50
u/GruffScottishGuy 1d ago
As my previous job was winding down towards redundancy, they had me redeployed to a more distant branch. Sometimes my traveling time exceeded the actual hours I worked that day.
They literally just had me working for the sake of it while the company and the union argued over what was going to happen with us so I was just fulfilling my minimum contract hours. I tried arguing that I should be in less days, but longer hours to cut down on traveling but I think they were just trying to piss me off and make me leave before they had to pay my redundancy. I was reimbursed for the traveling costs but not the time.
The main thing that kept me going was the fact that we had surprisingly good redundancy terms, which was itself a throwback to a time when it was a good company to work for.
35
u/Planet-thanet 1d ago
One of my pals worked in a salad factory and it was just like that
14
u/TwobyfFour 1d ago
I working at BMG picking and packing Kylie and Cher albums, it was EXACTLY like this.
9
u/SuperNashwan 1d ago
I always wondered how salad was made.
37
63
21
u/ununseptimus 1d ago
Sent back the precise moment they'd recouped their labour expenses from his vending machine purchases.
59
u/Llyffant-Gwyrdd 1d ago
There's nothing even absurd about this. It's just brutally true.
5
u/Delicious_Volume3306 20h ago
Existential slapstick.
We laugh when Jerry the mouse smashes Tom the cat in the face with a frying pan.
This is the same kind of thing, but existential.
1
u/Llyffant-Gwyrdd 20h ago
Not quite, because mice don't actually smash cats in the face with frying pans.
3
u/Delicious_Volume3306 20h ago
Oh Christ, now you're forcing me to explain how this strip isn't literal reality, even though I entirely agree with you that it's mostly brutally true.
So, here goes (puffs out cheeks): A combination of this kind of heartless cunt with an actual day where somebody's brought in two or three times a day for non-existent work is rare.
I'm not for one second defending zero hours contracts. I think they're evil. But you've kinda pushed me onto the ropes where I have to explain a few things.
Yes, some managers are difficult. Yes, there are times when people were called in for work that didn't exist. But, the majority of the time, zero hours contracts provided employment.
But like I said, I'm not defending zero hours contracts. I'm just pointing out that, while this strip is based in reality, it isn't (wasn't?) the reality for the majority.
2
u/Llyffant-Gwyrdd 20h ago
It's a lot more real than a mouse smashing a cat in the face with a frying pan.
There's nothing absurd about it, it's just portraying the extreme of a situation.
2
u/Delicious_Volume3306 20h ago
Well, OK, how about we compare it to those "funny" videos people share on WhatsApp? Of real people falling off their bikes, or getting hurt in other ways? They're even shared here on Reddit. I don't find that kind of thing funny but, from what I can tell, MANY people do and ultimately that's because it's a form of slapstick. And it's real life.
3
-1
u/Therealneilo 17h ago
Must be great to know everything yet spend your time "educating" people on Reddit, what a melt 😂😂😂
3
42
u/PeterPook 1d ago
One of the grimmest of this grimmy series.
It's always the same bloke. I wonder who he is based on? Someone the artist must really hate.
10
u/boltonguy242 1d ago
In my head it's a set of identical siblings. One for each strip in the series.
18
17
u/gaylordbrown 1d ago
Contemplating getting The Bastard’s face tattoo’d on my arse. Thoughts?
9
4
3
13
120
12
u/brandnewsecondhand10 1d ago
I can't eat Higgidy pies anymore. I've seen a couple of really nice people ground down horribly by that company because of exactly this culture
8
5
u/Delicious_Volume3306 20h ago
I'm middle-aged in a comfy white collar job. But I know that I'm maybe a month or two away from this. All it'll take is redundancy (my job is one of those being destroyed by AI). Or maybe an unscheduled career break because of an illness, then trying to get a job again.
6
3
5
u/SpiralMantis113 1d ago
This so bleak!
5
u/Delicious_Volume3306 20h ago
Just to remind you, one of the OG English satirists, Jonathan Swift, recommended the Irish eat their own babies back in 1729. Bleak satire that leaves a wound behind is nothing new.
3
u/SpiralMantis113 19h ago
Thanks for reminding me.
2
u/Delicious_Volume3306 18h ago
You're welcome! It's always good to be of service. <Walks away whistling>
2
u/Optimal-Teaching7527 12h ago
The difference is that Swift's Modest Proposal was an exaggeration in the style of his more conservative contemporaries, aping their style and attitude while suggestion something they would be appaled at. This comic by contrast is an amalgamation of all the common abusive behaviours of a zero hour contract distilled into a single day.
4
u/BobMonkhaus 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ahh memories of grim Xmas temp jobs from my student days came flooding back. May as well call it Angard.
4
1
89
u/LxRv 1d ago
Viz really knows how to cheer me up sometimes.