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| Cosmic Tarot, US Games 1988 |
A few sentences stuck out this morning in the Jean Huet companion book to the Cosmic Tarot: 'Closed eyes bring us over the precipice, led by the fantasies of those who would dominate us. The Fool is the short-term solution, the easy way out: ...exploitative labour practices to compete with other economies...' In the list of meanings at the end of the entry: 'Annulment of reason'.
I never saw those meanings in the Fool before, but management's reasons for changing the way Sunday working has been done for years (on a voluntary basis, for a stipend) has been shifted to a rota are most certainly perfunctory at best, and we do feel exploited. 'We have in ourselves the capacity to laugh at ourselves and to laugh at the folly of our leaders--even as they, like the Fool, bring us dancing to the edge of a precipice. A humourless life would be unbearable,' Huets writes. What can we do but laugh it off. Even if it is a bitter laughter.
Well, I'm not at all happy about this Sunday working thing. No one is, really. (Except possibly those managers who go tripping off home on a Friday not to be seen again until Monday morning. And who get full bank holidays every bank holiday weekend, without fail. For the rest of us, if our Saturday falls on a bank holiday weekend, tough. We work.) It means that when I'm on the Sunday rota, I will be working 8 days on the trot with no day off. Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri. It is on the following Friday that the Sunday hours are taken off the day. But I still have to come in on the Friday, so that's still a day off taken away from me. A day that could be all to myself, lost. Can't go away, can't travel, not enough time to do anything on a Sunday when you work 10.45-3.15. (The work day stretches across lunch time but because we are not 'entitled', we don't get to eat lunch during that time.) And you can't do much on a Friday if you have to go in to work for 9-11.45.
But, there's nothing we can do about it. I already have to work every other Saturday, and now add in seven Sundays April 2013-April 2014, that's most of my weekends gone. Sucks.
What else the Fool might be hinting at in response to this situation, I'm not ready to look at. It's an uncertain world, an uncertain time, a time in which a person can actually be turned down for an application for a current account! A time when someone in a very healthy financial position can be turned down on a request to have their overdraft increased from £300 to £500. A time when the population of entire countries have lost access to their own savings, when whole cities in the United States of America have declared bankruptcy. It does not seem like the best time to go throwing myself off any metaphorical cliffs, even if my job does piss me off.
That really does suck big time! Having to go into work, even for a few hours, spoils the whole day's ambience :( And working 8 days in a row sounds exhausting. If you loved your job, it might be different, but as it is...
ReplyDeleteIf you manage to scrounge up the energy after all that, you could do something Fool-esque, like starting something new - as an add-on, as opposed to a replacement. From little seeds, and all that :D If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend this post by Tierney Sadler: http://www.tierneysadler.com/2013/04/4413being-lucky-like-fox.html
Why does being lucky like a fox always have to involve Facebook? I already did sow one little seed I guess today. Posted something on TABI.
DeleteI also ordered Tierney's Deck of 1000 Spreads deck. I've been putting it off, but now it's done.
DeleteI liked your little seed! As I say, I'd be up for a Brum meet-up :) As for the Facebook thing, if you saw my comment, I think the seeds can be sown in many places and ways...
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