252 - Crunch Culture: MindsEye Disaster - Part 01

Examining Crunch Culture in the Gaming Industry | Gaming the System Podcast

In this episode of Gaming the System, hosts Alex, Gem, and Matt delve into the pervasive issue of crunch culture in the gaming industry, sparked by a recent controversy surrounding the game 'Mind's Eye' by Build a Rocket Boy studio. They explore the detrimental working conditions that led to an open letter from employees, the impact of poor management, and the role of unions in advocating for better workplace standards. Tune in for an in-depth discussion on how crunch culture affects developers and the broader implications for the gaming sector.

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:15

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. Today, I'm your host, Alex, and I'm joined by my friends, gem and Matt, before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/gaming the system for some exclusive content. Or you can send us a one off donation via PayPal to our email address. We are gaming the system@gmail.com. Hello and welcome to another episode. And this week we are going to cover a topic which we have visited on the pod before in the past. And that is, um, the crunch culture of the gaming industry. So we're going to revisit that topic with a recent news story that has hit the headlines, uh, all about a game called Mind's Eye. Have either of you heard of that game before this news story? I see Gem shaking her head and that is nodding. No, I haven't. So what was, what was your level of familiarity in that?

Speaker 2: 1:26

Well, the, I'm sure we've come onto it, but IOI, who are the developers who made the Hitman games hitman my, my greatest game of all time and had incredible pedigree. In the games that they've made, and they're making the next James Bond game, which is just gonna be hitman as if he was Jason born. And so that's gonna be fantastic. And they thought, okay, we've done a really good job with making games. Now we're gonna dip our toe in the publishing games world. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna pick one game, we're gonna start small, we'll pick one game, and. Say to the studio, okay, we'll support you, and then you make this game that you'll publish it, and then you'll be our first, our first great big hit as a publisher. And for some reason they chose mind's eye and it's just utterly shit the bed in every way possible. Mm-hmm. And so, and I've, I've just been watching. I didn't touch it'cause it was so quickly apparent that it was awful and I've just been watching funny reviews of it and it, so it is just, I go, oh, well that is, that sucks. It would've be better if it didn't exist. Mm-hmm. And then now, now IOI won't fill up any other games.

Speaker: 3:00

Well, we, we'll see what happens. But yes, it came out back in June, I think, so summertime, I think I remember vaguely seeing a trailer for it and generally being quite underwhelmed by the fact it was another sort of white male ex soldier protagonist, you know, with all the shooting and the um. You know, that sort of thing. It was very, it seemed quite generic apart from the drone. Um, but yeah, basically it's a terrible game. It's had this terrible launch to the point where, um, you know, it's got to the point now where it's hit the knees for the fact that it's. Workers, the developers have written an open letter to the studio, so the studio known as Build a Rocket Boy, um, based in Edinburgh and, and sort of off offshoot of rockstar games. Also based in Edinburgh. They've written an open letter to the CEO. Basically lamenting their terrible working conditions and the fact that hundreds of staff have potentially mistakenly been made redundant through all the errors within, within that, um, internal, uh, workforce. And the CEOs hit back and basically said that, uh, it's all been sabotaged from within. So there's all this drama kicking off. Um, and I first came across this new story earlier. In the week, um, on an article, uh, on BBC News, all about the, the, uh, leader of the organization who used to work at Rockstar and, and was involved with Grand Theft Auto. Um, and it's all about basically how this game has been a terrible game and the, the fallout from that essentially. Um, critics called it broken and buggy, the worst game of 2025, and the man involved, Leslie. Ben Benzie, uh, assure them there was a plan to get things back on track and that the negativity they'd seen was uncalled for. Um, and then he pivoted in this memory that he was giving to staff, saying that internal and external forces have been working to scupper the minds eye launch. Hence the saboteur comment. He told the assembled workers who'd been informed, they faced redundancy just a week earlier, there would be an effort. To root out saboteurs within the company. Quote, I find it disgusting that anyone could sit amongst us, behave like this and continue to work here. He said, according to a transcript of the meeting, verified by BBC News beat. Um, so yeah, there's a lot of drama obviously kicking off there. And some of the staff's main issues, apart from the fact that some people were given redundancy letters when they shouldn't have been, is that there was a lot of of. Bad management going on throughout the process of developing this game. Lots of micromanagement, lots of quick changes, lots of decisions being made at the behest of Leslie without any consultation. It's what he says goes and that's that essentially. Um, so a lot of unhappy feeling within the organization. Uh, I'll just see if I can find some quotes as well, particularly on that. The studio's main focus. This is talking about the history of the studio, would eventually shift to Mind's Eye. A game originally intended to be offered as an experience within a previous game they were working on called Everywhere, quote l Leslie never decided what game he wanted to make. There was no coherent direction. This style of working plagued the project from the start and would be a sign of things to come. So the open letter I mentioned, um, is signed by 93. Current and former, uh, build Rocket Boy employees and alleges the studio management made radical changes without properly consulting workers, lots of knee-jerk decisions repeatedly refusing to listen to his experienced workforce. Uh, a lot of points that we were hammering home on were just ignored and never actioned. Uh, some people were saying their attempts to, uh, use gender neutral pronouns in meetings were laughed up by bosses as well. So there's again, some discrimination happening within the workplace as well. Um, a lot of talk about what they called Leslie tickets, which was a nickname internally for bugs that Leslie would find while he was play testing the game, um, which were completely new to everybody. And just basically things that he decided he wanted to sort out or that he wanted taken care of so that I developed within, within the workforce there as well. Um, but yeah, it just sounds like a generally pretty awful. Time of it, and then of course you've got the crunch. Uh, so they were being commanded to give a lot to the company without too much in return. They were being promised seven hours of leave per eight hours overtime to be taken at after mind i's release. So again, people working far too hard, um, with far little compensation. Uh, it does mess with you. You start to really see the morale go down. The little arguments starting to happen. People are burning the candle at both fence and starting to think what's the point? So, yeah. So that brings me onto the question essentially. How common do we think unhealthy working environments are within gaming? I know they're pretty well, no, I say I assume they're relatively common across all sectors. I've certainly had experience of some negative working environments. I dunno about you guys, but do you think that unhealthy work environments, like the ones being described, uh, in Build a Rocket Boy, um, are being talked about within the gaming sector enough generally?

