Monday, February 25, 2019

Social Downgrade Apology by the British Press

A reader pointed me to a recent story in The Mirror titled "I walked away from a high-flying £45K job to become 'the dregs of society'" Interesting find and I think it adds nicely to other stories I shared in the past such as the one about Chinese office workers forced to become maids amid the crisis or How was your day, fallen aristocratic lady? 

Sadly, the lady in question does not become a maid, but the social drop is quite severe nonetheless (even though it's a big of an exaggeration to call someone making less than $60,000 equivalent in London "high-flying") after Claire, the heroine of the story, becomes a care home worker making minimum wage.

As is always the case with embellished "true life" stories like this you really have to read between the lines (or at least beyond the typically misleading first paragraph), but it still somehow pushed a few right buttons for me. 

Parts of the article do read like a lady-to-maid story even though Claire states right away it was the best decision she ever made:


Just a few months earlier I was living the high life as a City lawyer, power-dressed in black and white as I commuted every day to my central London office.
My position impressed those I met and won me new friends who saw me as a professional, successful woman.
Today, I was a humble care worker, cleaning up incontinence-prone elderly people in a home for dementia patients.
I was embarrassed to tell people what I did for a living, and when I did I would often get a disdainful look of “what’s gone wrong with her?”
Back then, I was earning £45,000 a year with bonuses and had a full-time childminder to look after my kids as I worked ten-hour days doing personal injury claims with a big law firm.
Now, as team member at the Meresworth Care Home, I was on the minimum wage and taking home less than £160 a week.
My friends and family were horrified when they told them that I’d given up my career as a solicitor to become a care worker.





5 comments:

  1. Very interesting. As a housemaid, I'd love to know why some people seem to get weird over what I do and Wear at work..Have just discovered this website and love it. Thx babe xxxx

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    1. You are welcome. I'd like to point out that schoolgirls or nurses may be asking the very same question!

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  2. Yeah, I get the feeling that they've left out some important information.

    Her partner is mentioned only once, yet I would assume he is the main reason why she was able to quit her job. She then gets some part-time work, which she only does for a year before quitting to care for her mother. Now she doesn't have a job at all.

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    1. I guess that make it similar to many L2M stories too. There is a good reason why so many of them keep family or even close friends out the equation (or don't spell out the rationale for becoming a maid to begin with).

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