Well, I've been back here for a while now, and things have settled back to their normal boring routines... Work, sleep, blah, repeat...
Work is a little better than it was at the end of last year in that I've been transferred back to my original work area, which I greatly prefer to the job I was doing for the last couple of months before Xmas. On the other hand, the company is currently running at a deficit, so there are redundancies being announced soon. They are looking to lose 28 waged staff, having asked for volunteers first and now I think sorting out who else is going. I feel relatively safe - I've been there for 3 years now, so I'm not one of the newbies they might drop, and I'm trained to run a fair few different machines, making me relatively valuable. But who knows? If I'm for the chop, I feel that I could probably find something else relatively quickly. And the redundancy payout would be a nice little chunk of cash. But I think that for the moment, as boring as the job is, it suits me, and the money is still pretty good. In fact if I wasn't so lazy on the overtime front, I could be earning a fair bit more.
My thoughts of England recently were more on the nature of the people than the place itself, really. There was something I noticed while walking around, especially in London, about the crowds. Pretty much everyone there looks down at their feet all the time. Well, at the ground in front of them, but you know... And iPods or mp3 players are in very extensive use. I'm not the most socially confident person in the world, but when I wander the streets I tend to look up, ahead, at the scenery, and at the people around me. And that seems to be fairly standard for NZers. But over there, everyone seemed very careful not to look at anything other than just ahead of them. It just felt somehow strange that there were huge numbers of people moving around in their own worlds. The mp3 players seemed like an extra layer of insulation, to keep from interacting with any of their fellow travellers. It wasn't like that all the time, but there was a sense of huge seas of individual people as opposed to crowds. No, that's not right... it was more that the crowds, however large, were seperate people in the same place. Not sort of mobs. Blurgh, I'm not sure that makes sense. But never mind...
But anyhoo, an electrician at work gave something of an explanation which I found interesting. He told me that back in the bad old days when the IRA were terrorising England, people would keep their heads down and focussed on not seeing anything because they didn't want to get caught up in anything. Because in seeing more of the world than their immediate path, they could potentially become either witnesses to something, or targets if an IRA nutter saw them looking at them. I've no idea how accurate that is, but it seems kind of plausible, I suppose. And I guess that beahviour could have become so ingrained that even younger folk continue to do the same. Or with 9/11 and all the modern wave of terrorism, it may be that everyone is still in the same "don't make yourself a target, don't stand out," mode. Or it could simply be that living in a population the size of somewhere like London, it's easier to tune out the crowds and just focus on where you are going. Who knows? Probably if you could scan the minds of that sea of humanity, the massive sidewalk snakes of human beans, you'd find a mix of all of the above.
Work is a little better than it was at the end of last year in that I've been transferred back to my original work area, which I greatly prefer to the job I was doing for the last couple of months before Xmas. On the other hand, the company is currently running at a deficit, so there are redundancies being announced soon. They are looking to lose 28 waged staff, having asked for volunteers first and now I think sorting out who else is going. I feel relatively safe - I've been there for 3 years now, so I'm not one of the newbies they might drop, and I'm trained to run a fair few different machines, making me relatively valuable. But who knows? If I'm for the chop, I feel that I could probably find something else relatively quickly. And the redundancy payout would be a nice little chunk of cash. But I think that for the moment, as boring as the job is, it suits me, and the money is still pretty good. In fact if I wasn't so lazy on the overtime front, I could be earning a fair bit more.
My thoughts of England recently were more on the nature of the people than the place itself, really. There was something I noticed while walking around, especially in London, about the crowds. Pretty much everyone there looks down at their feet all the time. Well, at the ground in front of them, but you know... And iPods or mp3 players are in very extensive use. I'm not the most socially confident person in the world, but when I wander the streets I tend to look up, ahead, at the scenery, and at the people around me. And that seems to be fairly standard for NZers. But over there, everyone seemed very careful not to look at anything other than just ahead of them. It just felt somehow strange that there were huge numbers of people moving around in their own worlds. The mp3 players seemed like an extra layer of insulation, to keep from interacting with any of their fellow travellers. It wasn't like that all the time, but there was a sense of huge seas of individual people as opposed to crowds. No, that's not right... it was more that the crowds, however large, were seperate people in the same place. Not sort of mobs. Blurgh, I'm not sure that makes sense. But never mind...
But anyhoo, an electrician at work gave something of an explanation which I found interesting. He told me that back in the bad old days when the IRA were terrorising England, people would keep their heads down and focussed on not seeing anything because they didn't want to get caught up in anything. Because in seeing more of the world than their immediate path, they could potentially become either witnesses to something, or targets if an IRA nutter saw them looking at them. I've no idea how accurate that is, but it seems kind of plausible, I suppose. And I guess that beahviour could have become so ingrained that even younger folk continue to do the same. Or with 9/11 and all the modern wave of terrorism, it may be that everyone is still in the same "don't make yourself a target, don't stand out," mode. Or it could simply be that living in a population the size of somewhere like London, it's easier to tune out the crowds and just focus on where you are going. Who knows? Probably if you could scan the minds of that sea of humanity, the massive sidewalk snakes of human beans, you'd find a mix of all of the above.
2 comments:
Making eye contact with passersby would could add to the kiwi reputation of being 'friendly' as a general populace - as might our 'I see you' gestures like raised eyebrows, smiles and saying 'chur bro' (which we all do *all the time*, especially to visiting foreigners)...
Interesting :). I think the social reaction to crowds view has much to recommend it - having grown up with "its not polite to stare"and "mind your own business" comments from my family. I think we take for granted in NZ the peace and comfort of there never being too many of us in one place - and sometimes that isolation also makes us keen for interaction? As a transplanted person I really enjoy your fresh perspective on the differences between Kiwis and John Bull.
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