Speaker 3: 9:21

Yes, I do think that, um, it is across the whole industry. I think it's a problem across the industry. I mean, I think it is a problem in general with, um, working attitudes. Um, I'm sure that Matt will talk about unions, um, and the importance of unions in relation to this. Um, so I'm, but I. That is something I would echo and I think that, I dunno, can you echo something before it's been said pre echo? Um, I mean, I did, did a little bit of looking into this before I, um, before I joined today and, um, it, yeah, I mean there's, um. Project Red, um, CD project Red, um, with Cyberpunk 2077. Um, had a lot of, um, bad, uh, coverage around this issue. Apparently they were, um. Expecting developers to work 13 to 16 hour days, seven days a week. Um, and then because there was such a, a problem with the actual launch product, uh, because it was full of bugs and, and issues. It wasn't the, the, the, um, burnout didn't stop, but on launch day it carried on. So we ended up with, you know, people really struggling. And this is all after the studio had publicly stated that it would have no mandatory crunch, um, rockstar games. Um. Had a similar thing with Red Dead Redemption two. Um, and apparently the co-founder Dan Hauser, famously mentioned a hundred Hour Weeks, um, and he said, oh, no, no, it's fine. It's not, it's only the writers. They have to do that. It's only the senior writing stuff and it's like, it doesn't matter who it is, it's not okay. Um, naughty. Doug also had issues with the last of us, part two. Um, and, and I think that, you know, I, I. I am very lucky that I haven't had to work in any of the sort of environments where they, you have that kind of crunch deadline thing going on. But, um, my husband does and he has worked for some. Companies where, yeah, it's basically like, oh, we're coming up to a deadline. Everyone's expected to just, um, pull out all the stops and put everything on hold and to, to put in whatever time is needed to be put in. And I think. It's really problematic because it, it simply comes down to bad management. There's no reason why you should have to work those hours and work in that way, and it is not a, a good thing for the product because everyone's tired. Mistakes get made, things get missed. You know, you are actually, it's, it's a false economy really, because you are creating. More problems than you are solving by expecting people to work under those conditions, aside from all of the, the moral, um, and duty of care and all of that issues that you've also got going on. So I think it is, uh, something that we're seeing across the board. I don't think it's specific to the games industry. I think we see it in all industries, but I think that the games industry perhaps don't get as much. Sympathy as maybe other industries because, um. It. A lot of people who play games would love to work in the games industry. So it's kind of like, well, you know, you've got this dream job, what's the problem? So I think there's, I think there's perhaps an attitude that it's. It's a fun thing to do and therefore it doesn't matter, um, if you're being asked to work ridiculous amounts of hours, um, just to get stuff done, just to hit a deadline. Um, and I was looking at the games workers, uh, dot code at UK website, which is the, um, union. UK Union and there was, they, they've got some figures, although they, it feels like they're, they maybe need to update them because they're referencing surveys done in 2017 and 2015. However, they, it, they are quoting that 74% of game workers are not paid overtime, but 90%. Can be expected to work extra hours. So it's not just that you are expecting people to work this amount of, you know, extra time to get the, the games completed, um, to a deadline, but it's also that they're not actually being properly, um, recompensed for that. Um, and. And I, and, and one, um, fact that I think we, we'll hopefully come on to later, but one statistic is that 45% of women feel that they have or will at some stage encounter, um, barriers to their career because of their gender. And I think that that's not just about the fact that they're women, it's about the fact that they're often. Parents and they're often expected to, um, carry the sort of domestic, um, duties, uh, to a greater degree than their partners, um, should they have their, have male partners. Um, so I think you know that when you are expecting people to work these kind of additional hours at the drop of a hat and you're not paying them, then it becomes a real issue if you have caring. Duties on top of that. So I'm not surprised that people, um, that women particularly are, are finding the, this kind of crunch culture problematic.

