I've been trying to scale the complexities of the childcare voucher scheme this week as my eldest son starts nursery in September. It took me three days to scope out the nurseries in our areas and four days for the police to convince me that the costs are not actually extortion, and therefore deserving of a mass execution, but are, in fact, legal. My bank account, already under manned, limping from a nasty bout of trench foot and in dire need of reinforcements after 12 months fighting off the worst of the recession, is now being kicked repeatedly in the shins by an outflanking force of two small boys armed with demands for nursery fees and shoe sizes that seem to double in size every nine days. That these vouchers exist at all is great but the fact that my company also contributes 10% is a godsend. Although, like most things in these days of pay freezes, pay cuts and redundancies, they only meet some of the costs of real life. So, in fact, it’s a Godsen, then, noun, pron: god-sen, a particularly useful and timely event (or employee benefit) that, while greatly appreciated, unfortunately, just doesn't go far enough.
My wife and I are on the opposite sides of the employment spectrum. Me: large company. Her: freelancer. Being a freelancer, she can work according to her needs but unfortunately, recieves none of the benefits that I get from being a full time employee. In boom times, this set up gave her the flexibility to work when she wanted, earning a decent wage and be on hand for the children too. The media often applaud any overly-hyped method of interconnected working different to the norm, spurred on by their desire to identify the 'new, new thing' and developments in social media and the web. The traditional company structure will soon be dead, monoliths transformed into mobile, loose affiliations of remote working employees, we were told. Wage slaves, claims the Daily Wail, I tell you that you will soon be free to work at home, railing against the decline of western civilisation while sitting in your pants. Unfortunately, the recession came and this emperor found that not only did he have no clothes but also lacked body parts and a torso. The Wildebeest are right. It's safer in a herd.
Larger companies have made efforts to retain their key staff over the last year or so, acknowledging that the cut and run techniques used in the last recession ended up hurting them when it came to recovery. In contrast, I listened to the audible smacks as members of the freelancing community, in the depths of the recession, hit the wall on an unpleasantly frequent basis. Often, it was people that we knew. Occasionally, we thought that it would be us.
And then, suddenly, those that had previously taken pleasure in being their own boss - the perceived zenith of employement evolution - began clamouring to become a wage slave, envying the regularity of our work, the childcare vouchers, the regular income and, at the end of it all, the safety net of a redundancy payment. The trick of course, will be to see if any of us have learned our lesson for the future. Personally, I doubt it. We never do.
