I’m very much alive and well, thank you for the messages.
I owe you an explanation for the gap. A busy spell at work, and at home, has meant some things had to wait - you could say I have been trying to avoid falling in to the trap I am going to tell you about below. With the FIA factory shutdown upon us, normal service is resumed.
The Carbon Curse, then. Let’s get into it.
The strange hours, the contract work, the particular relationship this industry has for things that aren’t good for you… none of it is exactly conducive to a settled home life.
A lovingly cooked dinner going cold on the table. A kids sports day missed in favour of the latest deadline. Snapping at a partner or children after a shift ran on for three hours longer than it should have. Popping to the pub for a quick one after work and not getting home until midnight.
It all adds up.
When I started my first F1 job it really struck me how many single and divorced men I was surrounded by. Sadly, it didn’t seem like a coincidence either.
The job can ask everything of you at times. You need strong relationships and the self-awareness to recognise when work is taking over. Contractors who stay away from home for extended periods are particularly vulnerable. The weekly pay, the pub after work, absence of any normal domestic rhythm, none of this helps. Some of them go home with very little after the contract ends other than a sleep deficit and a depleted bank account.
There was a dark joke among colleagues at the first team I worked at. If someone was having trouble at home, newly single or noticeably spending more time at work than anywhere else - it would be attributed to the Carbon Curse. Said matter-of-factly, as though it was simply inevitable. As though working here meant your life would eventually fall apart, and the only question was timing.
Some people loved the job so much they would subconsciously put it before their families without ever noticing they were doing it. The big teams often arrive at suppliers on a Friday evening with a pallet or two full of work and the expectation of finished components on Monday. The staff often have very little say. Some of them genuinely welcome the overtime. The extra money is great, but it comes with a hidden cost. A cost most people don’t see clearly until it’s already been paid.
I’ve not been immune to any of this.
There have been times I put work first because I had no choice if I wanted to keep the job. There have also been times I told them where to stick it and went home. I’ve picked up my tools and walked out for good on more than one occasion.
I’ve seen enough of what the Carbon Curse does to people to know when I need to choose differently. Not everyone manages to, but I count myself fortunate that I did, most of the time.
The thing that makes it self-perpetuating is the cruelest part. Once the relationship is gone and there’s no dinner waiting, no one ringing to ask where you are, and no reason to leave at a reasonable hour… staying late and going to the pub are all that’s left. The car that was supposed to represent the rewards of all that effort sits in the factory car park covered in cigarette ash and empty cans, a duvet folded in the back for nights when there’s no particular reason to go home after a sixteen hour shift.
The Carbon Curse doesn’t just damage relationships, but sadly, it removes the incentive to rebuild them.
It’s getting better, slowly. At the retirement home there are happily married people, more women in the workforce bringing a different energy to the culture, shorter hours, people who work part time - which would have been unthinkable in some of the places I've worked. The industry is changing, even if it’s changing slowly.
But it still exists. I’ve watched it happen to people I respected enormously. I’ve watched people who were brilliant at their jobs lose everything else.
No job is worth that. I’ve had to remind myself of that more than once.
Some people figure it out in time, and, some don’t.
Next time - something a bit lighter.
— David Whitmore