Having working class roots with a bit of education has widened the horizons of my mind but you will still find yourself at the beck and call of your employer. Then finding yourself outside of the working class melee with other responsibilities and interests but still at the beck and call of your employer is a real struggle. How do you negotiate your new situation? How do you get the time to do the things needed of you with other responsibilities? Is it even possible to stay in the working class working world when there are other interests that need attention outside of work?

It does depend on your employer, every employer suffers from different issues whether it is staff retention or having the right team on board. Of course, all that you have done up to this point doesn’t count for a lot because your duty is never complete. You have to fill in and fill out the tasks for as long as possible. We all have heard of employers dumping older staff in a fairly surreptitious way because they don’t have the time to keep doing the tasks. You can’t be naive and expect your employer to have your best interests at heart.

They do mean well, at least as long as you are useful, but sometimes you have to dig your heels in because you have responsibilities to yourself and your children. There are jobs that are important and there are jobs that are urgent. For your employer though keeping you in your role is paramount, for you though as someone who has new responsibilities you need those interests considered. People will tell you what you want to hear, such as there will be big improvements and so forth because we all genuinely hope for those things.

The reality though is it can take a while to build a good team, if you have a lot on your plate don’t take on more responsibility. A lot of businesses are in the same situation with having a solid team, it looks like Covid has changed the playing field, also living pressures are playing a big part. People who would have worked for a certain wage a number of years ago are refusing and being pickier. That in some ways has meant not necessarily having the right people on board with the right attitude. Hopefully, things improve and they will of course but how those improvements play out are a work in progress.