PUBLIC OR PRIVATE?

Now here's an example of a completely irrelevant piece of journalism. I clicked on it having worked for exactly twenty years in the private sector surrounded by friends in the public domain so considered myself well placed to analyse it. But comparing one random person in the private sector with anyone is utterly pointless given private companies set their own agenda.

So for all you public workers out there who are rushing to hand in your notice tomorrow to pursue a job in the private sector here's a bit of the UK private sector I know (from my own experience, and that of other family members).

Core hours are probably between 35 and 38 hrs a week.

Salary is probably on a par with or slightly lower than public sector for equivalent post. With rises of 1 - 1.5% annually for 10 years many private sector jobs have nosedived behind public equivalents. (For example when I started work in publishing in 1991 I earned 30% more than a school teacher, by the time I left the sector 18 years later I was 30% below a school teacher with the same number of years experience because of low annual rises and salary scales that had been abandoned but not replaced.)

Holidays 25 days a year - but taking them given your workload is unlikely so count on losing 3 or 4 at the end of every holiday year.

Overtime - Twenty years ago rates were written into your contract, ten years later rates were dropped as was overtime, now overtime is an everyday occurrence, compulsory, unpaid, and you never hear a 'thank you' - this is the case for all the private sector job holders I know.

Company pension - final salary schemes were phased out 7 or 8 years ago for the most part and thereafter those on final schemes have become easy picking in every round of redundancies but this is of course simply 'coincidence'.

Bonus - 1% if you were eligible, in my own case I was not and never received a bonus in 20 years though other family members have. Often private sector workers receive an annual bonus instead of a salary increase so they have, to all intents and purposes, been on a pay freeze for most of the last 5 years - not great for mortgage purposes.

Benefits - Healthcare discounts and money-saving offers at selected retailers. Again in my case this was not something I was eligible for though other family members have received these.

Union membership - if you want to pay every month you could join a union but no one will strike or complain because of job insecurity so it is irrelevant.

Something the article doesn't mention is sick pay. Sick pay is something public workers take for granted - I have even heard of NHS workers applying for holidays to be retaken when they've fallen sick on holiday. In my experience sick pay in the private sector is irrelevant as being off sick just isn't allowed - with redundancies hanging over you always, being off sick became a luxury about 4 or 5 years ago.

WHY THE SILENCE?

Just 9 short weeks after resigning from my job because we needed someone to stay home to look after the children given the £1900 bill for nursery and afterschool, we were told last week that Thomas's job, amongst many others, is 'potentially redundant'. So I have spent the last week in a daze of panic, fear, tears, anger and incredulity as we try to work out how to feed 6 people and pay for the house, which we can't sell during the housing market collapse, on no income at the height of the worst recession in the last 100 years.
To lose one job, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Oh and the big summer wedding is now officially cancelled, of course.

AN ODD FEELING

Since I resigned back in November, I have had a large cardboard box sitting on the floor in my kitchen. I went into the office for a meeting and someone handed me it saying my office had been cleared out and my 18 years of personal possessions put in the box.
I didn't really feel like looking in it. I didn't suppose it contained anything I actually needed at home. I figured it had a couple of cups, a nailfile, 10 years of photos that at various times had been on my office wall.
I put the bin out tonight for the binmen and noticed it was nearly empty - a good night to throw out anything I didn't need to keep.
I brought through the box. It was odd to see 18 years of paperwork.
I found drawings by the kids that I had had on my walls. One by Charlotte aged 2, one by Marcel aged 4 - it was of me holding his and Charlotte's hand, from a time of innocence before he discovered the chart show and chatting up girls on msn!
I found my first ever computing tutorials. I had forgotten I knew nothing of UNIX when I first started in Collins.
I found folders on every project I ever worked on from the first ever English framework back in 1991 right through to the stuff I am now working on freelance.
There were many papers I had written. Some sounded almost like I once had a functioning brain. Funny to think all that is somehow meaningless now. It was almost an out-of-body experience watching myself go through all the dictionaries, computing projects and the rest... weird, sad really...

END OF AN ERA

Today is officially my last day employed with Harpercollins. It feels weird to think that come 1pm I will officially be unemployed, or rather self-employed. I guess it is a good thing dictionary writing is such an incestuous profession - I have ex-colleagues at Chambers, Harrap, Larousse, Oxford etc. Looking them all up to beg freelance jobs will feel like a family reunion! Collins hasn't been the same since many of the old timers moved on. We were such a wee family in the beginning.
Wish me luck as I enter this brave new world!

JEDE ENTSCHEIDUNG IST EINE SCHEIDUNG

Fame at last!
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Well what can I say? For 18 years I have driven into HarperCollins to write them dictionaries. It's been fun for the most part. I think I am quite good at it - word analysis, structure, the bilingual element. But for some reason this country's economy is senseless. Publishing pays less than an average wage, though you have to be a university graduate to work in it (note that - anyone who assumes they'll ever pay off their student loan one day working in publishing!) To go back to work I would need to pay 2 private nursery places - I don't think having two pre-schoolage kids is that unusual in the Western world, but two nursery places (once you add on the petrol to get to work) actually means you work for nothing - nada, niente, zilch! So my 5 years of university education, my Master of Arts degree, and my 18 years experience in lexicography are to be shelved for want of a nursery place I can afford. Gordon thinks I'd be better staying home hoovering and wiping bums - sad, really.
Anyway, I guess like many before me I will now try to work as a freelance lexicographer from home, adding in a bit of photography and painting the odd kiddie mural to make ends meet. Isn't it just a crazy way to run a country, though!?

LIFE'S A BORE!

Today Anna got to meet her Collins co-bump. Julie, from the Production (no pun intended) department was about 3.5 weeks behind me all through my pregnancy and from half way through we both knew we were having little girls, so we'd planned to meet up once we were both on the other side. I was in the middle of a photoshoot when wee Aimée yawned, instantly Anna, who was staring at her, caught her yawn - I didn't realize that was an instinct that started so early (Anna is 6 weeks old, Aimée 3). It was a very sweet sight. When I showed this photo to Carol, another dictionary co-worker, her reaction was to ask if we'd shown the girls a dictionary or something equally boring - funny!

NEARLY THERE

Baby clothes
Originally uploaded by viralbus

I actually made it to the cake this time! Or maybe the fact that they brought the cake forward to meet me might actually have helped - time will tell. Basically, I was meant to finish up to have Léon on Friday the 30th of September 2005 but woke up a couple of hours after going to bed on the Wednesday night, in labour and had him the day before I was due to receive my cake, and presents. I guess they were so scared of a repeat, they had the cake and presents today, despite the fact that I am still meant to be around until tomorrow at 1pm! As we speak (10-41pm on the 29th, I have not yet gone into labour - I feel positively overdue suddenly!) Don't tell me I am even going to manage to work my last day, tidy my desk and do my dishes - how depressing...time to go looking for the raspberry leaf tea?

BACK TO WORK

Well this is the first time I have had time to sit down in nearly a week - maternity leave has come to an end - alas - and needs must :-( so I am back to being a headless chicken. Started back last Tuesday at 8-15am. The place was pretty empty at first so I waited on it filling up, only to remember that actually half the place has been made redundant so it wasn't going to fill up :-( How depressing! The office is huge, empty and echoey. And worse still my mate Pat who sits opposite me has just resigned so I will soon be reduced to talking to the photos on my wall! I hate to say it after just 4 days but I feel like I need a holiday already! Anyway at least Léon is enjoying nursery. He's been hiding behind his hands and playing peek-a-boo since he started and on Friday they held a wee birthday party for him for his first birthday.