ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The Advocate’s sales and human resources department have been recalled to our Daroo Street offices this week and the feeling amongst them is varied.
Parents of young children are relishing in the opportunity to both spend time away from them while also trading their labour for childcare. People who aren’t parents are glad to be back on the electric trolley bus at the crack of dawn. Some who own dogs are now having to lock them up all day. Workers that once opened their laptop at 8:58am having spent time with family, doing exercise and taking it slow are now on the trolley bus, in a polyester suit, begging for someone to crack a window.
One of those workers who used to start work in a good headspace, ready to tackle the days’ challeneges, is HR executive Dougal Ross.
Ross said this week has been a change.
“I do HR at a media company, my job is pretty straight forward,” he said.
“It’s very quiet until any function where there’s alcohol, then the older men have too much and say something inappropriate to the girls from the Weekend Advocate magazine and then we have to pay them out. And the world keeps on turning,”
“That being said, I can do this job in my pyjamas most days. I’ve got my dog at home, we go for walks at lunch. We get to hang out and it fucking rules. Now, I’m on the bus at 630 and I’m home in time for the ABC News. By which time, I’m fucked. No exercise, no time to myself. It’s fucked. I hate this job now, where before I could tolerate it.”
Ross’ experience is not uncommon.
Peng Chan from The Advocate’s sales team said because she’s forced to come into the office now, her 2-year-old son has to go to daycare five days a week.
“He already goes three days now, which is good for him, but now. Now, I’m having to work five days so I can pay for 5 days of care. It’s almost exactly what I get paid, we pay in childcare. We have to live off my husband’s salary and with the mortgage going mad and inflation putting household budgets on bitch, there’s not much else. In fact, I think we’re slowly going backwards,” she said.
“What’s the point? I pack a lunch, I don’t buy coffee. We shop at ALDI. No holidays, no free time. We spend most of the weekend caring for our elderly parents. Things will eventually get better but fuck me, this close to an election you’d think they’d pour a bit of sugar on us.”
More to come.
