Salary Inequalities Spark Anti-Capitalist Moan

In much the way I was bursting to be serious and political after my night at the ICA cinema last week, I am similarly driven to write about grown-up topics today. A friend emailed me yesterday having read my salary complaints in my last blog entry, and reminded me that a salary of £24K for four days' work a week is not to be sniffed at. She is a botanist, went to university for five years, applied for a job which required a Master's or PhD to do it, has been in the job for nearly three years and is still, staggeringly, making less than £20K a year.

She is very philosophical about it, saying that she knew from an early age that if she wanted to be a botanist, she would never be wealthy, would always have to chase jobs and be willing to move countries as opportunities are unbelievably scarce. It is absolutely her choice and I don't feel personally guilty, but it does make me slightly sick that I am considering jobs that have salaries nearly double hers. All the roles I'm looking at require is a few brain cells, a nail file and an Oyster card, whereas what she does between nine and five requires a great deal of specialised knowledge and ultimately contributes to our greater understanding of the planet. As an end result that's slightly more beneficial than the consequences of the PA jobs I'm going for, which ultimately contribute little to humanity other than our understanding of PowerPoint shortcut keys and the BA online check-in facility.

Fundamentally, botany is still uncool - and unless my friend wants to turn into a celebrity botanist or team up with Carol Vorderman to write a trendy book about herbs, she's always going to be stuck in dusty academia, largely unrecognised, expected to feel grateful for the fact she's employed at all and certainly only scraping a living. Unless a job or industry is either fashionable or of obvious and immediate value for the majority, it won't be rewarded financially. And to that, I say: Pah.