Speaker: 15:45

Do you think it's almost normalized within gaming, the gaming sector mat the crunch or, oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 15:52

Oh yeah. It's, I've, I've got about like. Five bullet points that I, I want to scream in answer to every one of these questions, the same bullet points. So I'm gonna try and pace myself with how I do it. Yeah.'cause the games industry is quite unique in terms of the art, the art industry, because you work on it. Everyone works on it solidly for. The entire length of the thing. And then once it's done, if it's, even if it's done perfectly, it needs to be maintained. And there's a post-release process that is a, a, a thing of modern gaming now because they make patches and updates and they, gen generally happen really quickly afterwards. So the, the process. Isn't just the development process, it's also the post-release stuff as well. And the, there's such an unknown quantity about how successful it's gonna be, and all of the pressure is on the sales of it. And when you have. The, the cult of capitalism style of management like this, the only thing that they're looking at is release day. All that money, getting that money then, and then if you are, if you are in that level, then there is no, there is no amount of time, short enough to release, to develop and release a game and. I, I have been in workplaces where I've been at the mercy of a, of a, a, a, just a, an unhinged, unhinged person in a position of power that they absolutely should not be in. And it doesn't matter what the job is or where it is that is going to just, it makes everything worse for everyone. And the, uh. Uh, yeah, and the, the, the, the crunch is just, it's so easy to go. They, they don't understand like the process of it. It's not like if you are, I think, or like comparing it to say, if you are building a house and then a, a, a management, a man, a builder who knows, who has built lots of houses will go, oh yeah, you want it to be this, this, this, and this. And go, okay, it will take this long and this much money. And they'll go, why don't you do it with, why don't you just do it with half the money and do it in a shorten period of time? And the builder goes, no, that's impossible. Or they'll go, okay, the, yeah, we agree. That's fine, that's fine. Three years with this amount of money. Okay. And then they come in every two months and say, actually, we want it to be 17 stories and 50 feet wide by 10 feet wide. We want that now. And the problem with gaming, because it's all digital, it's a lot easier for someone external to go, oh, why don't you just, why don't you just change that car? Why don't you just change? Why don't, why don't we have him riding a motorbike? Instead of it being a car? You say, oh, that sounds simple, but then you have to change absolutely everything about how the game works in order for that to happen. So, and like you say, badge management causes bad processes, and then if the process is bad, you're not gonna get a good result. And so it is, it's like when, and the idea of like. The life cycle of a development. So you have time, a period of time, which is pre-development, where you're not try, you're not actually building anything. Then you have the building the game, then you have the test in the game, then you release it. They want it all to be a, a linear line from, there's nothing straight up to it being done and crunch is just the inevitable. Like outcome of that because you're gonna get to a point and go, alright, we're releasing it in three months and because of the way we we've managed it, it's not gonna be finished to the way we want it to be. And so who plays, who plays the price for that? It's the workers and all of this. The answer to all of this is unions. But I will come onto that at a later

