The Maholian Way - Part Two: The Maholian Way in the lives of two

Carla’s life contrasted starkly with her teenage daydreams:

The bitter disappointment of the reality of her life, as opposed to the dream, was hard to deal with and left Carla feeling drained and hopeless. When she went to a doctor he put her on anti-depressants, but they didn’t seem to make any difference.

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George and Tracey, along with their fifteen-year-old daughter Samantha, who had a mild intellectual disability, and their son Declan, 11, lived in a large new house in Virginia Springs, a middle-class outer suburb of Fensham, the nation’s capital

George was a store manager for Gold Crown Carpets, a carpet manufacturer that also had its own retail outlets. He worked many more hours than he was paid for, but his employer made it clear that no-one was indispensable, and with a huge mortgage to service he had no choice but to conform. On top of his long working hours, commuting took almost two hours each day, which meant that he didn’t see much of his kids during the week and had little energy to talk to or do anything with Tracey, and thus usually ended up falling asleep in front of television. The weekends were a little better, although Tracey’s job as a casual hospital receptionist – with unpredictable hours that needed to be fitted in when the kids were at school or George was home to look after them – had lately involved increasing weekend work. But even though this ate into their leisure and social time, it was a vital part of making ends meet and they couldn’t afford to pass it up. As George commented:

Virginia Springs was very much a dormitory suburb. George and Tracey rarely saw their neighbours and they had to drive some distance not just to work, but also to shops, schools and any kind of entertainment. Taking Samantha to her special school and to various extra-curricular programs involved hours every week. She also required a lot of attention at home.

As a result of unhealthy eating and lack of exercise, George became quite overweight, which led to back and knee problems and snoring at night. The snoring in turn kept Tracey awake and made them both tired and irritable the next day, and all these things – their tiredness and lack of satisfying time together, and George’s weight, snoring and back problem – meant that their love life suffered greatly.

As well, the company George worked for was going through tough times. Tariffs on carpets and other manufactured products had been slashed in the early 1980s, which meant that imported carpets from low-wage countries were capturing a much larger share of the market. Gold Crown’s third-generation owners were loath to shift production offshore, but to avoid this they felt they had to cut local labour costs to the bone. This meant individual performance-based contracts that added up to reduced pay and conditions, and a bigger proportion of casual staff. As well, there was great pressure to increase sales, and all sales staff were given quotas that they failed to fill at their peril. So staff had to persuade potential buyers that their lives would be so much more satisfying and their social standing so enhanced with new Gold Crown carpets. As a sweetener, customers were offered terms involving no payments for two years but, if they accepted, this only increased the huge pile of debt they were usually saddled with, debt they would have great trouble repaying. Like other carpet manufacturers at the time, Gold Crown was heavily dependent on fossil fuels: for transport, for powering production, and as the main raw material in the carpets. Replacing carpets was quite a disruptive process for the homes and offices concerned, the fumes were unpleasant and probably unhealthy, and the old carpets took up a lot of landfill.

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