Malinformation 2- Marjorie

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/11/malinformation.html.
A while ago I wrote an article about the pros and cons of civvy receptionists, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/04/civilian-receptionists-yay-or-nay.html. Along with Rebecca another character stands out in my mind. Her name was... I'll call her "Marjorie". Marjorie was different to the other receptionists brought in by ISS Mediclean when they took over the service. She was older, close to retirement, and had no experience or training with the company or NHS. She was local and lived around the corner from where I used to live, although I never knew her previously. She made herself very unpopular with the portering staff from the get-go because she immediately appointed herself de facto supervisor of the department even though she held no portering grade at all. Her role was receptionist and dispatcher in the Maternity unit, later the Women's Centre, with no formal authority over us at all. She was also made a minor celebrity by being featured in the hospital newspaper in the column Radcliffe People, a spot that gave a profile of a particular staff member in each issue. This was an honour never afforded to me in all twenty-three of my years, yet Marjorie made within a couple of months. She was the right kind of staff member, you see. It seems she was being groomed by management to play this role; she was encouraged to act like our boss even though she wasn't. I remember she insisted on always keeping the key to the lodge safe so we couldn't even access our payslips without her permission.

Along with the general sense of privilege Marjorie was encouraged to feel was a certain amount of malinformation. For some reason, when there was any kind of mysterious criminal behaviour in the hospital, porters were always the first to be blamed, especially by her. This is despite the fact that, as I've explained before, all the worst offences in the OxRad world were committed by civilians, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/05/killer-nurses.html. There was an instance in the late 1990's when a number of staff had complained that their lockers in the Theatres department had been broken into and items of value had been stolen. When I was speaking to Marjorie about it she didn't go as far as automatically to accuse the porters, but she did say: "I can't imagine a nurse doing that." I could have made the point that she had almost no experience of hospital life, let alone awareness of the scandals I have reported on, but I didn't. With retrospect it was just as well because it turned out that two porters were to blame. A pair of brothers who suddenly handed in their resignations and left the country just before the net closed. I'm the first to admit we HP's are not perfect, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/12/hps-and-psychos.html. Despite this, it annoys me that Marjorie was enticed deliberately by management into this narrow-minded and entitled attitude. She was clearly being used by them for some purpose... but I'm not sure what exactly.
(The illustration above is not an actual image of Marjorie.)

Malinformation

 

I'm a big fan of Neil Oliver, in fact I consider him to be the new conscience of the nation. He has a perception and passion that crystallizes many people's experience of living in today's world. A few months ago he made an interesting video about what he calls "malinformation". This term obviously emerges out of that infamous 2020's buzzword misinformation, but it's different in a crucial way. Misinformation is information that is false (allegedly), a lie, created to deceive. Malinformation is information that is true, but people being aware of it has a bad effect of some kind on somebody for some reason. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a5fBGUqfBU. In one of those strange ways, the other day I had two supposedly unconnected thoughts pop into my head at the same time. Firstly, it struck me that it was malinformation to be proud to be a hospital porter. In fact I've had so many conversations with others that prove this. I remember being on an overnight ferry to Ireland back in 2002. I had gone on holiday with somebody I really shouldn't have, as I found out later. We spent most of the journey on the standard argument... "but you just push a trolley, Ben!"... "Yes but"... and you know the rest. Despite the fact I won the debate easily, as I always do when it comes to this one; my "friend" refused to change his position and he doggedly doubled down, wasting what should have been, and could have been, a happy sea voyage for us both. By the time we docked at Cork harbour he was very agitated and found a pretext to hurl abuse at me in front of all the other passengers as we were waiting to disembark. He had been subjected to malinformation and felt hurt and enraged by it. For him, this was like an attack by me, as if I had physically struck him or stolen his car. This encounter was not the only time it happened; and it happened with many other people. What is it about being proud to be a HP that makes it malinformation? I'm still not sure after about thirty-five years of experiencing it. Maybe it's because it discredits an established piece of generally received opinion that most people regard as essential for making sense of their world. It is strange, but by far the most hostile recipients of my particular brand of malinformation are HP's or ex-HP's; especially the latter. The best example has to be "Jack Shaw", see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/05/i-lied-to-jack.html. Perhaps it would force him to admit that he had been lured away by the bright lights of civilian life because he couldn't bear the low conventional status of HPing. He resented me because I was standing up to something he ran away from. He envied me. He envied me as a prisoner envies his cellmate who achieves a jailbreak. Perhaps readers have other ideas and can enlighten me, in which case, please do post them in the comments section. The other idea I mentioned, on reflection, probably needs a separate follow-up article.

