To want to scream when posters confuse 'hardworking' with successful / well off /professional- because poor people can be hardworking too. And professional people can be under employed.

[BobbingForPeachys]

yes I know i'm averaging one AIBU thread a day ATM, am tired so it is fun. This isn't a paty political rant, it's about usage of phrases by posters and campaigners of all ilks.

Anyway this is a big bugbear of mine

'X do nothing for the hardworking people'

'We will support hardworking famillies' (always picture five year olds cleaning streets with that one!)

'I need my thirty four homes / swan hotel / private jet as a reward for being so hardworking'

blah blah blah

What you mean is you will support the more professionally employed or affluent

Which is fine, society needs all those people to function

But it also needs poorer people to staff nurseries / be HCA's / mop up poo in care homes. The affluent cannot survive without the less well paid, that's a basic fundamental of life under our system.

And that's hard work too, and just as valid. Dh used to manage 60 salaried hours a week when he worked for El Shitty Company years ago, for a fab £18k per annum (normal for area), and moved job when his boss dropped dead at his desk. And I am a hardworking carer in fact. Different existences, no less effort.

Just respect people who comtribute by fulfilling their job or role please.
Regardless of how many GCSE's or ££ it creates for them.
Is all thanks.

Well a busy fool is not my expression but yours! I took it to mean someone who slogs all their life for relatively low pay ... Is that not what you meant?

lol, me too. got a first and an msc, oh, and a husband that got blown up and a disabled child (we oft have a small wry grin at the luck that brought us two unrelated brain injurys lol)

i'm still going to do a phd though. just haven't worked out when, exactly...

MMM that does sound like a very difficult life. I for one could certainly not categorise myself in that level of 'hardworking' even though I put every effort into my work -am self employed after years of unhappy employeedom (I guess you could say I was a busy fool Podrick, then realised I had the power to do something about it!)

I hope that in today's society there is a lesser proportion of the population having to cope under such strain as MMM's Grandfather, but I don't know if that would be true to say?

No, I guess I was having a bit of a random muse Podrick and going a bit off topic to be honest, but what I meant by a busy fool is someone who works like a dog but receives no fulfillment from what they do (not necessarily financial).

I recognise that there are some cases where people NEED to stay in a particular job until they are able to find/create something better, but I think in many cases people stay in crap jobs, work themselves into the ground, all while moaning about working really hard...! There is often a choice, it's just figuring out what that is and then doing something about it (the hard bit).

Oh, thanks for explaining the busy fool , crazycatlady

Milly idprobably put my dad in that class of slog tbh- going PT this year at 65 with what is a disability but he wont complain

I admnire him. He''s incredible (he was a manager for many eyars until redundancy, then took a job at a factory, then as a cleaner.I remember him owkring 12 hour days for weeks on end, before overtime)

But really luck is essential.It is nto everything for syre, for many people it does come down to planning and direction.

But I dont regard my role asacarer to the bioys to be rthe result of a lack f ambition or graft, I've done all that- back at workehen the boys aged 9 weeks etc....

I ddnt work any ahrder then than now, just differnetly- and formally. I sleep less now in fact.

There is a choice factor- in that I have children and every child comes with a risk of caring responsbiolity unless you are so affluent pre-children you can afford a nanny no matter how specialised.

but even then it was dh's sudden illness that lost us the house.

Peoplewho beleive that luck isn;t a factor are naive. Now,you can take your luck lying down or youc an fight- we're fighters, DH has formed his own company PT and is retraining, I have done my degree alongside caring and now an MA is underway...... but a snapshot of right now would show us aas extremely poorly off. becuase our hurdles are greater than many.

In ten years who knows? I know soempeople think we are naive to believe thinsg will changebut we won't stop trying. The odds are aginst us (as my quals improve so my body seems to be falling apart LOL_ I have a stick some days now at 36) but I don't like odds, they annoy me.

'oft have a small wry grin at the luck that brought us two unrelated brain injurys lol)

'

you get a very dry SOH don't you?

When I had my last aprents evening but one,with two diagnosed with ASD and Dh recently recovered from MH issues, they mentioned DS2 may have dyspraxia and there were tissues brought out in case I sobbed.

I laughed endlessly and commented he'd have to try ahrder to be noticed in our house.

If I was going to go down sobbing, i'd have done it by now. I don't have the time.

This is a pet hate of mine. Drives me fecking mental.

When my OH came out of the army (after serving in the Gulf) he couldnt get a decent job. So he had to work in retail security and also did cash in transit. He earned feck all but worked 60hr weeks. That is pretty hard working IMO.

We dont work very hard now and do get lots of top up benefits. But we dont work very hard because of our cicumstances, not due to laziness. I would much rather our lives were like they were 10 years ago, everyone healthy and alive with me and OH slogging away doing lots of different jobs to get by.

