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I HAVE OFTEN thought that I’m no different to a human trafficker. The guilt surrounding my actions has led me to tell my story.
The first step was difficult to organise. Moving house is said to be one of the most stressful things you can do; just try moving someone to another country.
I never feared getting caught, despite the Irish way with endless paperwork. I successfully got this beautiful Eastern European blonde into Ireland to work. I, of course, had promised the world: happiness, love, professional dignity. She fell for it.
She trusted me. I helped her to arrange the job. Her employer was expecting her. But not even I knew how horrific her working conditions would be.
She found the 5.15am wake-up tolerable enough but it was the lack of breaks that would start to wear down her and her colleagues. No breaks meant no food, no water, no toilet stop. She could never work quickly enough for a system that was never satisfied.
Some days she would leave for work just after 5:15am and work through that day, that night, and the next day. No breaks, poor nutrition, and certainly no sleep. (How can work be done if you are asleep?)
She kept going, mainly due to a mixture of dissipated morale and the teasing condescension of the big bosses with their mantra that ‘things will get better’, ‘just give it time’, they were ‘looking into it’.
She would be paid by the hour, they said, and she was. But there were some hours when she wouldn’t be paid. She should have worked faster, they said, an efficient worker wouldn’t have to work such long hours.
She needed help. But who would believe the story of an Eastern European labourer? There are people sleeping on the streets in this recession, wasn’t she lucky to come to this country and not to have suffered the same fate?
She was my girlfriend. And a very intelligent 1st year doctor who moved from Eastern Europe to be with me. I bear the awful guilt of luring her to some of the most inhumane working conditions in Europe: an Irish hospital. Home of the 36 hour shift.
We broke up shortly after. A year later I met a lovely, intelligent medical student from Germany, who is soon to qualify.
I don’t want to be like a human trafficker again. This time I am learning her language – and will be leaving Ireland to continue my career as a NCHD there.
Stop 36 hour shifts.
Dr Antoine Murray is a Medical Senior House Officer.
All good advice, but factor in children at home that require interaction / entertainment and it gets a whole lot trickier
@Scott Cooper: Organise childcare as you normally would. People can’t do two jobs at once.
So you’ve got NO Bloody work to go too and not getting paid. How do you cope?
@Opinionated: https://www.jobalert.ie/blog/dept-of-employment-affairs-and-social-protection-notcie-14-march-
@Sea Graham: been in this morning alrady and in fairness a very stream line and quick service in place. I have also been into my local council office and offered to volunteer to sanitise streets or anything thats needed over the coming week.
As said earlier last week, its a very middle class problem to whinge about remote working while many on lower wages must still be in the retail stores, transportation and of course on the frontline in medical roles. If this does work though, it will be an interesting experiment to see how the world changes once employers and the state realise how many people can actually work from home and not commute daily. Maybe the broadband plan will be implemented to get more people away from Dublin and have less emissions from less commuting. This is the time to get those figures.
@Paul Cunningham: who’s whinging about it Paul? I would have thought anyone who is able to work from home would be delighted to be doing so vs not being able to work at all no?
@Paul Cunningham: People want to do the best job possible so when this blows over they can keep working from home
Converted the box room into an office 3 years ago. Come out of the bedroom, hang left and BOOM! I am in work.
@David Corrigan: same here but I normally piss, wash, brush teeth and eat breakfast first
@FrontSeatDriver: :-). I usually stop in work for a minute first and then go and do all those jobs.
1 hr back to me each day. If one could Work from home the option should always be there
@RJ: two hours back to me. I’m honestly far more productive working from home. This whole mess might make some employers see that some (not all) staff can be trusted to work from home more frequently now.
Well it’s better than being at home and not working. At least you have something to do in between listening to the kids being bored and hungry. It’s actually much busier than being in the office
I work from home one day a week anyway.But been wfh since thurs.It does get lonely.The dog doesnt talk back.
@Trish O’Leary-Dunne: my dog communicates with me constantly, as do most dogs. You’re just not listening
@JimmyMc: Dr Jimmy McDoolittle?
Oh, an article teaching people how to do the job they’ve always been doing but from a different room.
Cool – the country would be in ruin if it wasn’t for this, people would never figure it out on their own …
@Dara O’Brien: You’d be surprised at the amount of people who imagine they don’t need childcare if they’re at home. You can’t juggle both and deal with colleagues. Most people are grand, but it only takes two otherwise normal people roaring at you to put that down now to put you off the idea.
With great difficulty
Fairly tricky if you work in the transport industry
@Danny E: Ditto. The only saving grace is the traffic is a bit lighter
So I presume the Journal staff are doss… I mean working from home seeing as we have had only one article that isn’t actually “news” so far this morning by 7.27am
This is a very good article…and it is very hard to find a work-life balance when working from home. It is too tempting to work late at night or not work at 2PM. My spouse has been working remotely for a week and is keeping the same disciplines, which is the best way forward.
It won’t last forever. But perhaps a year or two.
Don’t worry you’ll be getting laid off soon
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