Hospital Porters' Guild

 

Guilds are something of an archaic concept these days; in fact they have declined in most countries of the world during the last couple of hundred years. Guilds existed from the earliest periods of history right up to the 19th century. They are sometimes confused with a trade union; the two are very different, however a guild often served the purpose trades union are for in the modern world. A guild was an association of tradesmen which regulated the practice of their work, provided support and was a depository of knowledge and training. Guilds have influenced society in ways most people don't realize. A lot of towns have a public building known as a "guildhall", a meeting place for guilds. There is the City and Guilds, an institute for vocational education. The guilds founded public houses, which is why to this day they still have names like "The Bricklayers' Arms" or "The Carpenters' Arms". It could be even our very personal names were generated by the guilds. Common surnames in the English-speaking world are very often the word for a job: Smith, Gardner, Cook, Baker, etc. It may be that generally in the future, for reasons I detail in the other HPANWO media, we may have return to the days of the guilds. I think the first step would be to form a hospital porters' guild. There has never been one of those before. Even though some people are named "Porter" it must refer to a different kind of porter from the civilian world. A HP's guild would be of enormous benefit to our service. It would archive the endless tricks of the trade that are currently being destroyed through casualization and the haemorrhage of experienced personnel. It would replace the current corrupt and useless trade union movement. In Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, the author describes a foundry with its own internal company workers society. This group is frowned upon by the established steelworkers unions. No doubt a hospital porters' guild would be hated in the same way by UNISON. But what good have UNISON ever been? They threw us under the bus in the Great JR Hospital Porters Strike of 2015, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/08/jr-porters-strike-update-2.html; and all they do now is whinge about white heterosexual males and about how EEEEEEEvil we all are. To hell with them! I know a lot of people, even the six month wonders inside the HPing world, might wonder why we need a professional organization at all. I've answered that many times; too many to provide a link. Some of you may ask me why I don't go out and start a HP's guild then. I've done that. Really, the HPWA itself and The Gas Spanner HPANWO Radio show are an embryonic HP's guild. All we need now is our own pub, The Hospital Porters' Arms... Mine's a pint!

Marc Almond was NOT a HP

 

I've been working on my hospital porters "hall of fame" over the years and I'm always looking for new names to add to it. Sometimes an individual's service is rumoured or unconfirmed so in that case I tend to hold back from publication until I'm certain. I'd hate to commit the worst kind of third party stolen valour, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2021/12/mick-jaggers-service-confirmed.html. I have long been repeating the rumour that Marc Almond used to be a HP. This refers to the famous musician from the days of New Wave synth-pop. He was one half of the duo act Soft Cell and they had many great hits including timeless classics like Torch and Tainted Love. Unlike his fellow rock star Mick Jagger, I have found no evidence that Marc ever served as a HP. His most accurate biographies say he trained in art, drama and music from childhood and after school graduated from Southport College and then Leeds Polytechnic. It was at the latter that he met David Ball in 1977 and founded Soft Cell. He did some acting in his youth and starred in a few plays, but apart from that, music has been his only profession. I think the story of Marc being a HP comes from another urban myth that is truly revolting. He was supposedly admitted to hospital once and had to have his stomach pumped because it was engorged with semen after he had performed oral sex continuously at an orgy upon hundreds of men. This is false. It is actually a copycat jibe that has been spread about a number of other musical celebrities for many decades. Other targets of this joke are Rod Stewart, Elton John, Britney Spears, Jon Bon Jovi and even that real HP Mick Jagger. If you come across this rumour again, know that it is untrue. It's actually not possible physically. Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rock-star-stomach-pump/. So both rumours about Marc Almond are untrue. He was neither a hospital patient, with that affliction, nor a porter.

Must-Have HP Memorabilia

 

An Ebay seller called "retired-2020" has put on sale a unique piece of hospital portering keepsake. His or her list appears to consist entirely of old corporate branded giveaways and this particular item was brought to my attention by a brother porter. It is a keyring with a fob sporting the logo or Carillion PLC. It's about three and a half inches across. Source: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315805854978. I am definitely not a fan of Carillion and spoke out against its partnership with OxRad; but like it or loathe it, it is a part of HPing history. It is even rarer because, of course, the organization that issued it has ceased to exist, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2018/01/carillion-collapse-update.html. This is the equivalent of a medal from the Battle of the Somme or a button from General Patton's tunic. And unlike military antiques, this one only costs three pounds. How wonderful low demand is for the HPing anorak! I'd like to buy this myself and I will in a week or so, but I thought I'd let readers know first in case you want it instead. If so then by all means get in there first. I already have a rich collection of old hospital portering relics. If it is not sold after that period I shall snap it up and add it.
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/03/hp-on-ebay.html.

HP's Live here!

