Are Hannah and Neil representing a realistic workplace?

[Purple Pumpkin]

Listening to the omnibus and seeing the tweets hating Hannah amde me think: I actually feel like the Neil and Hannah stoyline is perhaps the first time I’ve seen a workplace represented on The Archers that is anything like mine.

To be clear, I work in an office, not on a pig farm, but the sort of issues they’re having, and conversations back home, strike me as quite realistic. There’s the relatively insecure boss with a ‘thrusting’ young deputy; what you can and can’t authorise while the boss is away; the ambitious junior playing up to the boss’s boss; while telling your other half about what happened and getting their support or questions about your stance. It all rings true to me, in a way that all the ‘farm meetings’ and family fallouts at Brookfield, Home Farm and Bridge Farm just don’t.

That doesn’t mean I like Hannah though!

[Miss Mid-City]

I don’t know if what’s going on with Hannah and Neil is realistic … but I find it odd that pretty much everyone of working age in Ambridge has a job.

As an urban-dweller I’m often led to believe that there’s a particularly big issue with rural unemployment. And there’s a high number of people of retirement age who are still in work in Ambridge.

The general situation with employment in Ambridge seems very strange to me. I’m struck by how many people are “entrepreneurial” and are prepared to work for themselves. No-one’s on unemployment benefits, no-one seems to claim in-work benefits and no-one seems to claim sickness benefits …

[Miss Mid-City]

And also on the subject of employment and “The Archers”, I don’t think I buy into the idea that an 18 year old can run a stately home! (This is partly because I don’t have a business brain of any sort!)

There are amazingly gifted young people who do indeed start businesses – but running a stately home or a country house?!

[Author]

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