Workingmums.co.uk - connecting mums and employers

Apparently it’s curtains for us all. Unemployment by Christmas, if not before, skyrocketing heating bills, no pension and the threat of global annihilation by either a dirty bomb or flooding, whichever gets there first. How can you survive into the new year?

1. The good news is that working mums are more equipped than most to survive the onset of multiple problems. This is a) because their entire life is about winding a path through total chaos and pretending that it is all plain sailing and that they have not spent the early morning hours sponging down the school uniform and examining various exhibits of poo for signs of worms b) the kind of survival of the fittest nastiness that breaks out in such circumstances bears a remarkable ressemblance to sibling rivalry with which working mums are well acquainted and to which they know that the best answer is to sigh and say “can’t you just all get on with each other?” in a kind of faux caring tone of voice.  

2. The bad news is that work may choose now to pile on the moral pressure for presenteeism and long hours. Short of pretending to be in the office when you are in fact at home by tactics such as leaving your jacket on the chair permanently and bribing a colleague to leave hot cups of tea on your desk and your computer on [this will, of course, kill the polar bears so is not advisable], there is only one solution which is to cram lots of “strategic thinking” into the late hours of the night to boost your productivity rating. Managers love strategic thinking. It gives them a set of ideas they can pass off as their own in the strategic thinking meetings they spend all day in. Again, strategic thinking and late night working are things that working mums excel at. Accustomed to three hours a night sleep max in the early stages and broken sleep from birth to for ever, their ability to stay awake and apparently lucid is legendary and allied to their unparallelled ability to forward plan [or at least to make it look as if they have planned ahead when in fact they have not even begun to think about holiday care for half term yet].
3. If you are in banking, the financial sector, the media or retail or anything that invested in Iceland, things are not looking good, but probably better than if you were living in Iceland or were a polar bear. Prepare for the apocalypse. If you’re in finances, wave goodbye to the flash sports car. If you’re in the media now is the time to take a good hard look at yourself and realise that you have no skills short of stringing words together and asking annoying questions and to wonder what you have been doing for the last 20 years. If you are in retail, it is time to focus your attentions on the mega rich who always seem to sail through these kind of things and even profit.
4. Consider those worse off than yourself, particularly the polar bears. At least humans have some sort of future, even if it is on the Moon or living in underground tunnels when the air becomes too toxic to breathe.
5. This is not the time to think why have you brought children into the world only for them to be confronted by the Dark Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Consider the beauty of the valleys, etc.
6. Consider not reading the papers or watching the news. It’s completely incomprehensible anyway, but it basically boils down to no-one has the foggiest what is happening. Embrace that fog.
7. Consider becoming a chartered accountant.
8. Make cutbacks, but retain at least one [cheap] luxury, eg hot chocolate. It will keep you warm too so you can turn off the heating for that bit longer. Hurray.
9. Get the whole family involved in quilting. You can recycle all your old clothes so it’s cheap and you can wrap yourself up in the quilts to stave off the cold. Now is the time to extol the virtues of homemade Xmas presents such as perfume made of crushed dandelions. It smells of wee, but it’s the thought that counts.
10. Consider porridge. It’s healthy, it’s cheap and it fills you up. If you’re feeling flush, add some raisins. In the spirit of porridge, make like a bear and hibernate through the whole of 2009, thus missing Robert Peston getting gloomier and even less comprehensible, or alternatively freeze the entire family and wake up in time for the Olympics. Leona is singing and that’s bound to make everyone feel so much better.