and family) well, this is a particularly fertile space in which these most cynical of human qualities thrive.
I’ve tried to clownishly, avoid, even ignore that sort of thing with silly, cheeky, banter. Steering potentially explosive conversations into lighter realms. Recently, however, rather than have a sense that the bitching and snitching might be going on... I’ve actually been on the receiving end of the duplicity a few times and it has really soured my daily experience of work (and hurt my feelings). I no longer jump up at the morning alarm… I wish I could sleep for a week.
Other than the aforementioned issues, spending the majority of your days with people who have ‘questionable’ politics is bloody hard work too. I hear casual racism, sexism, bigotry and xenophobia on a daily basis. It is, I imagine, rather like living in Rupert Murdoch’s mind. I’ve begun to picture my working day in a very surreal way… a bit like the film Being John Malkovich... whereby the door into work is a portal into Murdochland. It’s crappy and demoralizing.
Today, the ‘Migrant Crisis’ was mentioned in passing. A few people agreed it was awful and added a little comment or two, “Well, most people only have issue cuz they’re fleeing to countries with benefit systems!” (So, the entire Western World then?) “We need to sort this country out first!” That kind of thing. I’m not sure many people actually understand the difference between an economic migrant and a refugee. Anyway, I kept my lip tightly bit but one colleague, even after the conversation had quickly reverted back to a work issue, kept repeating, “It’s disgusting! We shouldn’t let ANY of them in! I think it’s disgusting! Send them back to their own country. Our country’s in debt! There’s no room! What about British families queuing at food banks? What about OUR homeless people? Why can’t they help them first?” You get the gist. Eventually, I said, “So, we just let them die then? Stay where they are and be bombed or try to escape and drown?” Given the impact that the recent heartbreaking images of a toddler lying dead on a beach has had on most people, I was shocked at her response. It’s been all over the news, she must KNOW that he drowned along with his mother and brother whilst trying to escape their war-torn homeland to safety in Canada (where relatives now live). NOT so that his dad could sign-on. Yet, quite flatly and with no shame, the reply came, “Yes! They should be sent back! Charity begins at home! They come over here and they don’t even live by OUR RULES! We have to live by theirs!” Now, I remember a guy saying stuff like this once… oh… what was his name again? Hitler! That’s it! Didn't the Jews ‘swarm’ into Germany and take all the jobs? Weren't they forcing 'their ways' onto Germany? That age-old them-and-us mentality and the language of hate. Cameron and Farage use similar wording. Haven't we learned anything from the Holocaust? Just imagine if, back then, we’d turned away the Jews fleeing certain death if they stayed in their homelands???
As for "charity begins at home"... the poor families going to food banks and the homeless she seems so concerned about now are usually called chav scum and dirty tramps or beggers. Oh, the irony!
“We can’t even say Christmas anymore.” She continued, “Our prime minister had to call it Winterfest last year in a speech!” (A BIG and important issue, eh? The word Christmas!) Now, I’ve heard this ‘story’, for it IS a story, bandied around a lot by the xenophobes in the right-wing press. I’ve searched the Internet since getting home tonight and have found absolutely NO evidence to back up this claim. How people are comfortable repeating stuff like that without facts to back it up is beyond me. They just regurgitate Murdoch propaganda like crazed automatons. It just makes them look un-informed, small-minded and more than a bit silly. Anyhooo, I couldn't find anything anywhere about our Prime Minister not being able to say Christmas. I did, however, find an article printed in the Guardian last December in which, it was stated that David Cameron mentioned Christmas, Christianity and Christians several times in his CHRISTMAS speech. Here it is: theguardian.com/politics/2014/
I asked if she was a Christian, to try and get a fix on why the word Christmas seemed so important to her. She isn’t but, “...why should we change the name? It’s always been Christmas but now apparently people find it offensive”. Now, I’m a passionate atheist myself and I don’t find the word offensive. I choose not to use the word, not least because I’m an atheist and so it'd feel hypocritical but because that time of year now has SO little to do with Christ or Mass that I’m actually shocked that Christians aren’t trying to change the name themselves!!! The precious anniversary of the death of their deity, reduced to a maniacal shopping and gluttony festival which plummets many families into year-long debt. I mean, if I were a believer, I’d want to disassociate myself from the the Xmas Circus post-haste. Anyway, I quite like Winterfest as an alternative. I think it’s cute. There are some more apt ones we could use, such as; Consumerfest, Capitalismfest, Spendfest, Greedfest, Mallfest, but I doubt they’d catch on. I, myself, call it Chimble or Chimbletide. No mass for Christ in sight.
The colleague then angrily mentioned that her home town no longer has Christmas Lights cuz people find them offensive too. (Another HUGELY important issue, eh? Forget the drowning babies just give me my Christmas Lights!!!) Again, I scoured the internet for some FACTS. I couldn’t find ANY stories or articles relating to her claim but, if true, it’s most odd. Last November and December I visited a few towns and cities (London, Leeds, York, Edinburgh, Sunderland and Newcastle) and all most definitely HAD Christmas Lights. One has to wonder then... why should her town be any different? Apart from being a bizarre tale, it’s also a hugely daft point to make, as, the very lights that she seems so fond and protective of, actually cost each local council (and thereby the taxpayer) hundreds of thousands of pounds to commission, install and keep alight. Money that could very easily help some of the hungry and the homeless she seemed so worried about earlier in her rantings.
Ah well. Another bad day at the office.
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Great Pisstake: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/