Tonight:
4°c
Away from the classroom, it doesn't take much to make overworked, stressed-out teachers cackle hysterically. They're usually so frazzled that half a glass of wine will do the trick. Now, however, they're laughing without any prompting whatsoever. "I never thought I'd say this. But it's a jolly good time to be a teacher," one friend who teaches English at a south London comprehensive told me this week.
As Bank of England adviser David Blanchflower warned that unemployment would hit three million by 2010, this is becoming the joke du jour. I heard the same from a social worker. "I know we are not exactly getting good press at the moment but the public sector does have its advantages." The message was more pragmatic than smug: "We may not have jobs that anyone really wants but at least we're safe." And isn't a redundancy-proof career topping everyone's wish list this Christmas?
The recession is redefining the hierarchies of the middle class. Yes, of course we'd all love to have the trappings of the hedge fund manager's lifestyle circa 2003. But in the current climate, who'd dare turn their nose up at a steady, reliable teacher's salary? It's covetable, even.
This is a huge reversal of values. When I was fresh out of university in the mid-Nineties at the end of the last recession, everyone I knew headed into banking, accountancy and management consultancy. Despite my ineptitude in economic matters, several friends even tried to persuade me in that direction. (I like to think that had I succumbed, catastrophic global losses would have ensued a lot sooner and maybe we would be coming back into an upturn by now. But never mind.)
Back then the hedge fund types had to find excuses for their "boring" corporate jobs. "I'm just doing it for 10 years, then I'm writing my novel." "I'll do it until I've paid off the mortgage and then I'll go back to my old school to teach history." By the turn of the century, though, they had the last laugh - and the biggest houses. Anyone who had been worthy or idealistic enough to go for a public sector job looked like a dupe.
Now we're swinging back the other way. Miraculously, the axe has not hit anyone I know in the financial sector - yet. I even know one ex-university pal - a father with three children under the age of four - who has just managed the impossible: a new job in banking. It must have been the last one going. But even those who have had a lucky escape admit the party's over - and it's time to rethink our definition of "savvy". Doing a meaningful, socially necessary, secure job for a fraction of an investment banking salary is definitely the new intelligent option.
I'm just waiting to hear about the friend who always intended to jack in equities for teaching - once he'd made enough cash. (That moment never came, of course. There was always more money to be made.) Now that finance has lost its sparkle, perhaps those student dreams will suddenly come flooding back.
Such a home body, our Nicole
Will wealthy and talented actresses please stop pretending that all they would really like to do is stay at home and clasp their offspring to their bosoms? Nicole Kidman is the latest to hint that sob! Australia may be her last film. I'm very happy with my baby and my husband, she says. I'm not that interested in making films any more. If you say so, Nicole. How interesting, though, that she has just finished filming opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine. And that it took me precisely 0.26 seconds of Googling to discover that she has two more movies in pre-production. With a six-month-old baby in tow, this is an achievement not something to be ashamed of.
Why will no celebrity working mother admit the truth: I love both my work and the independence my money affords me. Or is that too unfeminine?
I thinks of Zummerset. I chortles
I really did not want to see Bill Bailey's stand-up show, Tinselworm. Like Bailey, I grew up in Somerset and, despite years in London, my old accent my real voice, I suppose occasionally pops out. (Where's that to, then?) I detest this tic and harbour an extreme dislike of anyone who reminds me even momentarily of my disowned West Country roots. I attended Bailey's show, then, at the Gielgud Theatre, under duress and because a friend bought me a ticket. To my dismay, I laughed myself speechless in any dialect. What a performance. What a man. And what quick-witted yokel ribbing of the audience's delayed reactions: I hears it. I thinks about it. I laughs. New Year's resolution? More Worzel.
Reader views (2)
Maybe we would have better schools if teaching weren't "a redundancy-proof career", you know.
An ex teacher.
- Vanessa Carr, Amazonas, Peru, 19/12/2008 04:51
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...the problem with this argument about public sector jobs is that it takes all the taxation from those salaries in the private sector to pay for them...if private sector workers are losing their jobs, where (ultimately) will the money come from to pay that 'steady reliable teacher's salary'? And isn;t it a bit hackneyed to suggest people go into the public sector for worthy or idealistic reasons? They surely go into it to get a job and a career. Need anyone be reminded at the great advantage of public sector pensions?
- Damian Hockney, London, 19/12/2008 03:16
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