New Equiry - Social distancing

[East Anglian Discos]

Quite funny that I offered the gig on a local DJ forum, and no one was interested in it, apart from someone who was offering a dry hire service. That's just as risky as you would need to sanitise the gear on collection

[Imagine]

Don't moan Son, don't moan.
You're guaranteed work to do, don't have to think what to do next, and don't have to buy things just to do your job.
Over here, in the wonderful world of the self employed, the work is famine or feast, the weather can put a stop to it in an instant, and you don't wake up on a morning with your day all planned out, and have your plans thrown into disarray with one phone call. Or have to decide which of the urgent, time sensitive jobs to go to first?

And you know what? I wouldn't want to go back to being a wage slave. Wayne, keep on with it mate, well done, and all the best.

Trust me old timer, being a wage slave is the last place I want to be - but I have bills to pay, mouths to feed and actually need to feel like I have a purpose in life at the moment.

This isn't a pity post by the way. I'm actually eternally grateful for my "position" at the moment (we took on a high flying ex sales rep and yet another driving instructor today!). We're all in the same vessel without adequate means of propulsion at the moment and each and every one of us can't wait to go back to what we do best (and believe me...it's not shovelling crates of prosecco, Merlot, speciality Gin and single malt around for 9 hours at a time!)

The unbelievable part is - they stand and clap for the likes of us on their doorsteps on a Thursday evening, and then moan at us on a Friday morning!

The disco's not going anywhere anytime soon sadly (and I now HATE visiting my lockup to do a security check every couple of days because I know the kit's not going to be firing up for the foreseeable and it's what I LOVE doing). I have a job which is paying money (sort of), but it's really NOT what was on the business plan this time last year

It just feels like the rug's been pulled from under my feet at the moment.

Sounds like a typical wedding lol!

Yup - that made me smile

People have very different expectations around what is considered a decent livable income. See my previous comment about how bad NHS pay is...

Julian

Expectations vs reality come into play here.

I've ALWAYS had a very well paid job (mainly software engineer for the past 20 odd years and those jobs at the moment are like the product of the back-end of a rocking horse!). We had more money than we needed, life was good. The disco was going to nearly replace that money but with a better work-life balance (well worth the trade off).

I'm now on minimum wage for a LOT more very physical and mundane work (at the moment it would take me more than a month to earn the same money as an all day wedding with a lot more sweat and grief). Don't get me wrong, things are what they are and I'm grateful for the money coming into the bank account, no matter how meagre. It's also a chance to sort of socialise with people outside of my own house.

The REAL key-workers however (and I meet a lot of them during my working day with the local hospital just a couple of miles down the road) deserve so much more! Some of the stories they're telling me at the moment are heart wrenching

Second that. I was thinking the other day what all this is likely to mean for my 16 and 17yr old kids who will be entering the job market in anything from 1 to 5 years (depending on the choices they make), possibly in the middle of one of the deepest global depressions the world has ever seen. Not sure how best to prepare them for that (other than encouraging them to stay in education as long as possible!)

Julian

My 21 yr old son graduated from university this time last year as a games designer. No chance of a job in that field at the moment. He's also in retail but annoyingly earning more per hour than me! Retail at the moment seems to be one of the safest career paths to take.

Interesting tale here: I went into retail as an assistant manager when I left school aged 16 way back in 1987. You would have thought I'd brought shame onto my family at the time, so low down the pecking order was the job. I'm now working alongside my original branch manager as an equal (in fact - three weeks more senior colleague...I'm training HIM...30-odd years on!

Can't say my 31 year old stepson has noticed any change in this self isolation business. He's been holed up in his bedroom 23 and a half hours a day for the past 8 years anyway. If he didn't surface for food, I'd never see him at all.

Yaaaay - it's not just us then!

Our 21 year old speaks literally THREE words to us on a daily basis.

1. "Bye" as he disappears to work
2. "Alright" as he comes home after work
3. "Night" as he goes to bed.

Other than that, we don't actually SEE him! He shuts himself away in his room on his PC for hours on end. We "hear" him go from his room to the toilet every now and then, and he'll come down to the kitchen for food at very odd hours, but other than that, it's like he's not actually here! Social distancing is really NO problem for him - he's been practicing for several years!

Quite funny that I offered the gig on a local DJ forum, and no one was interested in it, apart from someone who was offering a dry hire service. That's just as risky as you would need to sanitise the gear on collection

I noticed the tumbleweed on that post Rob Funny enough, all of those with big gentlemen vegetables during "normal" times have gone very quiet on anything to do with getting back to work for some reason.

Things WILL return to normal at some point next year, but until then, I'm going to be timed on my deliveries and judged electronically on my driving style for a while to come Hey - it's money in the bank and the bills just about paid

[DJ Jules]

Our 21 year old speaks literally THREE words to us on a daily basis.

1. "Bye" as he disappears to work
2. "Alright" as he comes home after work
3. "Night" as he goes to bed.

Other than that, we don't actually SEE him! He shuts himself away in his room on his PC for hours on end. We "hear" him go from his room to the toilet every now and then, and he'll come down to the kitchen for food at very odd hours, but other than that, it's like he's not actually here! Social distancing is really NO problem for him - he's been practicing for several years!

Sounds very familiar... 17yr old turns up for 3 meals a day and does a combination of gaming, remotely set assignments for his A-Levels and zoom meetings from his room (he tells me that the proportions of those three are 10/80/10, I suspect it's more like 60/35/5 ). 16yr old has started a business taking commissions for pet portraits and is now booked solid until she goes back in Sept. Website, business cards, the lot. She's quids in and loving it (especially as she could choose the commissions she wanted to take on), but she's drawing from 8am to 10pm every day

Julian

[Excalibur]

Trust me old timer, being a wage slave is the last place I want to be - but I have bills to pay, mouths to feed and actually need to feel like I have a purpose in life at the moment.

Hence why I came in the last two days exhausted, exasperated, thoroughly cheesed off with life, and drenched in either sweat or rain. As the song goes, " Some days are diamonds, some days are stones".

[Nakatomi]

Sounds like a typical wedding lol!

LOL yeah!

Add in having to listen to music you don't like for the duration & you're right on the money