Worst jobs
Fiona McCoss urges us to eat some humble pie
I ATE a very large slice of humble pie recently on a night out when my conscience and human empathy got the better of me. I, guiltily, gave a pound to a toilet attendant whose mundane job it was to sit amongst various beauty products and toiletries aimed to refresh drunken punters. But despite sitting tolerantly from 10pm-3am, observing (probably with contempt) the carefree, job-free students who were enjoying themselves merrily, she was not getting any business or pleasure out of it whatsoever. What a rubbish job, I thought to myself (hence the donation). Now, I cringe ashamedly at myself for giving her just the £1. What is a pound really to a student with an overdraft? It is nothing, one hundred copper pennies, in fact. As the protagonist of Sex and the City would say; ‘I couldn’t help but wonder…’ about all the other really rubbish jobs that people do which us, as students, take for granted.
Big Issue sellers are another classic example, and I will use the poor woman who pleads unsuccessfully outside Aldi to further my point. Who has ever bought a Big Issue off of her? I don’t know anyone that has, I admit that I haven’t. Come rain or shine, even snow, this lady, in her skirt and sandals, day after day, sits in vain hope that someone will humour her and buy just one. No wonder she gets a bit moody and shouts at the occasional passerby or disconcertingly eyes up our arms full of shopping enviously. But wouldn’t you? How would you like to be sitting numb from the cold in your own boredom, trying to sell a magazine fruitlessly?
What about the early Monday morning bin and recycling collections around Selly Oak that wakes up those in their much needed slumber. Do we actually stop and think or appreciate the ‘bin men’ (to put it crudely) who have been up far earlier than us, and whose job it actually is to do our dirty work? No, I didn’t think so. Instead of irritably tossing and turning in bed, waiting for the loud drone of the lorry’s engine to turn onto another street to disturb someone else, we should be grateful that we can actually afford to be staying in bed, and not picking up other people’s rubbish at 6am.
Surely people who work in such jobs don’t need our pity? I’m sure they would much more appreciate some respect and consideration, and probaly a better wage! At the end of the day, they are getting paid a minimum wage to do their chosen jobs (bar the Big Issue seller, but that’s a completely different matter to the other jobs). Many students I know work and pay their own way through uni by doing “a truly awful job”; not all of us have the luxury of being job-free students. I guess my point is, this article demeans certain jobs, and looks at them from a priviledged, job free, and thus financial worry free perspective. Perhaps the bin men, or the toilet attendents, are happy that they can bring home a wage to their families, regardless of whether they enjoy their jobs. Perhaps some students already empathize with having to work what are, in your opinion, rubbish jobs out of neccessity to get by.
Pity not Needed
March 23, 2009 at 4:56 am