There are millions of hardworking families living on pitiful incomes but they are not the hardworking families that are spoken about when using this phrase. It tends to mean the affluent.

Of course affluent people can be hard working too but its not exclusive.

How many of us work for management on much higher saleries who seem to do a lot less donkey work than us?

YANBU- this really gets to me.

So people such as Posh Spice who gets paid to go shopping and make dresses obviously so much richer than teachers and nurses because she works so much harder. not.

YANBU.

YANBU

the most number of hours I have worked in a week was the wrong side of 120

if I was private sector most people on here (hardworking or not ) wouldn't be able to afford me

I would like to be able to afford a house or a garden for my dcs (there is a thread for me in property I know but TBH I am further away from a house now than I was pre-dcs )

for lots of times 'hardworking' equates to monied!

YANBU.

And luck plays a part in getting on, yes I worked hard and long to improve my career, however luck played a huge part, as well as being in a right place at the right time, and the felicity of having managers who I got on very well with, and who were supportive. It was more luck and opportuinity that I chose engineering for aerospace - I think I would have been screwed if I opted for automotive or associated industries. And if I had had managers who I had clashed with I probably wouldn't have progressed as far as I have today - the managers I had pushed me and gave me work far in excess of my capabilities, in order for me to learn and progress. I could very easily still be on the bottom rung.

Being a professional doesn't mean I work harder than when I was on the shop floor, however the work and subsequently the pressures are so very different. I work long hours, always have to be contactable, and have to go abroad at a moments notice, and my job is very stressful, but I can't say I work any harder now that when I was sewing knickers in a vile factory for peanuts.

Something a poster once said that i will never forget is their opinion on those who work in shops as shop assistants;

"It's hardly a job for the educated"

I have barely posted on mn since because of that snobbish, ignorant post!

i agree so completely. this has rankled me in the past too.. I am not 'paid' to do anything except mind my children btu we dn't have a car adn they both have sn (mild autism and mild ADHD). Life isn't easy btu that doesn't mean I'm any less happy but still........

I find the hardest working people are the ones who provide services such as abuilding, carpentry, plumbing, nursing, teaching, medical assistance etc etc. Thos who work in banks speculate and gamble with other people's money - not nearly as hard no matter how much they complain about.

YANBU

And I think it's from the current climate of entitlement and envy that other people may be getting a bit more, forgetting that other people are getting more because of benefits based on needs and means.

fwiw, we are nowhere near that magic £50k bandied around on here as some kind of line where you just can't live properly below, but we are still more than happy to pay taxes!! I mean ffs are we a civilised society or not. And if it ever comes to it, which it could well do, neither of us would object to 40% tax! We would still be earning more ourselves! I believe we are on this earth to help make other people's lives better.

I just wrote a massive rant and then deleted it - am tired and fed up - agree with Riven and others I feel very sad about this sort of thing today

We used to get about £34k including child benefit /disabled level of TC's etc.

Weweremore than happy, had enough for a few treats and to slowly make a pot of savings etc.

Life changed with thre recession but we are still coping, mainloy becuase we are willing to do what we can and shift about to make a bit of wriggle space.

Yet now I see posters saying that the 16 hour WTC limit should be dropped (which would exclude us, you can't magically grow a business from 16 to 30 hours overnight) and claims that DLA administration will change in a way that excludes us becauise our SSD deem us not in need of support (that's a joke BTW, I am on the verge of exhaustion)

People don't really value hard work in the battling against the odds sort of way, or the making the best fist you can type. They mean 'within the system wearing a suit and not making a fuss'.

Oh, amen to the OP and thread title

I hate the whole 'hard working' trope. It's so fecking divisive - a politician's way of saying 'you, dear voter, are hard working; she is feckless; they are benefits scroungers'. I pretty much switch off whenever I hear someone using it.

I completely agree with you. this is something that really annoys me.

Hardworking applies to many people and doesn't depend on the salary. Annoys me too.

I thought hard working meant the people who earn fuck all for doing the bloody hard jobs, like care workers etc. I thought they got singled out because noone helps them financially and they don't earn much more than benefit receivers.

It doesn't though SW, it is often used as a get out for ebing abe to own multiple homes instead of one, or a home far bigger than your needs.

OK if you ahve the money how you spend it is alrgely (accepting debates on sapce / second homes etc) your affiar- but it's not just becuase you worked ahrd, it'sbecause of a whole host of things.

Another one I see is 'Oh I have a big house becuase I worked ahrd for it'.

No dear, you have a big house becuase you were twenty three in the nineties recession and bought your first one for 67p and a bag of crisps, then sold it for seven times that. That'sluck.

Someone working just as ahrd now will be lucky to get a flat.

reality.