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Having a Laugh



Just before Christmas, I heard a little news report that didn’t half make me laugh! Apparently, the Government is considering offering something called a ‘Midlife M.O.T’ for the 600,000+ over fifty-year-olds who have given up work in the last couple of years and have no intention of going back. This has caused a gap in the labour market which needs refilling. And the Government think that their ‘Midlife M.O.T’ idea will ‘help’ us no-longer-in-paid-employment folk back into work, by assessing our skills and any work-related issues we might have, so that we might be placed back in suitable employment, be that full-time, part-time, or voluntary. All for the convenience of the Government, of course. Like everything is these days. 

How patronising, I thought. How presumptive, I thought. How bloody rude, I thought. 

It’s just another way that Government feels it has the right to interfere in how people live their lives, that’s what it is. Like undergoing health screening, or how much exercise we should be doing, or fruit and veg we should be eating, or vaccinations we should be having, or what we can and cannot say because
 it might or might not upset someone else. It’s another erosion of personal autonomy, that’s what it is.

I started working when I was nine years old. Fruit picking on my grandparents’ farm during the summer holidays. I earned £4.67 that summer which was a fortune to me. About £40 in today’s money. And as a teen I had a regular weekend job in the farm shop. Did a bit of baby sitting, too. And I spent the best part of the next 40+ years working because that’s what I was taught was expected - that you earned your own money and paid your own way in life. 

Now I find myself in the very happy position of being mortgage and debt-free, with savings and no urgent need to earn a living. I am good at budgeting and I have few needs. I have time to spend doing what I want to do, which is mostly writing. The writing might, one day, create an income stream, which would be very satisfying, but if it doesn’t, it won’t stop me writing because writing is what I love best in the whole world. I’m setting up a new business - ‘Hallo Tarot!’ - this year, which again may or may not earn some income, but the point is it is something I shall enjoy doing and, now I’m in my late-fifties, enjoying life is what I intend to do. Besides, when I started working the retirement age for women was 60. It is now 67 which is blatant theft of life as far as I am concerned, and no-one (and when I say ‘no-one’ I’m talking ‘government’ again) consulted me on THAT! 

Therefore, I sincerely hope the Government does not offer me a Midlife M.O.T because I would not wish to cause offence by telling them where to shove it. If, and it’s a very BIG if, I want to rejoin the rat-race, I am perfectly capable of doing so under my own steam. So there! 

Besides, I can’t go back to work. It would be very unfair on the puppy that is coming to join our family in the next few weeks…

Comments

Anonymous said…
Good grief! A M.O.T!? Crazy. A puppy how exciting! Looking forward to hear about those shenanigans.
KJ
5 January 2023 at 14:32
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