Working Conditions - Past and Present

If you have ever thought you have the job from hell think again. Here's an interesting article on working conditions in late 18th and early 19th century Britain.

Working Conditions in Late 18th, and early 19th Century Britain.

And of course, althought not history (yet), I can totally relate to this one! :-)

http://thinkinglola.blogspot.com/2005/08/why-recruitment-agencies-suck.html

Comments

Peter Cuthbertson said…
If you're going to keep up these "How life was for normal people x years ago" posts, it would be interesting to see a few on how things were better in the past.
Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
Anonymous said…
Well, in the past, people like you would have been burned at the stake for unusual hideousness.
Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
Anna said…
I don't feel that things were better in the past - certainly not for the average person. And of course, even almighty Emperors could be wiped out from the face of the earth in a relatively short period of time when disease struck.
Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
Anonymous said…
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related site satellite tv service is what i live for!!....lol
Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
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Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
Sig F. Reid said…
interesting read... be dropping by here whenever i have the time :)
Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
Anonymous said…
"How things were better in the past"?

Hmm...unless one is going to go as far back as Cro-Magnon times, no period in history had as much leisure time as we do now in the West. Nor was any period in history quite so free of disease and general brutality (of course, our specific brutalities nowadays can be much worse).

So, I dunno...maybe "There was no Reality TV" would be your best bet if that's the sort of thing you're after?
Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
Anna said…
Light, I agree with you 100%. We have never had it so good as we do now. Disease, working conditions, human rights, etc. The idea that "the old days were better" is really just a fantasy because when one examines the hard facts and compares with the quality of life of the average person nowadays, there really is no question about it. I doubt there is a person alive today who would REALLY prefer a life without antibiotics, soap, hot showers, and basically all the things we take for granted nowadays...
Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
Anonymous said…
Aye, there is a question mark about people who talk about "the good old days". Presumably they're not referring to child brothels, strict class divisions, ricketts, polio, and genocide...
Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
Anna said…
I think not. I think the "good old days" do not exist. Also, older people tend to look favourably towards the days when they were young, mainly because they associate those times with happy selective memories of their own.
Wednesday, 24 August, 2005
Anonymous said…
Hmmm, do at least temper that thought with the memory of Harold McMillan's Tory slogan in the 1950s: "You've Never Had it So Good".

Agreed that Cuthbertson is a right-wing pillock who mistakes his variousn one-line intrusions for literary wit, but he does at least maintain a critical distance to contemporeanity, a difficult enough feat in these "yay, isn't our monadic New Labour existence great" era...
Sunday, 28 August, 2005
Anna said…
When I say that our times are the best I was not thinking of this in a political context at all.
Sunday, 28 August, 2005
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