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?

Enviable?

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.

 

Another example of a truly awful job, and one that we can all identify with, is a taxi driver. You joke that it wouldn’t be hard work sitting on a cushy seat in a heated car all day, driving around and getting paid for it. Easy money. But really, think about it; it would be the epitome of a rubbish job. Picking up inebriates when the clubs and pubs shut, driving them home, tolerating their drunken chants and camera flashes, and at the end of the journey having to put up with the incessant haggling down of the price. We, who get chauffeured to our door, have the luxury of getting into bed at the end of the night. The driver has to turn around and head back out, awaiting more customers who (like us) had taken him for granted. In all seriousness, however, the next time you are out and in the loo and you see a toilet attendant unsuccessfully selling any products, or when you are sitting in the taxi home slurring along to the radio, or maybe even when you are going to Aldi for your weekly shop, just appreciate those poor people who are doing the jobs that we, as students, are lucky enough not to have to be doing. Try eating some humble pie; it really doesn’t taste that bad.