What I love about this is seeing that he’s clearly a hockey skater. Now, I don’t know shit about fuck when it comes to cold slippy antics, but what I notice is different between hockey skaters and nearly all other skaters is that hockey skaters essentially run on the ice. Any other skater is trying to glide, perform, or be otherwise smooth. Create a new type of mobility, but on ice. But hockey skaters? The floor is slippery but that’s why they’ve got knives on their feet, so it’s running time. Run run run run.
So this is like playing tag on ice, except the one guy you’re trying to get is magically not on ice. And I think that’s pretty neat.
He’s also making really good use of the stoppers on the front of his skates. You can clearly see several times that when he starts juking and running he’s not actually running with the wheels in contact with the ground – he’s tipped forward to run on the rubber stoppers, which will give him more traction on the slippery surface. He can change direction faster because none of his kinetic energy is going into countering the inertia of spinning wheels.
I don’t know if the picks on the front of ice skates are used similarly (because ice hockey is not so much of a national pastime in Australia) but I wouldn’t be surprised. But I spent a bit of time with a roller derby team, and I recognised that particular stopper run :)
Listen. This is what people are talking about when they say that if you gave people a fucking UBI, folks would still work.
Even “menial” work is beloved by various people if it’s given the respect it deserves and folks dont need to worry about - um - starving to death and dying of illness?
I legitimately love delivering pizzas! If it were sustainable i wouldn’t mind at all doing it for the rest of my life! One of my best friends absolutely loves cleaning, and the only reason she quit cleaning professionally is that she was sick of the ways she was treated. My stepfather has been a carpenter and construction worker for 30 years, despite being a highly qualified graphic designer and architect, bc the man just fuckin loves construction work. For every “menial/undesireable” job available, there is someone who is happy to work it, if not for the stigma and need to survive. And for the truly awful ones? Like slaughterhouse cleanup, sewer maintenance, roadkill pickup, etc? With UBI they could almost all be mechanized, saving people from having to do grueling and dangerous jobs they really don’t have to do.
There are even people who will do those jobs because they recognize that they need to get done. Those people may not love the job itself but they take great pride in doing something that needs to be done.
People don’t just work for free doing jobs they love. If there’s a niche there will always be someone willing to fill it.
I talk shit but I actually don’t genuinely truly HATE retail, what I hate is how people (customers and employers) use, abuse, overwork, and generally treat the employees like shit
If I could have reasonable hours and accommodations for my limitations and be paid enough to survive without being asked to do 25 jobs advertised as 1 job and had UBI to ensure I could leave if it was too much/I was being mistreated/taken advantage of by employers looking to overwork employees to make more money I’d be totally happy to work retail as long as I physically could
When I worked retail, my favorite part was working in the stock room cuz it’s like playing real life Jenga
Were it not for my disability and if it paid enough and I wasn’t treated like crap I am not kidding I would be happy to work at a movie theater probably for the rest of my life, I loved it that much.
Trust me, for every menial job that “no one would want” there is a person who would LOVE to do it. Forget that “I don’t dream of labor” stuff in a perfect world people would still work because there are people who genuinely enjoy working; It’s being FORCED to do it in shitty conditions for crap pay lest we starve to death or end up unhoused that’s the problem, not work itself.
One of the best jobs I ever had was cemetery landscape maintenance.
It all comes down to this: People don’t mind working. It isn’t work that people dread or are sick of. It’s working conditions.
Pay people well, respect them (and don’t allow customers to disrespect them), accommodate their needs, and people will work their asses off and more often than not do it happily. Work itself is not demeaning or soul-draining. Jobs don’t have to be that way.
I genuinely enjoy sewing. But I don’t have the connections to be a fashion designer or a successful tailor, I’m not charismatic enough for TikTok, and the rest of professional sewing is mostly sweatshop or slave labor.
I love data work. And I mean the boring ass repetitive “here’s an excel sheet can you transfer over this data”. Or like. Other menial office tasks. I love it. I’m lucky that my current job includes that but like.
I would get a job keeping track of shit. I would get a job doing basic admin stuff. If I could get a job that involved data work and stuffing envelopes and ONLY that? I would do it. And based on my experience, at least, that’s all stuff that people around me seem to HATE.
If I had UBI and I could get a simple job doing that? I would do it. All the time. Fuck, I would branch out into other shit. I’d get a job at like a fucking plant shop or something!
People WANT to work. We WANT to feel productive and useful. I think a lot of people NEED to have something to occupy their time. But in addition to that? If I had UBI and I knew I could? I would work LESS so I could focus on doing shit I want to do. I’ve been dreaming of being an author since I was a kid… I would give that a shot, if I could spend less time at a 9-5.
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