 

Above is a picture of an excellent doormat that warns everybody in advance that hospital porters live there! I would get one, but I live with a pair of civilians in a ground floor flat. Even if you're not a HP you could get one to bluff away unwanted callers. The ODO pushers, people like "Jack", see here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/05/i-lied-to-jack.html, will never touch your doorbell I guarantee! The HP's doormat can be bought at an online store called Temu. Source: https://www.temu.com/uk/. If you put "chairs" into the search box you'll see they also sell some porters' beds. There are two white ones for £39.09. See here for details: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2021/10/porters-bed.html.

Infinity Agency

 

If there's one thing that has gone wrong more than anything else, in the last two decades with hospital portering; if there is a single central issue that encompasses all our other regressions, it's casualization. HPing has been downgraded from part of the traditional working class to what has become known as "the precariat". I think this is a deliberate policy. An employment agency is a middle man between yourself and any prospective job. A quick Google will find literally hundreds of them in my country alone. According to their own promotional propaganda, the purpose of an agency is to streamline the employment process by matching prospective workers with suitable employers. Rather than spend his or her life running from one application form or interview to the next, a jobseeker who signs up for an agency can sit back and let the agency handle all that. Sound good doesn't it? The problem is that an agency worker inevitably becomes a rootless drifter; moving from one job to the next, never staying long enough to gain experience, bond with their colleagues or gather long service benefits (should they even exist these days). Many agency workers are on zero-hours contracts, meaning that the agency is not obliged to find them employers who offer a basic week, a minimum number of hours. The workers become the very definition of Karl Marx' rhapsodic description of the typical communist citizen; he could be a farmer in the morning, a builder in the afternoon and paint pictures in the evening. Marx saw this as a good thing, but it is not. For most people, especially men, work is a part of our identity. In the days when the traditional working class existed, a job was not just a job; it was something you belonged to and was the centre of your society. In a town with a factory, the young men would all go and work there when they finished school. In that factory their colleagues would become like new family members. They often ended up marrying a girl from the offices. After a while, depending on the quality of their labour, they would be granted privileges for their commitment; more pay, longer holidays, a place in the company pension scheme, promotion opportunities etc. At the Oxford BMW car factory near where I live, in the good old days, when somebody died they would even be "laid in state"; their coffin would be placed in the middle of the shop floor. At a company wedding all staff who could be spared would attend and the boss would often give the couple his blessing.

Those days are over. Wikipedia defines the "precariat" thus: "A social class only partially involved in labour and must undertake extensive unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings. Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work, including preparing for and attending job interviews, as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for work yet without being paid an actual wage for being on call. The hallmark of the precariat class is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence." It's a portmanteau word of "precarious" and "proletariat". This is also the definition of casualization. For employers only interested in maximizing short term profits and with no desire to create a long-term, high quality, sustainable industry, casualization is perfect because it means you can pay your staff as little as you like, within government minimum wage regulations, and provide no other facilities that cost money. No paid leave, no pension, no increments etc. So you make a fast buck with a cheap and nasty service. During my career as a HP I actually witnessed the transformation from one situation to the other and it's one of the most painful experiences I've ever endured. Agencies embody the old adage that conscripts make bad soldiers. How can an agency worker ever be committed to the job they do when they have not specifically chosen this occupation, they have no contractual rights to it and they could be shipped off to a totally different place in a week's time with no notice at all? What is sad is that I knew many porters who joined through an agency and fell in love with HPing in the same way I did. The sensible thing in that situation would be for management immediately to offer such a valuable asset a permanent contract. They often promised to do just that, but didn't keep that promise. I knew porters who had been serving in OxRad for three or more years through the agency and desperately wanted a contract, but management wouldn't give them one. It was almost as if they did not want hardworking, dedicated professional staff. (Why else would they have got rid of me so eagerly? See: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/01/ten-years-on.html.) I once asked about that to somebody in Trust HR and she replied that agency staff are there so managers can asses them without commitment and if they're any good they will be kept on. What she was referring to here is a trial period. In principle I have no objection to that at all. In a service as vital as HPing you should have to prove you've got what it takes. However, agency work does not constitute a trial period. During a trial period an employee is in direct employment by their employer for a temporary period; and that period is fixed, usually from three to six months. This is a test. At the end, if you pass that test the employer must put up or shut up; offer you a permanent job or let you go. An agency worker is stuck in a limbo of indefinite trial without even any temporary employment. It is not the same! I don't object to casual employment on a small scale; in fact such a thing has always existed in the form of "temping" or "stop gap" jobs for people whose lifestyle is suited to it, usually students or working mothers. The problem is that this kind of employment has expanded to the point where is it displacing all other kinds. It is now the norm, not the exception. I don't know what the solution to this problem is. To repair the damage done by casualization and restore the traditional proletariat would require a transformation outside of any mechanism I can image. However, I always believe in something coming out of left field. Very often the solution is something we can't image, but that doesn't stop it being there, waiting for the right moment. I hope that moment is soon.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2013/04/what-class-are-you.html.