I saw Diarmuid Gavin was in the news again recently - this time in a negative light, which I thought unusual as he seems a fairly affable kind of bloke, who doesn't go out of his way to be a complete berk, like others I can think of
Apparently (I didn't see the show) he was on the Late Late Show (an Irish TV institution), telling people that they complain too much. Then there was an article in one of the papers, that the genial ol people Ireland did not exactly like his criticisms. One of those forum boards, Political World, had many people venting their spleen about Gavin (with lots of dissenting terms as to who he is, who he is related to and how much he earns) and how dare he come back to Ireland and give out to the Irish for 'whingeing' too much
Indeed I thought it very funny that one bloke thought it worth pointing out that all these posters were doing was underlining Gavin's argument ! They were whingeing about the fact that Gavin blamed them all for whingeing !
But who is right here ? Are we, as a nation, whingeing too much ? or are we just p*ssed off when someone tells us we are ?
In my previous thread, I said I had been made redundant from my great job. At the time all we could hear on the radio was that as a whole, the country needed to reduce its spending and that overheads needed to be cut, etc etc. Everyone agreed ! Everyone that is, until you identify their industry as one of the targets
Oh yes, they said, we don't need that many civil servants, and we don't need that many of those and we could certainly do less with some of them - but not us Nurses, Teachers, Gardai (Police) or Firemen. 'The downturn is not OUR fault' you'd hear on all the talk shows - 'We are not responsible therefore we should not have pay cuts'
This was AFTER I had been already been told to close the door behind me ! Was I given a choice ? Was I responsible ? Did I cause the downturn ? Was I hell ! Yet I got shown the exit.
It drove me insane (and yes I know each and every one of us has their own cross to bear) to hear people IN employment, saying that I AM NOT going to take a reduction. This, all coming from the Civil Service (and yes I DO know what it is like, as I worked there before) where you are never checked as to the quality of work, you get promoted due to length of service, rather than ability, you (until recently) got an index linked pension, that you didn't even have to bloody contribute to and it was the doddle it was always supposed to be.
When leaving school, people have the choice, to try and get work in either the Public Sector or the Private one. We were told the Public Sector was far worse paid, but that the job was easier (and the Unions would protect you to the hilt) and you had safety of tenure (ie you could not be fired, unless you actually set fire to your boss ! or shot the Taoiseach !), but in the Private Sector, you would get paid more - much more in some cases, but you had to cope with something called 'responsibility', and that you could sometimes live or die, with that reponsibility !
Whats my point ? Good question ! I suppose that I agree with Gavin and that we do whinge too much, and that some of us do not know they are born, with the cushy situation they have.
I recall one caller into my late night radio show telling me that he had just come back from Spain on hols with his family. He had, on the last night, gone to a nice restaurant and had picked up the tab for the lot of them, and it had cost him only 20 quid a head, or so, for a slap-up meal. He said in Dublin it would have been about 50 a head and that everything here was a rip off. He added that his son worked in a bar, and that the son had said, that where he worked, all those drinks etc would be twice the price, if not more !
However neither he, nor his son, could get their head around the fact that in Spain, your average waiter/barman works for about 2.50 per hour, and yet here in Ireland, the pay was millimetres short of 9 euro per hour ! I had to ask the father if he would be happy if his son's earnings would be reduced to that amount, so as we could all go out and eat for a lot less - you can imagine what his answer was - suffice as to say, I am not prepared to print it here, but it went something like this
"^*&$!@?(&*%)$£!>:+) %^ !!!!!
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