What jobs have you had?
Serfs Up
The Modern Serf – a definition.
Education fails the modern serf leaving a life of dead ends.
What if you do not climb upwards? What happens when ambition isn’t nurtured?
Work ambition is not for everybody. There is a large section of society that want to work hard with the ambition to live a good life. To find a partner, have children, but mostly experience fun. We are the modern serfs.
Borrowed from Old French meaning servant, a serf was a mediaeval term for the feudal class bound to the land and subject to the landowners will.
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary app)
Politicians do not discuss us; we are not important. We do not generate wealth – though we do – they take our tax to spend on protecting wealth. Not our wealth, the wealth of the important people.
They, the politician at election time, promise us better paid jobs. To level up our communities. That things will always get better once we vote for them. The sound bite, the vague promise, the dignity they offer to us, gone under the realities of power. It was a tough choice, they declare, as they once more shaft the modern serf. We did not really mean you, modern serf. Our trust melts under the heat of their deception. And they ask, Why do the people not trust us?
Right at the bottom rung of employment, serfs are the casualties of economic fluctuations. If profits shrink, the easiest way to lower costs is to lay off the worker. Those at the bottom are an easy target.
The life of this modern serf.
When I started my working life unemployment in Britain was well over a million, rising fast, and soon to hit three million. Factories were closing, the army was full. What was a seventeen-year-old boy to do.
The first job was in a trade/retail store that sold safety equipment to what remained of the industry in the city. A government scheme paid my wages, and when that scheme ended so did my work.
Truthfully, Serf was terrible, useless, unprepared for work, and unprepared to stand up for myself. What my education failed to do – or I failed to hear – was how to thrive in the work environment.
The next few years left me standing in line at the dole (welfare) clutching my UB40 making a claim for a little money to try and live on. Living on an estate where unemployment was a family business. Where the economy had failed us and somehow it was our fault. Yet, we never made the decisions, we just did as they told us. We followed orders. Get a job, work hard, work with dedication. Sacrifice for those more important than you.
There I stayed. Disintegrating into poverty. There was only me, myself, I, alone in a flat I could barely afford to make comfortable enough to be a home.
Not confident for sales. Not skilled enough for trades. Not smart enough for advance education. Stuck. Right there at the bottom. Along with millions of others.
Moving from temporary job to temporary job. Weighted down by low pay and hours that were unsociable at best. Fluid in choice, taking whatever you could get for as long as possible. A drizzling depression of ever decreasing opportunity and reward.
Window cleaning, office clerking, a couple of factories, all came and went. For a decade I flitted like a fly from excrement to bleeding carcass just hoping one would stick and plans could extend passed feeding myself. Two years here, a week there, a month or two, or just a few hours. One boss used to just knock on my door and ask if I was available for a day’s work the following day. Long before the zero hours contract tied you to a company that benefits them but not you.
That is the life of the serf. Nothing changes. Just when you think you may be getting ahead, before, once more, employment terminated.
That life had to end eventually. The economy built up wealth and those that had, wanted more. The gushing of wealth upwards birthed the trickle down as investment in new opportunities created employment. More serfs needed, here are your few rights for you to show your worth. Next year I will increase your wages, you can have inflation if you work extra hard. Remember Scrooge told Cratchit he was robbing him for wanting Christmas day off! This is the Britain of neo-liberal economics.
A breakthrough for the modern serf.
Permanency came in the retail sector, working in a DIY store. Surrounded by morons, I fitted right in. I could talk about characters, about the imbecilic nature of corporate Britain, but what is the point. It was a drowsy place to work and once I passed the three-year mark, I finally believed I had found a permanence. I did not enjoy it, but it gave a pay packet, increased my economic activity.
Lasting a decade – or near to it – I chose to leave. They did not do a lot to keep me. But serfs come and serfs go. There is always another standing in the welfare line ready to take my place. This Modern serf left for a better job, better pay and conditioned. A post I shall never leave.
You may not agree with my definition of the modern serf. Yet there is a modern mediaeval world structure on this planet. With the Billionaires owning the planet and bending politics to their will. They use power to erode our rights. To pile up the services charges and costs on us. Removing from us what we used to fund from taxation that the powers now want funded for profit. Increasing costs while stagnating wages, the life of the modern serf is turning to anger. Promises made and speeches delivered promise change, but all on the back of the deity Economy.
But here’s the turn: I’m not writing this to complain. I’m writing because the modern serf has a voice — and I intend to use mine.
This Modern Serf has a voice.
My voice will not be silent.
The politicians refuse to hear the modern serf. This modern serf refuses to listen to the platitudes. This modern serf is deaf to the blame they apportion for my servitude. I will not blame the immigrant. I will not blame the single mother. I do not believe we are too lazy to work hard. Nor will I ever be convinced that the welfare state is to blame for modern servitude.
This modern serf screams NO to the conservative voice whatever they name the party.
Scribing serf is the name I write under on substack
Serfs Out!
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