Hermione Laake's Blog: Thoughts, page 4

Why I am pro £15 minimum wage

Why I am pro £15 minimum wage

I am pro a £15 minimum wage. These are the reasons why.

Recently, I was discussing with someone I know why I am pro a £15 minimum wage. He was vehemently against it because, as he said, other people, managers and such would need a price hike to bring their wages in line with expectations.

I was horrified by this. I will tell you why. As a manager for over 8 years, I never earned close to £15 an hour. This work was complex, required decorum, sensitivity, proactivity, discretion, empathy, strategic planning, timely administration, customer service and satisfaction, daily health and safety, and fire checks, in-house recruitment; so interviews arranged and conducted by myself with very little help or assistance from the private and public companies I worked for, calculating and budgeting for staff wages for employees who worked for me as manager, managing customer complaints, organising shop refits and maintenance and repairs, carrying out banking, after cashing up daily, carrying out 1:1 with assistant managers and conducting staff reviews, relief management cover for other shops ( so driving to another town and managing another business and staff in a colleague’s absence), attending management meetings, and organising and running appropriate training for my own staff. This list could go on, but I will stop there.

My point is that although not all these businesses were run during the past decade, many of them were, and as recently as 2010, 2012, and 2015, and 2019. None of them paid managers even £12 an hour. (My salary was always under £10 an hour.) One or two offered reasonable pension contributions of 7%. Still, for the responsibility, the salary was not large and this meant there was little left over to save for a deposit on a house without two salaries and there was little left to save.

I retrained, after gaining a degree and a good 2:1 and went into supporting teaching in schools and colleges; some of the pupils were vulnerable and diverse learners and needed support which required specific knowledge and continued professional development. I learnt pecs (picture exchange communication), signing, behaviour management, deescalation, and did my own research on specific presentations of autism and dyslexia in order to manage these children better. Did I earn £15 an hour for this role? No, except once when a particularly good agency listened to my request for exactly that in 2018 when I was 52 years old, and, by that time, very experienced at this work. The role was in an outstanding college and was for temporary cover and I drove 30 miles every day to get there, and was not compensated in any way for my car or petrol. I got on really well in this role and was almost certainly going to stay on long term. However, I was forced to leave because of the long distance to travel every day, which was impacting my car which broke down three times. The agency found me another college, but at the end of the second placement, I was told they couldn’t afford to keep me, and was let go even though I was told by management that I fitted right in.

Does it surprise you to hear that I am a woman?

This is why staff need higher wages. Staff need higher wages because many people in the private and third sector are not properly remunerated.

Children in an age of Anxiety

Children in an age of Anxiety

We live in an age of anxiety. Our young people have the unprecedented role of trying to make the world a better place, and yet many do not see that their children might have a positive role in this. Our young people are worried about the climate, and the way the planet is suffering as a result of deforestation, and damage to bio-diverse habitats, and do not want to bring children into such a world; one where their children will suffer from a similar anxiety to the one they suffer from.

A beach near Rye.

Yet we live in a beautiful world, and there is so much hope for the future and improving our world and environment.

The best days of my life were those spent with my children. Children, as individuals, enrich our lives, especially when we read to them, play with them and take an interest in their hobbies and innate talents.

Yes there are tough times, but it is worth it.

Bullying and Racial Abuse in Football

I am not usually an avid watcher of football. I prefer to cycle and sometimes watch cycling or the tennis. This year, I was caught up in the football and watched several matches. I thought that many of the matches that I watched were friendly and conducted in a polite and kind way. I know football can be a rough game and that players often fell one another, or stamp on one another. Usually though, this is accidental.

I was shocked and traumatised to witness what can only be described as bullying and, potentially, racially motivated abuse meted out on one England player by an Italian player. I am not a big football fan and would have to look up the names of the players involved, but I am aware of the difference between bullying and play. I have over two years’ experience supporting games, and lessons as a behaviour supervisor and as teaching and learning support in schools and colleges. This was not football by any stretch of the imagination. This came across as bullying and I thought there was a racial element to the behaviour, since a particular player was selected for the treatment. The treatment was peculiar and unprovoked.

What happened was that the player was lifted up by his T-Shirt and held in mid-air for at least a second, and then dropped on his back. This is potentially dangerous behaviour and is irresponsible. By no stretch of the imagination can this be called football.

I was so traumatised by witnessing this event that I kept playing it over in my head and, this morning I rang my Mother, who has been unwell but woke up to watch the football and thought the same thing that I did.

I have made a complaint to the BBC.

When we do not complain or draw attention to inappropriate behaviour which we witness then we are bystanders.

Yours,

Hermione Laake

Underground

As my followers will know, A Point of View often triggers a response in me, and I find myself talking at the radio, and sometimes pen a response here.

