Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

My mum used to work part-time, term-time only. Back then more jobs existed for those hours; once people started getting benefits/WTC I think it killed off those hours as more mums started trying to be full-time too. Also, pre benefits top ups, there were more specifically evening/weekend jobs. Nowadays, it seems that job hours are more about working 16 hours/week on random days, rather than jobs that were part-time on specific days.

e.g. supermarkets would be staffed by full-timers, with Saturday staff. Now supermarkets are open longer hours there are more 16 hours jobs that fit anywhere on the rota, where needed.

Mums expect to be able to work full-time these days, whereas they didn't before, so life used to be set up on the basis that you went to work part-time for extra money, at hours when the bloke wasn't working.

Pubs are another example. Whereas before you might have had 2 full-time members of staff and three mums working specific evening shifts behind the bar and two in the kitchen, so you'd apply for the job knowing it was "Wed & Thu nights" now only the Manager is full-time, with everybody else being put on rotas of 16 hours, with rotas being drawn up the week before and you've no idea which days/hours you'd be working. You used to know who was going to be behind a bar/counter on any given day as a customer.

This whole new random shifts patterns makes it harder to take on two jobs or extra work as you've now no idea what hours you're working on a set pattern - and employers want 'flexible' people now, meaning they want the right to shove you down for whatever hours they want so they won't employ you if they think you have another job you're fitting in.

You used to also get places that had a day shift and an evening shift. If you were on the day shift it was a full-time job, if you were on the evening shift then everybody was a part-timer. Again, these workplaces have now merged all jobs into random hours dotted all over the place in 16 hour weeks.

Employers now have more staff, none of whom are in set working patterns and I've noticed a significant difference in employee pride and ownership of a job as they're just working hours now and don't feel "in charge" of their job during their hours. They feel more like cannon fodder and don't "own" the job, so are more likely to let things slide for the next random rota person to sort out. e.g. "There's some muck to be cleaned, I'll leave it for the next shift to notice/sort out" rather than "There's some muck to be cleaned, I'm Monday staff and I know it's Bob on Tuesdays so I'll clean it now; he knows I'm Mondays and he'll think I'm a bit slack"

Not sure I said much of that clearly.

I'm afraid you've hit a nail on the head here, PN.

There's more than one type of efficiency. there's the version where everything works really well and costs a bit more, like a RollsRoyce that runs silently and rarely breaks down.

Then there's the cheap costs-nothing-and-barely-achieves-more-than-nothing things like (I don't know) one-man-buses that clog the traffic in our narrow streets but cost less in salaries than the old Routemaster ones did.

There's a terrible casualisation going on where everything's taking part in a race to the bottom. :mad::eek:
Rant over(again)!

lostinrates

JonnyBravo wrote: »

I'm sure if anyone really thinks about it logically they can't believe it. But may I venture your opinion is less common in one sex?

7B people and you meet "the one"? Impossibly improbable.... even the 70m in the UK would make it next to impossible.

I'm not sure Mrs JB would agree but she's a woman......

I don't know. I'd say in our relationship its more likely to be the other way round tbh.

A once reknowned male therapist once told me that (in general) men fall in love once in a way they can';t repeat: this might be with their mother, a teacher, a first girlfriend, or in some rare cases their wives...forgiving terrible behaviour and comparing all future women subconciously to ''the One''. Where as women love very very deeply, but as deeply the next time too and not necessarily in a comparitive way. I can think of cases where I'd accpet his theory was apt, but also where its not.....so perhaps it applies to a smaller percentage of people...perhaps its bunkum.

I've just asked dh, who knows I do not believe in the One and he says he kind of does. He sidestepped all serious relationships prior to me, feeling that it was a lot to invest in relationships you didn't know you wanted to last, so I was, for example, his first live in girlfriend. He says he kind of believes in ''the One'' in that he feels it about me, that therapist would have said I was his ''first love''. He is MUCH more romantic than I am.

silvercar

If there is "the one" then my uni choices (and his) meant we met each other, otherwise we wouldn't have met or perhaps we would have met later in life, assuming neither of us had become entangled with someone else at uni and "settled" for someone that wasn't "the one".

