An urban N.Z. baby-boomer and a Jack Russell terrier
  • BLOG / COLUMNS
  • CONTACT
From the Grey Urbanist

LIVING PRECARIOUSLY

12/1/2015

0 Comments

 
Time to come out of the closet and admit to being a denizen of a shadowy netherworld society ... the precariat.
Picture
Professor Guy Standing, an economist from the University of London, coined the term precariat to describe a rapidly expanding socio-economic class, which Standing argues has arisen as a consequence of globalisation and whose work lives are characterised by unpredictability and insecurity. 

Sitting happily atop Standing’s version of the socio-economic heap is the global elite, 
“a tiny minority of absurdly rich and high-earning people”. Squatting very unhappily at the bottom is an “army of unemployed” and “a detached group of socially ill misfits". 

Somewhere in between lie the “salariat”, who enjoy (for the moment at least) high-incomes and stable, full-time employment, and people like me - the “proficians”. who Standing describes as “self-selling entrepreneurs, living opportunistically on their wits and contacts”. 

Picture
My most regular income as a profician comes from the writing of this column and work I do on contract for another Nelson organisation. I earn irregular amounts, at irregular intervals, from other work I pick up here and there. One or all of these income streams could vanish overnight.

My recent applications for “real” jobs - the ones that come with sick pay, holiday pay and a predictable infusion of cash each week – have been unsuccessful. It seems I'm either under-qualified, over-qualified, or too old. Or perhaps I just haven’t made my C.V. quite appealing enough. I will come back to this subject later.

Standing doesn't have a category for the folks who make a living by writing self-help books for the precariously-positioned profician. He should have. 

I've immersed myself in the oeuvre this summer, plunging into such encouraging tomes as these:
  • “What Colour Is Your Parachute: A Practical Manual For Job-Hunters And Career-Changers”
  • “The Essential Guide To Business For Artists And Designers”
  • “An Enterprise Manual For Visual Artists And Creative Professionals”
  • “Kick-Ass Creativity: An Energy Makeover For Artists And Creative Professionals”
  • “You Don't Make A Big Leap Without A Gulp”
  • “Make It Mighty Ugly - Exercises And Advice For Getting Creative Even When It Ain’t Pretty”
  • “Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System To Drive Breakthrough Creativity”
 
I’ve also read books like these which target the salariats who are wondering just how much longer they can survive the life-sapping stress of the high-paying job they know they are lucky to have: 
  • “Be A Free Range Human: Escape The 9 To 5, Create A Life You Love and Still Pay The Bills”
  • “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join The New Rich”
  • “The Other 8 Hours: Maximise Your Free Time To Create New Wealth & Purpose”
  • “Click Millionaires - Work Less, Live More With An Internet Business You Love”
  • “The Work We Were Born To Do: Find The Work You Love, Love The Work You Do”
  • “Winning Without Losing: 66 Strategies For Succeeding In Business While Living A Happy And Balanced Life”
  • “Can You Teach A Goat To Dance?: Getting The Best Out Of Your Life And Work”
  • “Self-Made Me: Why Being Self-Employed Beats Everyday Employment Every Time”
  • “Rework: Change The Way You Work Forever”

You get the picture. People with jobs are desperate to find a way out. People who don’t have jobs, or have work, but not enough of it, are desperate to find a way in by a combination of upskilling, ingenuity and hauling on the bootstraps. It’s clear from the tenor of these books that responsibility for the problem, and the solution, lies not with politics or economics, but with the individual. 

I’ve received professional advice recently on vocational self-reinvention. It involves shrinking and editing my C.V. so that I appear younger, less experienced and less skilled than I actually am. I understand the argument behind this advice: less can be more, brevity is the soul of wit etc. But when, I wonder, does artful editing become lying, and an insult to oneself and any potential employer? 

Trying to shoe-horn oneself into a smaller and lesser version of oneself is certainly a dispiriting process. It’s almost as dispiriting (and infuriating) to discover that media-savvy youngsters like 25-year-old Swedish gamer Felix Kjellberg, who has 30 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, pulls in US$4 million a year just by posting videos of himself on YouTube.

However, I do know that I am one the world’s lucky ones: I’m not picking a living off a rubbish dump in Manilla or chained to a sewing machine in a sweatshop. I have skills for which there is a small market. And of course I live in a country with a social welfare system which makes the precariat slightly less precarious. 

Nonetheless, on a bad day I feel like Yosser Hughes, one of the unemployed working-class Liverpudlians in the 1980s British TV series "Boys from the Blackstuff". 

In one scene, desperate for a job Yosser trudges in the wake of a man pushing a contraption with which he is marking the lines on a football pitch. “Giz a job. Go on, giz it. Giz a go” pleads Yosser. “You only have to walk straight. I can walk straight. Go on. Giz a job”.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    THE GREY URBANIST
    Ro Cambridge, is a freelance writer, 
    arts worker & columnist Here she reports on the oddities & serendipities of  urban life.  She roams Nelson city , NZ 
    with a tan & white Jack Russell. (Her original canine side-kick, Pete, who features in many of these posts died in 2015.

    BLOG TOPICS

    All
    Aging
    Anti Xmas
    Auckland
    Books Mags & Other Media
    Christchurch
    Death Grief Depression
    Dogs & Other Animals
    Flights Of Fancy
    Food
    Grandparenting
    Gratitude & Celebration
    Living In A Small Space
    On Being Human
    Paleo Diet
    Social Comment/Politics
    Special Places & Events
    Street Life & Art
    Technology
    Travel
    Weather
    Work
    Writing

    ARCHIVE

    June 2023
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    April 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    December 2011
    June 2010

    Enter your email address below 
    to receive postings from the 
    Grey Urbanist by email 

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.