When I left work the other day one of the warehouse guys appeared beside me as I walked to the bus stop. We don’t operate a strict caste system in our workplace, so I was prepared to tolerate him as long as he was clear that he was speaking to his superior.
As we walked along we established that he was going to the same bus stop as me, that he was catching the same bus, and that he was getting off at the same stop, and that he was intent on making conversation with me. I tried to sidestep by saying that I usually walk to the main bus stop, which is a fifteen minute walk up the road. Nope, no good. He’d walk with me. So I wasn’t predisposed to like him. I like the half hour I get to myself everyday on the day to and from work. I listen to podcasts, or I read, or I just stare mindlessly out of the window and just generally embrace the precious thirty minutes of time I get that are completely mine. No co-workers, no customers, no family members. I like it. I need it.
And this guy was ruining it for me.
But I tried to act like a normal person and make conversation, which is when it all started going downhill. Every single thing we talked about he brought back to how awful Julia Gillard is, and how she’s ruined his life. Now I’m not a particular supporter of Gillard or of the Labor party in general (though I’ll take incompetent over outright evil – Liberals, I’m looking at you – any day), but I find the level of vitriol directed at her really disturbing, and the only explanation I can come up with is that it is because she’s a woman. I don’t remember this level of hate being spewed at John Howard, and I really despised that guy. People really fucking hate Julia Gillard, and it makes me very uncomfortable. I honestly think that if she was married and had some kids people would be less hysterical, because there is a significant section of the Australian population who don't much like women anyway, and who definitely don’t like women who don’t know their place.
Anyway, this guy started ranting about how he hadn’t been able to find full time work in six years, and that that was Julia Gillard’s fault. Umm. Six years? Didn’t the Labor government just mark it’s forth anniversary in office? But let’s not bring facts into this, particularly in light of what was to come.
He started complaining about how Julia Gillard has spent billions of dollars on a desalination plant (really?) and that that is disgusting because desalinated water is just filtered sewerage (wait a minute), and that (and I swear I’m not making this up) it was a waste of money anyway as we’re surrounded by water. Did he mean the ocean? I asked. Yes, he meant the ocean. Why, he wanted to know, would we spend all that money on a desal plant when there’s a perfectly good ocean right there?
I pointed out in my least ‘what the fuck are you talking about’ tone that a) if we drank sea water we would die, and b) all water is essentially filtered sewerage anyway, given that our atmosphere is one big recycling system. He didn’t buy it.
Then he started complaining about the fact that Julia Gillard has abolished the School Certificate (I can honestly say I don’t remember that happening), and that his son (who, by his own admission, had dropped out of school years ago) was going to be disadvantaged. Ah yes, the old retrospective causation.
And finally, he complained that Julia Gillard has made his council rates too high (I think you’ll find that...oh, never mind) and that the only way to fix it is to increase the housing density in our area. To this end he insisted that we fill in all the lagoons and build houses on them.
Those were the highlights, though there was plenty more where that came from. By the end I was just nodding wanly, too exhausted to keep arguing. And guess where this guy gets most of his information about the world? If you said The Daily Telegraph and talkback radio, award yourself a small prize.
But more than anything this whole encounter just brought home to me how sheltered my life has been. I’ve been incredibly lucky. I have parents who have always encouraged me to read and ask questions. I went to a good school and was in the (cough, cough) gifted program. I went to a selective high school and from there to an arts degree at a good university. I worked in a bookshop for years and now work in publishing. I have basically lived in a bubble of liberal minded, educated people and have always, always, sneered at people who think that The Sunday Herald is an acceptable weekend paper to read (it is not, though I must admit that its comics section is far superior to that of The Sydney Morning Herald).
I suppose that this guy I was talking to must have seen me as a naive lefty, a member of the chardonnay set (though, really, who drinks Chardonnay? That’s pleb wine), and it was a really odd realisation for me. I mean, obviously I’m right and this guy is wrong – I mean factually, not ideologically, though his ideology is a bit questionable as well. But I've been so convinced of the rightness of my lefty-ness that I've never considered for a moment that a rightwinger might be similarly convinced that view of the world is misguided. It really made me think. Then I had a glass of pinot grigio and read The Green Left Weekly (I actually did that), and felt reassured of my place in the world.
So I guess that the moral of the story is that I learned nothing from this experience.
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