The cost of working crisis

Research shows employees are uneasy about being asked to return to the office for financial reasons. It's no surprise, says Hannah Ewens, the price of an at-work day is simply too high

- Hannah Ewens

There's a nihilistic little phrase that my friends and I say to each other sometimes. The black humour sounds alarming to those who overhear, but we find it captures the lived reality quite well: “The problem is, you see, that I cannot afford to be alive.” Sometimes it's softened to more palatable variations, like, “If I could just not leave the house for a few months...” Or, “If I could just go on a very long walk like that couple from The Salt Path maybe did, sleeping only under the night sky, forgoing all food but nature’s candy: deadly nightshade berries...” If only the demands of the corporeal form relented, then perhaps we could catch up with the snowballing cost of living.

Maybe you say things like this too. For many living in the UK, everything has become so costly that they can’t cover basic expenses. In just the past few days, the news cycle has informed us that one in six can’t afford to pay bills and that the number of people who have to work a second job is the highest since records began. It is quite literally expensive to be alive. Don’t think about it for too long. Or do, because rumination is a free activity.