Speaker: 20:41

indeed. Thank you. And thank you Gem also for bringing up the stats from the union. I'm just about to come on to that. Um, the article I was reading goes on to mention that this month, between 250 and 300 build Rocket Boy staff lose their jobs with the bulk of those roles based in Edinburgh. According to the Independent Workers of Great Britain Union's Game Workers Branch, uh, the union is the one that helped put out the open letter on behalf of its 93 employees. Said it also planned to take legal action against build Rocket Boy over what it called disastrous handling. Well did mishandling of, uh, the redundancy process. So they've got a quote here from someone who is a member of the union, says they took, uh, voluntary redundancy, but fellow members, uh, who were laid off say they were unhappy with how their departures were handled. Um, so that's currently the state of play with the, with the union. And we know that unions are vitally important to protect, uh, workers within the sector. Do they help to make a healthy working environment? Can you have a healthy working environment without a union, or does it depend on. On the working, on the, on the structure of the work. I guess

Speaker 2: 22:06

it's, it leaves it up to luck. When you don't have a union. You can have wonderful workplaces, but they're completely luck based. They're based on the people in charge and the management being reasonable positive people. But then if someone retires or gets ill or dies or moves somewhere else, you're only one. A person change, one person in management changing to completely ruin your work, your workplace, and unions are there to give workers that power foundation so that if some unhinged. Narcissistic Manchild, which is what this man clearly is, comes in and goes, right, okay, we're gonna make this game. I've got this idea. And this idea Union comes together and go, okay, you're going to write us a document that tells us what game you want.'cause you're in charge. You are. You are the lead developer of this. You're the director. What game do you want? And then he goes, well I really just wanna make it up on the fly. And really, and really, uh, just, uh, like innovate and just see what comes up, you know? And they go, right, in theory that sounds good, but then what happens in six months when you change your mind with everything and then we have to throw out everything we've done. And he goes, but we're all in this together. It's all teamwork. If we're all making things going, that's not how we are allowing, we're not gonna let you force us to work like that.'cause we know it won't work. And then he has the choice to either fire everyone, in which case the union can just go, no, why are you firing us? And then that, then that's all the way around it. So all of this can be solved if at the very start of the cycle you've got your unionized team. It has to, and also, uh, I'll finish this with a, a negative thing about this. Unions can be negative as well, and the. So you have the, the union needs to be there at all times to go, right. We only care about our working conditions and our lives. That's, that's, we are willing to do our job. We're willing to work hard, but it needs to be within guidelines that we, we are happy with. So you go, it doesn't matter what happens, we will not do crunch. There is no, there, there is no situation where we will agree to do crunch. If you try and force us to do crunch we'll go on strike and then that will set us back even more time. And then so, so basically all those, all those things, all the problems that we've talked about here, the harassment, you can go, you that can be solved by unions going, okay, we'll go on strike. If you don't, if you, if you make another joke about pronouns. We are going to go on strike. It needs to be that it needs to be that clear at all times, and it needs to be constant vigilance, which is a, a, a positive thing that JK Roland came up with, with in Harry Potter. So we can take good bits from that constant vigilance. That's the role. But when a union becomes ineffectual and. Isn't good enough is when it isn't militant enough, which is the problem with the IWGB.'cause I was a member of that for a few years when I was doing the, uh, when I was doing working for Deliveroo. And there just wasn't that, the intensity of activity that the union needs to have to be effective and the problem with the gain of workers union. Uh, unionized members in this workplace there, I think there were 93 who this letter was being written on behalf of, and that's a good amount to be unionized and speaking with one voice. But the entire studio was 350, so that's. Less than a quarter, maybe a quarter of the, the total workforce. And that isn't enough to guarantee the, the results that you want. And so what? And so then this is the end result of a union that hasn't recognized the danger here and actually taken the steps to stop it happening. Because that's what, that's the interventions that we need from unions is to not wait until we've fallen off the cliff and then trying to put things back together. Then it's to go, this is heading towards a cliff at some point. If it carries on like this, we need to get everyone in this studio unionized.'cause if they, if they'd been able to do that, it's a, it's an, it's the hardest thing to do to build a, a really impactful union. And it's, we are completely propagandized against it. We've never, we never taught how to do it because it's the only thing that works against these, these ruling class and managing class people. And, but if they, so if say this, this game's been development for three or four years. If the first like couple of months in workplaces, people talk to each other immediately and go, is it just me or is this guy utterly unhinged? Is he a man child? Is it all these warning signs? Tick, tick, tick, tick. Red flag, red flag, red flag. That's when people should be like, we should have been taught going, okay, this isn't gonna get better. How do we make it get better? And then if they'd spent 18 months, yes, all this bad shit would've been happening if they'd prioritized. Right. Okay. And, and it's not fair because building a union can be a another full-time job to do. They force. They force you to do that. But if they'd done that for 18 months and got 320 of them involved, then they could have, then you could do anything with that. They could go, okay, you've been managing this terribly. We're going to walk out, unless we completely revise everything, we have a new agreement. We completely. Change the time schedule of this game, and we're not going to work on it again until we have all these things guaranteed. So, yeah, so unions, the, the, the militant union with a super majority is the answer to all of our problems, particularly, and definitely workplace problems. And then when you see unions that are sort of half-hearted, it just, so there, there still is, there still is no good outcome to this story, unfortunately for me. Mm-hmm.

