One factor that the Coronavirus crisis has brought into sharp focus is the relative importance of different jobs.  Those doing jobs deemed ‘essential’ are required to put their lives at potential risk and to work even harder than ever; whilst those doing ‘non-essential’ jobs are asked to stand down in order to prevent the spread of infection.

Ozzie Andros recognised this division of the workforce in his visionary chef d’oeuvre Ozmodium Management (Minnow Press, 2011).  Andros identified the activities that he defined as ‘proper jobs’, recognising with uncanny prescience, the importance of people working in the medical professions and the food manufacture and distribution industries.

So, it is now wholly appropriate––and long overdue––that the Nation recognises the vital role of those people engaged in Ozzie Andros’ proper jobs and celebrates their essential contribution by a community clap for our carers at 8PM every Thursday evening.

The doctors, the nurses, the NHS staff and care workers, the farmers, the fishermen, the supermarket staff, the postal workers, the distribution drivers and warehouse workers: proper jobs, one and all.

Career pen-pushers, “the computer says” bureaucrats, and management consultants: don’t hold your breath for a community clap devoted to you anytime soon.

© Simon Turner-Tree

Simon Turner-Tree claps those employed in proper jobs.

And a little clap for himself, too, since no one else is going to do it.