Chalkeyes presents: A standard of living

“Fair enough” I said. Then he said, “Tell you what, if you can keep off the grog for a month, I’ll give you a bottle of gin.” Somehow it made sense. We both kept our bargain.

It feels a long way from the Brunswick Arms to one of the media organisations I do some work for these days. My position would be best described as dishrag; they would have not the least idea what I'm doing, not the least interest in my plans or needs or, God forbid, where I might see myself in five months to five years’ time. The question, when the phone call comes at any old time, will be: “are you free next week?” Or: “are you free in an hour?” And then, for all the other days when they don't need me to prop things up, and cover for their important people - the ones they fuss over - silence.

Eventually you think: I really don't know why I bother. But you also think: ‘well, you chose this, you know - free to do your own things on your own terms, and how much time do you want to spend there anyway?’ I might say the same thing about one or two other organisations I'm loosely connected to. I think of one them and wonder: ‘would I really want to be in that office all day with that much alpha-male swagger and that much pent-up rage and aggression?’

Also, it’s a relative luxury I’m complaining about. Try being the woman who made the 6 o’clock news last election, putting a simple but damning question to the Prime Minister in a cool store. Recently-moved from Auckland, and new to the experience of minimum wage work, she asked him, "how is anyone supposed to live on $16 an hour?" He had a sort of answer, but you have to ask whether it’s nearly enough for anyone.

Or try labouring for one of our supermarket chains where, one of their workers tells her union, “They tell you to hand in your work gear every time you call in sick. We have rent, power bills to pay. Some of us have kids to feed and they make it very clear that they can take that way and replace you. It’s hard not knowing if I’ll have security paying the bills.”

Is this something only the large organisations do? Or can the mum and dad businesses get it wrong too?

Well, of course they can. I think of one man, a farmer, a stock breeder; worked the same farm for his entire working life, never well-paid, but assured by the prosperous owner that when he died, when they were old and no longer working, he’d be looked after. Foolish, perhaps, to put your faith in a man’s word, but he did and too late, he discovered that word was worth more or less nothing.

To be sure, the wrong employee can bring you a nightmare. I have heard the frustrated stories. In the small businesses, it's the owner who gets whatever money is left over after everyone else, and that can be precious little.

Perhaps we are living with the reality of a low productivity economy and our only remaining option is to squeeze harder and harder. But must it be this way?

Perhaps I imagine a more enlightened time that never was. Perhaps I was just fortunate. And perhaps as the whole concept of jobs is melted away by automation and robotics, it's all too late. But I won't stop hoping it’s not.

David Slack is an author, radio and TV commentator and speechwriter. He established the website speeches.com, and has published several books including ‘Bullshit, Backlash and Bleeding Hearts’, exploring Treaty of Waitangi issues, and ‘Bullrush’, a social history of the popular children’s game.