Speaker: 29:31

And gem, when you've got an environment, a working environment where there is a lot of instability, a lack of accountability for management, uh, a feeling that, um, people, teams can't take ownership of their work, and there's just a generally really low morale. Is there a way of turning that around? What, what is the, what are the keys for you to turning that into a healthy working environment? Thinking about those working relationships between

Speaker 3: 29:59

different roles. Absolutely, there's a, a way of turning that around, um, as long as it hasn't been going on for too long to the point that you've got burnout or, um, uh, are very unhappy, um, employees. You know, if you can get in there before it reaches that point, then yes, it can be turned round. I mean, super giant games who make Katie's are often held up as, as, uh, an example of how they can do things right. And they have a, uh, no mandatory overtime policy. Um, and they also close the studio in the summer and in the, um, over the winter holidays as well. To make sure that people actually properly take time out. Um, and they, rather than doing this sort of like a massive, um, big project and that which everyone's kind of like. Having to, well, they call, they refer to it as death marches, but like having to like work their asses off to, to get, to meet the deadlines. They have much smaller, um, more regular updates. So it's, they're, they're doing sprints rather than marathons in their, in their work, um, process. And all of that is. How you manage something properly, how you project manage something properly. Um, and it, it, yes, there is a deadline that people are working to and obviously there is pressure put on the, um, teams to meet that deadline because not meeting that deadline usually means that there's pressure from above. Um. But something creative like the, like, uh, the games industry has to accept that there are unforeseen things that happen. It is a, it is a process. It's not, it, it's, yeah, it's a creative process, which means that some things take longer than you would expect them to, or something just doesn't work and it needs to be fixed before it can be launched. So I think it's, um. Really important that games, designers and studios start looking at studios that are doing it right and working. And let's also remember that Hades. Uh, has, uh, both the Hades games have ha have received, you know, a lot of critical acclaim. They're very popular games, so it's not like, oh, this, um, studio is creating something and it's not crunch. It's not has. Doesn't have the crunch culture, but it's not as good as the AAA games. It's, it is good and people like it, so it is what they're doing is working. Um, and I think it's just really important that studios start to look at those, those other studios and say, what are they doing? And look at best practice and look at, at, um, putting in the changes that need to be done in order to. Um, shift away from this kind of crunch culture. Um, and I think the key thing for me, aside from. Really good planning is really good communication. It always, everything for me comes down to communication. Improved communication can fix like 99% of things in my opinion, and we're so bad at it. And I think one of the biggest problems is that people are living in an almost constant state of fear for their. Jobs for their positions, for their health, and when you are in that, that fight or flight mode, then the last thing you're going to do is to kick up a fuss about the fact that you're being asked to do. Um, unpaid overtime or, or maybe not, maybe not if you are being asked, but maybe if your friend is being asked, if your colleague is being asked to do that, then maybe you are not going to sort of stand up with them and say, no, this isn't good enough. But as Matt says, you know, if things were that bad in, in, in that, in, in that company. That they've written this open letter. Why are so few people signed up to it? You know, I'm not saying that it isn't bad, I'm just saying that it, there is a. There is something fundamentally wrong with the way that people approach these working practices, that they either feel that it's acceptable or they feel that there isn't an alternative. They feel there isn't a solution or, or they are too afraid to, um, complain about it. And that is what unions. Can really do there is, there is power in, in numbers. And so I do, I I absolutely think that it, that it can be done another way and I think that. It's lazy, really, that it's not, and I, I do, I do believe that as a society, as a, as that, that the vast majority of games are made in the US and the uk and both of those countries have a really negative attitude to unions. You know, we, uh, the US it just doesn't really seem to understand unions at all from what I. Uh, couldn't get my head around the uk. Thatcher did her a, a real number on our attitude to unions, and it's only very slowly that people are starting to see that, oh, actually it might help me. You know, we have such a negative attitude to unions in this country that I think people are kind of dissuaded from signing up to it and dec dissuaded from supporting their, their fellow. Staff members. And I, I think also, you know, that we have this whole thing about don't talk to people about how much you're earning. Don't talk to people about what's in your contract. Don't take, talk to people about your working agreements. Um, and that creates this at this atmosphere of, you know, you don't know what other people are getting. Um, you and when you, when. You maybe do find out, then it's all sort of like, well, why are they getting that? And I'm not getting this. Uh, I mean, I had an experience at uh, um, an internet service provider company that I worked for a long time ago where one of my colleagues, um, got a lift to work with her partner who was. Teacher. So she would drop her off at, um, sort of eight o'clock in the morning and then head in, head into work, um, at the school. And then it was easier for her to then pick her up at four 30. And everyone else is sort of like the classic working hours. Were nine till five, so. She had arranged with her manager that she, because she was coming in for eight, she could leave at four 30, and because people saw her leaving the office at four 30 in the afternoon and they had to stay there till five, they complained. And rather than the management saying, no, we have an agreement with with her because of X, Y, and z. They forced her to stay till five, which meant that her partner, uh, that either she had to get a, a, a different, she had to, they had to work at different transport, or her partner would sit in the car in the carpark and wait for her, or would sit at school at the school and wait for her. Mm. And it is just so crazy. And I just remember, I mean, that was such a, a. Poignant experience for me because it just showed how oh, selfish people can be really, that they just can't think beyond what, what they get. And that and the fact that the management didn't back her up, the fact that the management didn't support her in that was also a, a very important lesson I think for me. Yeah, well, essentially they've denied her reasonable adjustment,

