Skeleton staff

My mother was shocked and startled at the staff’s decision, though. "I need time to get my head around this lock-in,” she replied. “I’ll tell you one thing: no one will ever work for you again after this.” A staunch Unison convenor, she had her beliefs and her boundaries, and when I transgressed, she was as bluntly spoken as ever. "If you go ahead, the staff will have no time to call their own. The protection that our Union has wrung from the owners, the flexible shift patterns and special leave to look after sick family members: they will go out the window. The hours will be brutal. And with the high rates you pay them, you'll probably go bust.

"You must realise... Mrs Thatcher won," she went on. "There's no such thing as society anymore. No one takes selflessness seriously. Life’s all about money, power and personal choice. There will be so much abuse on social media. People are shameless."

Mikey was on my side, though. An innovative, obsessive software engineer who usually buried himself in code, he unhesitatingly and calmly accepted our plan. His voice, usually steady and hyper-analytical, was tinged now with a mixture of concern and awed admiration. “I’m shocked,” he began, “but honestly not surprised. Whatever I said - whatever anyone said - you’d always go your own way, wouldn’t you?”

“March, April, May, June - only four months. The virus will probably burn itself out by summer. We can cope,” I argued, half-convincing myself. “We may well have a vaccine by then.” 

“Don’t hold your breath,” Mikey replied, his tone shifting slightly, a pragmatic caution threading his words together. “The last big vaccine took five years. But if there’s any help I can give …Don’t be too dismissive of artificial intelligence … We’re in a new world, and AI might help optimise your shift patterns.”