It is tough NOW. So how are we coping

ceridwen

I certainly have had to remind people not to judge me by my job - and personally I get very annoyed at the assumption that intelligent people will obviously have "matching" jobs. It ain't necessarily so - there may very well be a mismatch between a person and the type of job that they are in. There are quite a variety of reasons why someone might have a job that in no way reflected at all on their intelligence level - I could instantly come up with a list of reasons just from my own life personally and there are obviously other reasons why other people might have had a lower-level job than their intelligence level indicated was possible.

By now I have learnt to see the advantages of the situation - and can see the funny side of people judging me as being someone of low intelligence because all they have looked at is my job. :rotfl:Sometimes its useful to be misjudged ......

Certainly I see the argument re years of training "should" mean higher salary levels. There is an element of truth in that. There is also the fact that many higher-paid people are in jobs they enjoy anyway - so they get "two bites of the cherry" - ie paid to do what they actually like doing. There are many of us who are doing jobs because we have to and for no other reason - and are getting low-paid by these jobs. So I think we could maybe have a "sliding scale" of salaries payable by type of job - but the ratio between highest-paid and lowest-paid in our society is so huge that its totally unjustifiable in any rational thinking. What IS the case is that we all of us have to eat/pay our bills/cover the cost of any healthcare the NHS wont provide/etc - so it comes down to everyone who is making a reasonable effort to "work their way" is entitled to have enough to live on - and that figure that is "enough to live on" is pretty much the same regardless.

Churchmouse

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

Are you serious Surgeons are paid a premium as they need a vast amount of knowlege. Maybe, even more importantly, they take a huge amount of responsibility. If a bin-collector makes a mistake, you get scruffy streets; if a surgeon makes a mistake the results can be catastrophic.

Pay everyone the same, and why would anyone train

Penny. x

:T:T Or work nights, bank holidays, weekends, work in a dangerous environment etc etc. I don't think anyone is saying that the more menial jobs are only done by the unintelligent or uneducated ( and there is a difference;) not everyone gets to fulfill their potential for a variety of reasons) My own eldest son cleaned as a holiday job while at university, often lavatories and he took pride in doing a good job. Maybe we don't have our priorities absolutely correct in the degree of difference between various jobs, but it will never work to pay everybody the same.

kidcat

I know soemone who when her first child was born went back to work a week later because she didnt want him to harm her career, she has always looked down her nose at me because I am a stay at home mum, I asume she thought it was because I couldnt get a job, a few years ago she discovered that when I had been pregnant with my eldest I had turned down several position that I had been headhunted for and then refused to return to work after maternity leave, even after having been offered alot more money than she was at this time earning, as I believed it was job to take care of my child.
She was absolutely amazed and stunned that anyone would choose not to take a highly paid job, and this is a common theme running through society atm, it is assumed that just because you do not have a highly paid job, you are somehow worth less than those that do.

Beki

ahhh but we know better don't we xx

MindaJ

Indeed we do. I went to uni full of dreams of having a hihg paying career when I finished. One year after graduating I have a degree that won't get me a job in anything I'm interested in, and I'm working in a cafe. Thing is, I love my job. I know I do it well, and I feel like I make a difference, however small, in people's day when I hand them a well made coffee with a smile. I'm earning enough to live on and the hours are great.

But my friends are constantly asking me when I'm going back to uni, or if I've decided what I want to do yet. They see me as a bit of a disappointment. They don't get how anyone could possibly be happy working where I am.

I mean, I'm young, and I don't know yet if I want to be where I am forever, and I like learning and I'd love to try something else one day, but what's the rush?

kippers

I'm a SAHM and my children are 9 & 11 (I gave my horrible job up in Sept as it was making me ill). I go to college now 1 day a week to study horticulture and i love it. I have had so many people ask me what i do all day and people (incl family) look at me as though i'm lazy. People keep asking me what i'm going to do when i finish my course.....I've even had comments that i'm not being fair on my family as i'm not bringing in money and my girls are missing out on things (i don't think this is true unless you include designer clothes and holidays abroad).

.....my husband is 'on call' two weeks out of four so i can't work in the evenings....i want to be here when my children go to school and when they come home, so where can i find a job between 10-2 term time only?

When did it become unacceptable to stay at home? I think it is good for my children to come home to mum and a good old fashioned family home cooked dinner and they are able to have friends for tea when they like. I cook, clean, decorate, wash, garden, have an allotment, shop and do every other thing around the house...how much would this pay if i did this for someone else?

Anyway, people think i'm lazy with no brain cells...but i don't care!...i wonder if anyone else feels like this.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

When I had my kids in the 70s I was a SAHM,mostly the other mums worked part time and boy did I get some snidey comments.
We were poor as churchmice but realy happy and my now grown up kids will tell you they can't ever remember not having what other kids had.Infact my daughter said her friends thought she was so lucky to have a mum doing things with her all the time and she always came home to nice things.
Kippers,people thought I was lazy with no brain cells too,but I could'nt of cared less.I have brought up three well adjusted children who have turned into lovely adults,all university educated with careers and happy families.
I repeated the process again when my youngest was 16,I helped bring up my grand-daughter(so my eldest daughter could pursue her career) she's 18 now and off to universtity too soon and has grown up to be a delight.
The most important,satisfying and sometimes difficult job you can do is bring up your children,don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

mardatha

Women have maybe been exposed to too much brain washing and pressure. They need to go with their own instincts & do what makes them feel CONTENT. People arent always content with what they have, they read mags, watch tv, and want things that aren't always possible for them. Then they have to struggle like hell to get them, and even more to keep them, and they don't realize the effect and the cost on their families.
We have friends who are pure dead yuppies LOL she has to have the latest in everything and "a holiday" means £5000 min & Florida. Her kids used to love going picnics up the hills with mine, paddling in the burn & making a fire and frying bacon on it...but were terrified to get dirty in case they got a row.

BigMummaF

Oh dear! I appear to have stirred yet another hornet's nest Just as well I like the taste of my own foot
Perhaps I didn't explain myself too well, when I said we need a dustman as much as a brain surgeon......but please hear me out. I am in no way slaiting the folk who study hard & take on demanding roles in society, but I DO despise the fact that some people forget that they wouldn't be able to do their job if we didn't have dustmen, milkmen, shop assistants, etc. If every child was to go on to become a lawyer, vet, what-have-you......who would keep our water clean or the shelves filled in the supermarkets? Indeed, someone has to make the medical tools the brain surgeon uses!
If just the folk on this thread were to become stranded on a desert island, I for one would run a mile from dispatching of some poor furry creature to cook for supper, but I could plait a multitude of reeds to make a rope to bind the shelter.....THAT is why we truly need each other, to be able to survive as a civilisation. Someone has to do the little things to enable the bigger ones to happen. Isn't there a saying about a ship sinking for need of tuppence of tar?

linni

When I stayed at home with my children I was always getting asked to look after other people's children, while they were at work, and they didn't like it when I said NO!