Speaker: 39:16

haven't they? So,

Speaker 3: 39:18

yeah, I, I mean, I don't think she would've let it go slide today. No. So that we've moved along a little bit in those respects. Yeah. Mm-hmm. No, so interesting.

Speaker 2: 39:28

That's the en

Speaker: 39:29

Sorry. Go Matt.

Speaker 2: 39:30

I say that's, that's the, the, like, the absolute best case scenario that like the management want. Really is, it's just like everywhere is like wants us fighting each other, not looking at like, why do I have not, why does she get to go at four? I'd like to go at four, and so what can I do? So I get to do that and to go, oh, I'd actually prefer to. And then going from that, she's got a good thing. It's always the thing of I, I don't have enough. I'm not happy with what I've got. And so someone else having. Something else means it's coming away from me. It's that same thing if there's the scarcity mindset and then that is also fed into by capitalism of making sure that we are all poorer, making sure that we don't have our disposable income is going down and down and down because the less disposable income is leverage. If you know that you can, you can like step away from your job for six months and be fine. Then that's power. If you know that you are living pay paycheck and if you don't get, if you don't work today, then you don't get paid. And yeah, getting us to hate the, the people who are fighting for better things for themselves, and I've, the only thing I know about Thatcher is that she was just utterly monstrous, utter. And getting the, it was, I think it was the, the miners that she really mm-hmm. Just utterly destroyed them. Yeah. And that was, I'm sure pitting the south against the north, going all those, those northern uneducated miners pitting the south against that. And it always being about. Look at these useless, lazy pieces of shit. You, you work really hard and you don't complain. Here are they been complaining and the only good thing about Fat Thatcher is somehow, for some reason she didn't touch the NHS. She said the NHS is safe with me and didn't do anything with it, which is. Utterly gobsmacking considering what the conservative did for the 12 years that they were in power and how it's going now. Yeah. Uh, it's, yeah, it's all, and that, that is such a heartbreaking story, gem.

Speaker 4: 42:09

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:10

Devastating.

Speaker: 42:11

I wanted to touch Gem on the point you made about workers perhaps being too afraid to complain. I wonder whether also it's just whether they're too weary to complain as well. If you are in an environment where. Your morale's really low. You might be thinking, oh, well if I complain, nothing will get done anyway. It's just how things are here. Um, you know, so maybe that's got something to do with it.