Will Self’s most recent personal essay (I’ll put the link at the end), has inspired this one. I think it’s his best yet.

Like Self, I grew up on a diet of London’s Underground. But, I would like to point out that I am not from the East End. I am aware that true Londoners are considered from the East End, but I would like to make a case that all Londoners are true Londoners. Like Self we find ourselves cocooned in the womb-like embrace of London’s Underground, and like Self we give ourselves up to it. I would like to extend Self’s metaphor to all of London, even Greater London, to the womb that is London.

I grew up in Leafy Ham, Richmond Surrey. And, like Self, as a teenager I would commute into Fulham, and later to Bank, when working for a large Corporation. The commute on the Underground became part of the web of my life.

I wasn’t assaulted, but I did learn to keep my wits about me. Commuting in London teaches you to have a sixth sense, an extra awareness of everyone around you, whilst staring right through them. You learn to accept and embrace the environment, even when, like me, you might prefer your personal space. The privilege of this temporary confignment makes you accept London’s privilege of anonymity alongside this bizarre ritual. After all, it is part of the fabric of any Londoner’s existence.

Underground Love

I have moved away from London, but my heart is still there, and sometime my memory takes me back to some Underground Station, I used to meet a boyfriend somewhere near Goodge Street, and I am thrust once more into its slightly scary embrace.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s3qm

Inspite of spending hours on the tube, I don’t have a single photograph, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

Voice Work, fundraising, and my new gardening business

Hello dear readers,

I can’t believe it’s already May 2021. I’m now walking 50 to 100 k a month, in addition to my other pursuits, which you can read about below.

Enjoying the great outdoors on a day off

I have been away for a while. In September I cycled 300 miles for Cancer Research: https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/hermiones-cycle-200-fundraising-page-1

I needed a month where I focused more on my new business which has really taken off:

https://hermionelaakeloveslavender.com/

Apart from that, I have been working on developing The Motherboard as part of my MA. As you know, I took the decision to write this story as a blog; something I have never tried before, and now there is the work of editing it.

I have wound down my voice work for our Youtube channel due to my other commitments, and my love of editing and getting error free text on the page for the journal. I now usually contribute voice once a month to the channel.

I know some of you enjoyed the recordings and thought I would give you an update.

Below is a sample of my work. You will find a link to the journal’s collection of performance from other readers below that:

Voice by Hermione Laake

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC19x-YtPvwobM08RobpSGrg

I hope you are all safe and well, and thank you for following.

Keep writing.

All my love,

Hermione

Voice Work

Hello dear readers,

I have been away for a while. In September I cycled 300 miles for Cancer Research and needed a month where I focused more on my new business which has really taken off:

https://hermionelaakeloveslavender.com/

Apart from that, I have been working on developing The Motherboard as part of my MA. As you know, I took the decision to write this story as a blog; something I have never tried before, and now there is the work of editing it.

I have wound down my voice work for our Youtube channel due to my other commitments, and my love of editing and getting error free text on the page for the journal. I now usually contribute voice once a month to the channel.

I know some of you enjoyed the recordings and thought I would give you an update.

Below is a sample of my work. You will find a link to the journal’s collection of performance from other readers below that:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC19x-YtPvwobM08RobpSGrg

I hope you are all safe and well, and thank you for following.

Keep writing.

All my love,

Hermione

Teadrinkinggrey-haired gardener ?

In the news this morning, to assuage the view of an out-of-work grey haired fifty something, a guy posted a video of himself doing a workout and was offered multiple jobs.

However, the words used to describe the stereotype offended me. I am many things. A mother of five, an MA student in my second year, a gardener; I run a gardening business, an editor; I voluntarily edit for a journal daily. I am also a #teadrinkinggrey-hairedgardener as the #Radio4 news reader’s stereotype went. Are you? I know I am. But what does this stereotype look like?

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For the past three years I’ve cycled 4000 kilometres a year. I’ve written a play, a novel, six short stories and carried on with the work of being a mum. I’ve assisted in Special Needs schools, and helped run three businessess. This year I started my own gardening business. I also run 4 blogs, and produce voice for a YouTube channel as Hermione Wilds:

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC19x-YtPvwobM08RobpSGrg?reload=9

I’m just an ordinary fifty something.

I too am looking for part time work. Please reply to this blog if you like what you see and hear.

Thank you,

Hermione

My fundraising Page: https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.or...

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My fundraising Page

https://www.facebook.com/donate/316799272660608/?fundraiser_source=external_url

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The Motherboard serial: Parts one and Two

https://hermionelaake.wordpress.com/2020/04/19/the-motherboard-day-1/