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No Going Back To Work

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allenlondon | 05:46 Thu 10th Sep 2020 | News
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Apparently, people who needn’t go back to work aren’t going back to work.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/10/no-rise-in-workers-in-uk-city-centres-despite-back-to-office-plea

Is this inevitable? So many office jobs are far from useful, involving moving bits of paper around, or making phone calls, that people just aren’t going to miss a few million office workers not turning up.

A bit like many hospital clinic consultations, just as effective done by telephone, people might be waking up to the tremendous waste of time that society indulges in.

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Sometimes you are impossible to argue with
10:22 Fri 11th Sep 2020
I wish he'd make it 201 by coming back to answer the questions from this morning.
I’m pretty sure the only jobs deemed ‘worthy’ in Allen’s mind are jobs similar to those created in Stalin’s 3 Glorious 5 Year Plans, all controlled by the Communist state. Anything else is frippery of the bourgeoisie.
You could be right, deskdiary, but he's prone to dodging questions so perhaps we'll never know.
I’m genuinely intrigued as to what the worthless ‘paper moving’ jobs are.

Are they the investment managers who invest his pension money, the employees of the bank he banks with, the employees of the insurers he insures his house with, the white collar workers and managers of factories or any other employee in any industry who sits in front of a computer rather than lifting things or making things.

Come on Allen, which specific jobs are worthless?
I would like to know too.
Question Author
Well, most of the advertising industry could go without being missed. Likewise the City barrow boys and their oiks. LSimilarly much NHS management - they all APPEARED about 30 years ago (how did we manage without them?)

I’ve worked in offices, and seen hordes of people standing around gossiping (no doubt these days it’d be emailing or going online for a good chat). Are THEIR jobs vital?

Allen, the NHS is in dire need of serious reform and has been for years - I don’t think anyone would dispute that - but advertising generates £100 billion a year for the UK economy - and the efforts of those City oiks you so despise contribute £132 billion - not to mention the beneficial effect they have on your pension.

You haven’t said what you would like all these useless people to do for a living once you’d done away with their current jobs. What do you propose?

I get the impression that your observation of the antics of office workers was from the other side of the post trolley. If you had been involved in the business world you would understand how business works and just how vital it is to a healthy, thriving economy - but you very clearly don’t.
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Ooo err, I've gone and made her cross again.
Allen, you never make me cross.

Would you answer my question please? What would you have these people do for a living once you'd destroyed their jobs?
You're enough to make a saint cross Allen, so there!
Question Author
Thanks ladybirder, for some reason your comment makes me happy!

But re the me vs. naomi business, I really don't think there is any point in trying to debate these things with her. I state my position, which is broadly pro-working class, she states hers, which is broadly pro-capitalist, and I think we've got what Lenin (and others) called an irreconcilable contradiction.

What I DO wish, however, is that more people (particularly women) who get involved in my 'Men Who Hate Women' thread, as although I've put up two links to book reviews, and now a link to Woman's Hour, I fear few have read or listened to them, and it's on a topic of vital importance to us all!

A
Allen, //I state my position//

You haven't stated your position. I've asked you what jobs you would provide to replace those you want to destroy. You haven't answered.
Allen are you saying that if one believes in capitalism, it therefore means you can't be pro working class?
I think Allen’s definition of ‘working class’ is anyone who doesn't work in an office, and certainly anyone who isn’t management. He forgets that everyone who has to work for a living is a worker and that most managers have worked hard to attain their position. Unlike him, I have no grudge against anyone who does well for himself.

Additionally, quoting Lenin has to be a joke. Look what happened to his wonderful regime. It didn’t work - because communism never works. The workers soon find out that they are still living in a society where some are privileged are the rest are not, only now any aspiration or ambition they may once have cherished is denied them. People want more than communism will ever offer - and that’s why those who have experienced it reject it. Wake up Allen!
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ladybirder "Allen are you saying that if one believes in capitalism, it therefore means you can't be pro working class?"

Must say I'm tempted to get you to ask naomi, since she knows my views inside out...

But yes, to your question - with honourable exceptions (Ken Clarke springs to mind) - I think that most City Slickers (barrow boys in my terms) don't give a rats for the working class, except that they should keep on working!

All I want is that we should explore different ways of running our society, so that everybody gets an equal go at life (how many do we get again?)

But all naomi seems to want is to knock the Soviet Union (and other attempts at socialism), and to get cross when alternatives are suggested.

Keep well.

A

Allen, //Must say I'm tempted to get you to ask naomi//

Haha! That’s the only way you’ll ever muster the courage to speak with me - via someone else.
Question Author
I really am sorry I make you cross, naomi.

Can we find some common ground? Do you like cats, for example?
// Well, most of the advertising industry could go without being missed. //

depends what you mean. in my branch of industry (assurance and safety) it's the trade shows where suppliers get to show and demonstrate their wares. It's a form of advertising and a presence at the shows is paid for out of the companys' advertising budget. The advertising pays for the seminars which is the reason I (and many others) go to the shows. well that and the opportunity to meet industry colleagues and swap ideas and experiences.

would the trade shows be missed? well there haven't been any trade shows this year and it's not looking good for next year either. most of the venues are nightingale hospitals so won't be available for the foreseeable. the event suppliers, though - the stand builders, the lighting providers, ventilation contractors, multimedia companies - have had no business this year and several suppliers to the NEC have either gone under, or are about to. these people aren't advertisers but are very much dependent on the industry. and the assurance and safety industry, though not exactly in limbo, is losing major opportunities provided by the ability to show their wares.

you can't remove a plank of industry and expect there not to be repercussions elsewhere - it's very much a sort of eco-system that is inter-dependent on every part of it.
Question Author
Understood mushroom.

In latter years, we ran a graphic design outfit, and many of our clients were biggish PR companies, who did brainless things to promote THEIR clients.

Silly industry, silly money, paid for my early retirement.

Maybe it’s guilt at being so involved in such a pointless industry that prompts this thread!
it's not just PR companies that do brainless things.

one of the plant hire companies that supplied machinery to build the M74 in southern Scotland grew from nothing (a one man and his dog operation on one of the western isles) to be one of the biggest players in the central belt in just a few years. they did this by buying new plant, working it for a few months or years then selling it on abroad, mainly to the middle east. quite lucrative. the M74 was to be their magnum opus, millions of pounds of plant bought on tick ready to be sold on. however while the M74 was being completed, the bottom fell out of the export market and they were left with loads of kit they couldn't shift. bye bye plant company and their large workforce. the banks had to take their share of the blame - the MD had been bankrupt twice before under similar circumstances.....

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