A friend who met her husband in her mid-thirties said she feels she has been playing catch-up ever since. Now she is scrambling round for babysitters and obsessed by school runs, while most of us are past that stage. She reckons that you are either searching with "eyes wide open" to find "the one" or are more accepting of someone in your urge to label "the one".

lostinrates

silvercar wrote: »

If there is "the one" then my uni choices (and his) meant we met each other, otherwise we wouldn't have met or perhaps we would have met later in life, assuming neither of us had become entangled with someone else at uni and "settled" for someone that wasn't "the one".

A friend who met her husband in her mid-thirties said she feels she has been playing catch-up ever since. Now she is scrambling round for babysitters and obsessed by school runs, while most of us are past that stage. She reckons that you are either searching with "eyes wide open" to find "the one" or are more accepting of someone in your urge to label "the one".

what I think is that not looking for the One has allowed me to get the balance overall ok in being a good wife to dh and leaving a bad partner last time.

When my etes were open to the fact it really was pants and I'd tell a friend to go I went. If I had thought the Pr1ck was ''the One'' I'd have been very broken as a person now. The one before that was a nice guy, but was besotted with girlfriend before (to whom he is now married...he wanted to get a whole lot of angst out of this but I wasn't up for that. Had there not been her there may or may not have been an us longer term, but its moot point). Guy before DH might well have done longer term, but I prefer dh . Guy before dh and I had a very good but open relationship, during which time I met DH. It makes me love them both a little more that they get on rather well and bloke before was decent enough to be a bit upset and tell dh to take good care of me, but not false enough to pretend he didn't care at all nor that he was going to be destroyed by it.

I think the One can be quite a dangerous idea really thinking about it now..both in bad relationships AND good ones. It implies either need to capitualte to maintain the relationship, or that there should be no need ever to work on it because everything should be somehow magically perfect with no need to compromise or consider the differences you have as individuals....

silvercar

I think OH is good for me, in that I am a more balanced and stronger person by being with him. Previously I had relationships that were too one sided and didn't do one or other of us any good for ourselves.

Someone once said to me that being brave in a relationship is ending it when you know it isn't working and you have no-one lined up as replacement; splitting up with someone because there is a better offer round the corner is weak. (Or did she say, not splitting up with someone until there is a better offer lined up the weak option?) Some truth in that. I have friends who really should have split up a long time ago, but don't because they are not brave enough to venture out alone.

lostinrates

silvercar wrote: »

I think OH is good for me, in that I am a more balanced and stronger person by being with him. Previously I had relationships that were too one sided and didn't do one or other of us any good for ourselves.

Someone once said to me that being brave in a relationship is ending it when you know it isn't working and you have no-one lined up as replacement; splitting up with someone because there is a better offer round the corner is weak. (Or did she say, not splitting up with someone until there is a better offer lined up the weak option?) Some truth in that. I have friends who really should have split up a long time ago, but don't because they are not brave enough to venture out alone.

We;;, I think I agree with all of that. Including being well balanced by dh....also he makes me want to be a better person than I am too, which is something I adore in him. I do sometimes get worried how very dependant I have become on him (in all interpretations of the word) but then....where would I have been without him? Doesn't really do to think about what might have been when I was ill without him for example.

zagubov

Speaking of airmiles needing saved up and long-distance travel; when I went to the Kiss launch party I was in a long-distance relationship (the now-Mrs Zag was in the States). All my hols consisted of was me running for a plane and spending time over there.

This arguing about who's the right one reminds me of a FOAF here in London who met a guy at a party and when they dated they met only at the weekends. She couldn't contact or visit him during the week and began to get suspicious that he had a family. Turned out his secret was he worked in NY and was bankrupting himself flying over to the dates.:rotfl:

Now happily married and living in the same city I'm glad to say.

misskool

michaels wrote: »

I'm getting so old - not sure I would even have recognised the beyonce tune if it didn't say - still we do have Kiss on in the car - what radio stations do other NP listen to?

My car radio only does Radio 2. It won't tune to anything else and I can't find any tapes to play in it.

lemonjelly

I always have cd's on in the car.
Shorter journeys will be 5live.
When the wolves are playing, that is what is on.

As an aside, car stereos. Is everyone as territorial as I am? God help you if you ever dare to touch my car stereo. I'm driving. I set the tunes. I set the volume. You be grateful.

I know, I am a music nazi...

lemonjelly

I can't comment on the relationship stuff, as I'm useless at that. I kinda admire the way the ladies happily waltz in & ask the questions so easily.

I'm not in a position to comment so won't.

Oh, & if Gen is reading, hope you cheered on our boys today. Did well against they who should not be named...

Off to do the tightness test...