Hi ho, hi ho

This might be the most bizarre thing I have ever said, but I miss going to work.  I am almost quite jealous of my friends who spend their working week going to the office, in whatever form their office may take. I suppose it is the sense of purpose, and routine that I miss along with celebrating the acheivements and camraderie with my colleagues which is an integral part of life. We spend more time with our work colleagues than with our families on average and so it is unsurprising that I miss work - it is quite lonesome being ill.

Last week there was a Panorama programme on Britain on the Fiddle and the week before there was another programme on the BBC about the future of the Welfare State.  Both of these made my blood boil in parts. The latter showed examples of real people, quoted on camera, saying that there was no point them going to work as they would only get a few quid more for working hard all week then they would for just claiming benefits. Similarly it was highlighted that there are some people who are claiming in excess of £30,000 per year in benefits, driving round in Bentleys and owning yachts, and on top of this the various authorities spend vast amounts of money trying to stop them with varying degrees of success.  There were examples of people claiming incapacity benefit who had made no effort to improve their state of health by taking the advice offered by the medical and health professionals, such as giving up smoking, exercising more or eating more healthily.  As far as they were concerned they had no responsibility to find work or improve their physical state to enable them to find work, but preferred instead in some cases to sit on their arses at home, possibly even making their situations worse, and claiming benefits. And the most infuriating thing was that for some families this is a way of life.  The children have no motivation to get a job because they have never seen their parents work, and don't see why they should when they can get a house, money for clothes and a plasma TV all on benefits.  As my friend Bobby Dazzla would say; It's not right.

It makes me cross that even a penny of the tax that I have paid to the government out of my hard earned income over the past 12 years has been used as hand outs for people who don't work because they cannot be bothered, or because they do not take responsibility for their own destiny.  Don't get me wrong, I do not object to the concept of the welfare state per se.  There are many genuine cases of hardship, disability and illness which mean that try as those individuals might, they need a little help to make ends meet.  It must be irritating for them too to have so many spongers as it means in the end there is less to go round for the genuine cases. Instead of putting money in the pockets of these scroungers, the taxes paid by hard working law abiding citizens could be put to much better use by investing it in schools, the NHS and Britain as a whole.

I would prefer my taxes to be spent on the right things in the NHS for example.  If we had an NHS which could pay nurses a higher salary to reflect their knowledge, skills and hard work then we would attract more people into the profession and in turn would get a better quality of service from hospitals, doctors surgeries and the like. Also, sticking with the medical sector, I would rather my taxes went on more investment into medical research to help find cures and preventions for diseases like mine, and many others which are impacting the lives of ordinary people up and down the country.

Also, in my opinion, by making our schools better through better quality of teachers and better provision of resources to enable all children to obtain a better education, we would allow them to succeed in obtaining good jobs when they leave school, college or university.   This in turn would fuel industry, commerce and research with brighter minds to progress the economy as well as innovate and change the world. Surely this is a better prospect than having another generation who think that working is optional and an Xbox 360 a necessity?

So, whilst todays thoughts for the day might be slightly more contraversial than usual, this is as always my opinion and nothing more. The positive I am taking from this is that I was brought up to believe that if you work hard then you should be rewarded appropriately, and that only you can take responsibility for your own destiny.  There are no fairy godmothers and money for nothing is only the name of a Dire Straights song.  Therefore, whilst I am not able to work at present due to the pain and all of the treatment, I am very much looking forward to being able to get back into the swing of working life. After all the office must be a very quiet place without me!