Well, after enjoying 2 weeks off in Canada I am most definately back to work. As much as I hate that fact, and however soul destroying it is here, at least I have some income coming in and I'm not sucking dick for crack... well, thats what I keep telling myself and it gets me through the day...

This post isn't about me, its about someone I know who'll remain nameless. I'll call him Jim. They work for a subsidiary of a large British corporation that deal in pest control, whose knighted owner is a massive cunt of the highest degree, not interested in anything other than maintaining his profit percentage year after year; just your standard CEO cunt then but whatever.

Anyway, basically this is a tale of the fear of being labeled a bigot and not being able to stand up for ones rights as a worker without being labeled a racist or xenophobe. To me at least, this feeling is thrust upon some of my peers day by day. I'm sure many of you see it too and likewise feel you have to blog behind your (relatively) anonymous pseudonym to avoid starting a race war.

He works like many hardworking Britons, in a job that requires little skill and plenty of brawn on the shop floor and has done for a fair few years with the same company. You might think the company would appreciate this kind of loyally but not really... not when now most of their highest paid labour force have been laid off and replaced by cheaper folk who speak English as a second language.

His job requires him to stay in his designated zone, even when on his mandatory breaks, thus not to distract the other workers gaining the most slave labour out of them as possible. Well, these are the rules for anyone that "should" understand them; if you can look gormless and make out you haven't understood them because you don't speak English well enough you can do what you want.

And thats exactly whats been happening. A Polish couple who've been working on the shop floor for 2 years spend their break times moving to each others areas and no-ones ever said a thing to them. They're not the only ones but they're the only ones within eyeshot so it just hits home harder. It was one day last week when he finally snapped.

She'd been sat with him for 50 minutes chatting away. Regulation breaks are 15 minutes and this wasn't a one off for her to do this, again, its just no one has ever said anything so it's just gone on and on until she's finished. She didn't look like moving so he gets up and thinks "fuck it, if she can move and sit with someone whilst on a break, why can't I". The consequences of this nearly landed him with disciplinary action.

Within 5 minutes of him sitting with his friend, his supervisor comes across and gives him a talking to about "knowing the rules" and to get back in his area. His mention of how "Zofia" quite happily enjoyed her breaks outside her designated zone fell on deaf ears and the first mumbled of the work "racist" came out of his mouth (we'll ignore the fact the correct term is xenophobe for now). Jim isn't racist, he's just very much about not having the piss taken out of him, and that doesn't boil down to race, colour of skin or nationality so he followed his supervisor to clear things up.

"Why is it then that she *pointing directly at her and she sees it* can quite happily walk 10 meters away from her area every fucking day to sit gassing away to her husband for well over 45 minutes and I have not only have to take my breaks, but also have to eat my lunch in an area where only Eastern Europeans work and not one of them has any interest in talking to me?!"

"That's not true at all" he responded tentatively, knowing he was in the wrong but afraid to tell it like it is.

"You know that's bollocks and so do I. I've watched her for the last 50 minutes sit there doing absolutely nothing and she works over there. This happens every day and no one says anything, why is that?"

At this point she comes over, seeing that Jim is not only irate, but vigorously pointing at her.

"Is there problem?" she says addressing the supervisor.

"No, everythings fine, could you just go back to your area and get back to work". Jim explodes.

"Everything is not fine at all. Why do you feel you can come across to this area for your break and talk to your husband for 45 minutes every day when its quite clearly a rule to not leave your area?". The supervisor ushered the words calm down but Jim wasn't listening now.

"I didn't know...". A blatant lie from the sheepish look on her face.

Jims rage continues. "Well even if this is true, which I find every hard to believe, everyone else has breaks of fifteen fucking minutes... you know... one-five.. quarter of an hour. You've been sat there now for nearly an hour. Are you bone idle or are you just taking the piss?". Somehow this got construed as a racial slur.

"You have problem because I'm not speak English well?". Had it've been a man whod've said this I'm sure Jim would've knocked him out right there and it'dve gone down as a hate crime.

"No.. for fucks sake, this has nothing to do with your nationality, this has to do with you not doing your job properly and not understanding fundamental rules of the job. The company sacked a lad a few months ago for being crap at his job and he did more than you!". The company did fire someone I know who we dub Harry Potter for being an inept tool which although wasn't surprising, the company cut him no slack at all when it came to the standard of his work or how much he had to get done.

The supervisor chirped up.

"You might want to watch what you say here mate", and with that comment Jim knew he had lost and had no chance of this getting resolved. Maybe not all companies take this pussy arsed stance with foreign labour for fears of being dubbed racist by not giving enough chances just in case they don't understand English properly, but like I've said, this isn't the first instance I've heard of this happening.

I understand and welcome (to some degree) Europeans coming here to work that helps strengthen our economy and fill jobs "nobody wants to do". What I don't understand is why some companies are quite blatantly giving preferential treatment to foreign laborers when it comes to fucking up and/or breaking the rules, especially when they've replaced a perfectly apt workforce to cut costs in the first place.

I mean we did it with Wembley Stadium and that cost tax payers hundreds of millions of pounds of foreign laborers taking this piss and everyone knew it. Another mate was working in the area and the Eastern Europeans had a running joke about when it would be finished, enjoying the Life of Riley in local hotels and partying until all hours in the morning. Why weren't they laid off after the initial delays and replaced by a one price contract to finish the job with no extra funds? Because the Great British Public were taking it in the ringhole, thats why, and those being employed on Government Contracts really couldn't give two fucks.

I'd love to hear off anyone whose had similar experiences because he can't be alone. People take the piss at work no matter what nationality they are (for instance this blog has been written entirely at my employers expense!), but what I don't see very often is a supervisor turns his back on obvious negligence because of being afraid to stand up to a foreign worker for fears of a backlash. That, my friends, is whats known as bollocks!

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