Utterly spent
A couple of friends recently pointed me in the direction on a new webgame, Spent, that's appeared online. It's quick and definitely worth checking out. Although really the people who should be playing it are National politicians, not dirty lefties like myself.
In any case, the scenario is simple: you're a single parent with one kid, unemployed, and quickly running out of money. The aim is to make it through the month. I managed, but only just - my car got impounded, I lost my job, and had to put down my pet. Very traumatic.
It reminded me of a book I read a couple of years ago by a British journalist. (I don't remember what it was called.) She tried to survive on minimum wage for a month, trying out a number of crappy jobs. And she actually managed to do so by bending her rules once or twice. In the end, she concluded (not surprisingly) that minimum wage jobs should be better paid. And why? Because it wasn't good enough to simply talk about "upskilling" employees: there would always be somebody at the bottom doing the dirty work, but all hard workers should earn enough to live with dignity. I definitely agree with her.
In any case, the scenario is simple: you're a single parent with one kid, unemployed, and quickly running out of money. The aim is to make it through the month. I managed, but only just - my car got impounded, I lost my job, and had to put down my pet. Very traumatic.
It reminded me of a book I read a couple of years ago by a British journalist. (I don't remember what it was called.) She tried to survive on minimum wage for a month, trying out a number of crappy jobs. And she actually managed to do so by bending her rules once or twice. In the end, she concluded (not surprisingly) that minimum wage jobs should be better paid. And why? Because it wasn't good enough to simply talk about "upskilling" employees: there would always be somebody at the bottom doing the dirty work, but all hard workers should earn enough to live with dignity. I definitely agree with her.