The Blue Pill.

[BIAD]

Absolutely true, and if this one doesn't want to work as agreed upon, there is a line going around the block to replace him from.
Party or protest on your own time, not mine. If you misuse my time in that way, I can always find someone who will put it to better use.

Always.

I've used this story before and it's true.
Getting on for thirty years ago now, my wife and I visited a slate mine museum in Wales.
As we made our way through the tunnels and caverns, a guide explained how it worked and
the conditions the slate miners endured.

When a young lad started for the company, he was already in debt. He owed the mine owner
money because the ladders, pick axes and other sundries had to be purchased from the mine
owner so that the employee could do the job.

The world back then was of abject poverty and anyone under forty-years reading this can never
understand the rigged-game the under-classes had to live with. The tools were bought from the
miner owner because if you didn't, you were seen as a troublemaker and chances are, you never
had the money for your equipment in the first place.

But, the debt that the young man's father had accrued hadn't been fully paid, nor his Grandfather's
before him, so by stepping into those black caves, the lad had already taken on a commitment far
beyond what we today accept a twelve-to-thirteen year-old boy should have.
The more dramatic of us my call it slavery, but back then, it was just called life.

So climbing up thirty-foot ladders whilst two men at the bottom held the balanced ladder in the
centre of the cavern, you chipped and hacked to loosen a slab of shale with hopes that you could
acquire a large enough piece to be able to lower it down on a length of rope.

Remember, the treatment of these tools and ropes determined the eternal amount of debt you
would be passing on to your unborn descendants. Which is a slightly-more of a concern than
what the youngsters today contemplate.

At an agreed time, they would gather together in a makeshift 'den' built with the rocks and debris
of the cave and under a single candlelight (another cost!), they would discuss their woes and the
unfairness of being born without a silver spoon in their mouths.


If your utensils became worn or broken, tough. If you fell and were injured, hard-luck and if
you left the job, the upper-class-created laws of the land would visit your loved ones and force
the debt you and your kin had created by evicting your family.
Basically, the socially-accepted system had you over a barrel.

If a miner spoke out of turn or behaved poorly, he was expelled from the cozy room and had to
eat his pastie in the dark with the rats. But during these short breaks, they realised that if they
stood together and approached the mine owner in solidarity, they may be able to convince him
that this current manner of working wasn't the best.

After years of arguing, beatings, killings and sabotage, the miners and slate mine owners came
to an agreement. You were paid for your physical labour and the tools would be provided by the
mine owners. More years would have to pass before that family debt that had been with them like
their very surname, could be brought down and finally paid off.
Unionism was  on it's way.

2017 and people want to skip work for a celebration that has no positive connections with their
personal finances and working conditions...
They have no idea what those before them went through and it's now wasted on trivial things like
this.

Don't get me wrong, there are serious discussions to have about immigration, but taking a day off
for someone you don't know and jeopardising one's income and threatening the future of the
person who's risked more than you to create that job, isn't worthy of the young lad in the mine.

Well, maybe the universities will change that part of history too.