[Gllug] VACANCY: Junior Systems Support

[David Damerell]

On Wednesday, 9 Sep 2009, Christopher Hunter wrote:
>On Wed, 2009-09-09 at 16:03 +0100, David Damerell wrote:
>>Thus a return to the jolly Victorian practice of allowing people to
>>starve to death if they have no work. Brilliant!
>Yes.  Just like every other SUCCESSFUL country in the world.

Fortunately this is not even remotely true. If it was, the choice
between SUCCESS and not having people starving in the streets would
hardly be the no-brainer you seem to think it is; you'd have to be
some kind of monster to be willing to buy prosperity for yourself with
other people's lives.

>I'm getting a fixed 1.5% pay rise - that's all my current employer can
>afford.  I'm in a very senior position, and that equates to just over
>£1200 per year, of which I will actually see much less than half.  My
>junior staff get a BIGGER percentage rise, and for some of them that
>will mean £2250 more per year, most of which they'll keep.

I guess your employer values them more than you, then. That's hardly
my fault.

>>There's little incentive for effort in the upper band because most
>>upper-rate taxpayers are extremely well off compared to most of the
>>people in Britain and, if they don't love money for money's sake, can
>>live pretty comfortably. So why work harder?
>I've worked damned hard to get to where I am.

Bully for you. But do you feel the need to work any _harder_ to get
anywhere else?

>means of nepotism or "the old school tie" - I worked for it, and earned
>it - just like ANYONE else can, if they get properly educated and are
>prepared to work hard for what they want.

That's a bad case of American-dream you've got there. Everyone cannot
succeed. No matter how hard everyone works, most people cannot live in
nice houses; the supply of nice houses is not infinite. We can't all
have pleasant white-collar jobs; someone has to clean the bogs or milk
the cows. We can't all have jobs, full stop - the labour market would
be insane if there wasn't a certain number of unemployed people around
at any given time. 

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> Oil is for sissies
Yesterday was Brieday, August.
Today is Gouday, August.
Tomorrow will be Chedday, August.
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