These are laminates. It’s particularly important that you familiarise yourselves with this one: this is a deadly spider from north Africa. If you see it, you must smash it with your hammer. And remember the Go Bananas code: 1 to STUN, 2 to KILL, 3 to MAKE SURE! ibid.
I’ve got a new job. In a banana factory. I’m an arachnid control operative. ibid.
Chicken shop owner’s telephone interview: What are your strengths?
Mandy: I’m not a grass. I might be some things but I’m not a grass. Oh and I can swallow a tangerine whole. When can you let me know by? ibid.
Unemployment Officer: Now, Mandy, I have had some feedback from your recent employers, and I think it would be helpful and constructive for you to hear what they had to say.
Mandy: Oh, no, I’m all right, thanks.
Unemployment Officer: Mark from Chicken Bungalow said, She burnt down my chicken restaurant. And the banana people said, Thanks to your negligence, seventeen lives were lost.
Mandy: I knew they’d dredge that up. ibid.
Unemployment Officer: It’s come to my attention, Mandy, that you have actually been working. You haven’t been working in a commercial for a pay-day loans company … ibid.
Mandy’s video: Are you desperate for cash but don’t have any adult family members willing you bail you out again? Then try Cash Maggot.
Desperate members of public: … I’m a cash maggot … I’m a cash maggot … ibid.
Lola: What are you reading?
Mandy: The Guinness Book of Records. Mandy II: Mandy Bloody Blower, at the nailbar
These people are gods: they’ve done something with their lives … I’m not a record breaker. But I am a line-dancer though. I’m going to win the local line-dancing endurance competition. Practising? I’ve done twenty-two hours straight through. I’ve got a secret … [inaudible] … nappies … ibid.
Mandy: I heard you’d gone to the Peak District to start a new life. I heard you’d got a hot-tub.
Susan Blower: I did. But it’s all gone to shit … It’s all gone. I want to make it up to you. ibid.
Lola: Step 1: Gaze into the eyes of the voodoo head; Step 2: Name you foe; Step 3: Tell the head what you want – and you must be specific.
Mandy: I want to be the last one standing at the local line-dancing endurance competition. ibid. Lola buys head on the internet
Announcer: The prize will go to the lady line-dancer standing. And remember, you must keep your thumbs in your belt-loops at all times. Otherwise you are DISQUALIFIED! OK, good luck everyone. Positions please. And here we go. ibid.
… [20 seconds into competition Mandy staggers] … Lola! Water! ibid.
Loo roll! Loo roll! ibid. Mandy et Susan remain
Announcer: Susan Blower wins the award. God rest her soul. ibid. Susan crushed by giant glitterball with voodoo-head mistakenly brought into competition hall and onlooking from table
Nude Mandy on food trolley: Dig in, lads. Don’t be shy … Do you like sushi do you? Don’t touch it myself … Don’t let me put you off. Eh, you haven’t got a ciggy on ya, have ya? I’m gasping for a fag. My arms are covered in prawns. Mandy IV: Fish
Boss: You are fired! Get out!
Mandy: All right. Fine. I’ll get me coat. You owe me for an hour and a half. ibid.
Mandy: Oh year, there’s a new place opened up down the road that does virginal steaming.
Lola: … I am not going anywhere near other lady’s pipes. ibid.
Have you got any of those fish that eat human skin? ibid. Mandy in aquarium shop
I really can’t understand the demonisation of pigeons. I think they’re nice. And they really helped us out during the War delivering messages and stuff. They’re really intelligent. Mandy V: Meat, Mandy legs apart on table to nurse
Donna: I’m a player short. I’m putting together the finest line-up since the Great Railway robbery … It’s all reliable people: Lucy Spatchcock … Wendy Typhoid … the Fixer … ain’t nuffin’ she don’t know. Mandy VI: Broadsword to Donna Ball
Now all of the problems that go with that … it’s never been an easy job for anyone; some people would describe it as an impossible job. Graham Taylor: The Impossible Job, opening scene in dugout, Taylor, Channel 4 1996
A new jobs program we’re calling America Works. House of Cards US s3e1: Chapter 27, Frank, Netflix 2015
You do your job; let me do mine, yes? Alien ***** 1979 starring Sigourney Weaver & Tim Skerritt & Veronica Cartwright & Harry Dean Stanton & John Hurt & Ian Holm & Yaphet Kotto & Bolaji Badejo & Helen Horton et al, director Ridley Scott, Ash
Work is getting worse … Sadly, that steady march of progress narrative doesn’t really hold up … New jobs are declining in quality. Why Work is Getting Worse, Youtube 16.35, Second Thought 2023
Jobs don’t pay as much any more … Most of the profit generated from that increase in productivity hasn’t gone to workers. It’s been captured by the 1%. ibid.
For the bottom 50% of the population, in other words the average American, pre-tax pre-benefits income has actually gone down by over 6% since 1980. And that’s before you factor in the cost of living. ibid.
Debt as a percentage of income has only gone up since the 1950s. ibid.
Security: More and more people are being brought into more precarious work. ibid.
Neo-liberal politicians actively promote this wage restraint behaviour by lying to people about the relationship between wages and inflation. ibid.
Child labor laws are starting to come down. ibid.
Capitalists in the neoliberal era have helped to elect politicians that weaken workers in every imaginable way. ibid.
Your job will never truly improve under capitalism. ibid.
A life which resembles millions of other Americans following the recession. Nine million jobs have been created since the recession, most of which … [are] minimum wage jobs. Which means that Americans are working even more than ever. Working & Homeless: The Death of the American Dream, Youtube 52.18, 2022
The American dream should then be back on track. But at what price? ibid.
Unstable, part-time and underpaid jobs: this is the reality hiding behind the American dream. This has put almost one in every two workers into poverty … The working poor. ibid.
‘American dream’? mmm It’s all a bunch of crap.’ ibid.
American workers have come out of the crisis more vulnerable and poorer than ever, condemned to always working more hour just to get by. ibid.
In Seattle 500 families live in these temporary camps tolerated by the city. ibid.
It’s a dream for the giants of finance … with the workers paying the price. ibid.
The recession was the perfect pretext to put the new rules of the game into place. ibid.
After leaving the EU and after 12 months into the pandemic Britain’s job market is changing. Far more of us are now hunting for jobs in the temporary low-pay gig economy. With so many shops closed delivery drivers have felt the pressure to ignore the law. And some say they have been forced to take humiliating drastic action … So is low pay and precarious the future of work in Britain? Dispatches: Low Pay Britain: About Your Job, Channel 4 2021