Photo: © Channel 5.
People in Erinsborough have always had a fairly casual approach to work, but it has really struck me recently that there aren’t many people who are doing the correct amount of their jobs. That’s a weird sentence, but I don’t know how else to put it. A lot of people in Neighbours seem to either never go to work, or they do their job 24 hours a day, even when they’re not actually in their place of employment.
There are a few people – like Dipi, Chloe, Ned, Sheila and Therese – who we see at their places of work on a fairly regular basis. They seem to work pretty standard hours, and then they go home, like most people do.
Then there are the Susans and the Ellys and the Aarons. Do they even have jobs any more? We saw Chloe at the gym fairly recently, but I don’t remember seeing Aaron there. Does he still own the gym, and does he ever go there? Or is he too busy trying to get his husband fired these days? They’ve gone to Japan on holiday, and it’s nice that David has finally got a break from sticking little rubber suckers on Finn’s head, but how has Aaron found the time and money to go on holiday when he hasn’t been to work in about three months?
Susan is supposed to be the school principal, but I don’t remember the last time I saw her set foot in the school, she never seems to be there. It definitely isn’t the school holidays, because Yashvi was wearing her uniform the other day, and Willow inexplicably seems to be able to transfer to Erinsborough High with about five minutes’ notice and no paperwork. Elly appears to be on some sort of leave (is it standard in the Australian education system that you can get leave because you’re an awful person who made a series of terrible decisions?), so I can only assume at the moment that there are no teachers at Erinsborough High unless smelly Wayne Baxter is still there. Maybe Kirsha is leading the lessons, she’s probably the smartest person in the whole school.
Someone else who is not doing enough of his job at the moment is Toadie.
Toadie, Toadie Toadie – what is he doing? He needs to have a long old chat with himself. The man is a lawyer, and yet he seems to have completely forgotten that. I know he is vulnerable and he’s grieving, but you’d think he’d be looking into the legal rammifications of having Andrea hanging around. He needs some kind of legal framework in place for her having contact with Hugo and Willow, and shame on Toadie for not having that, even in his current circumstances.
Toadie is getting conned all over again. Photo: © Channel 5. Source: Digital Spy
Normally, Toadie is in the ‘too much job’ category, being a lawyer who specialises in all aspects of the law, who will take on literally any case that comes along. He’s basically a GP of law, which is not a thing. Clearly he’s not firing on all cylinders at the moment though…
And that brings me to the people who can’t seem to stop doing their jobs. Top of the list is Karl. We all know he’s a doctor of everything who handles all conditions from cancer to surgery. Not obstetrics though. For some reason Erinsborough Hospital likes to get specialist baby doctors in, and then they just let Karl and David crack on and do the rest. Karl enjoys being a doctor so much that he even does it in his spare time, like his weird hypnotherapy sessions with Andrea, which are ill-advised and probably highly unethical. He just can’t stop himself from medical meddling.
Karl’s dodgy hypnotherapy sessions. Photo: © Channel 5. Source: Digital Spy
Another person who tries to do their job too much is Mark, although obviously he goes through phases. When he’s a mechanic he seems to just get on with that in quite a normal way, but when he’s a cop he gets a bit too involved in everything and starts going all Miss Marple even when he’s off the clock.
His recent hobby-job was trying to dig up dirt on Shaun, although he seems to have given up on that for now and all his attention is on Andrea and her lunatic mother, which he also seems to be doing off the clock. Then he acted with outrage when Chloe hinted that she’d like him to check into the background of Ebony, and he said he couldn’t possibly do that – I’m not sure why he draws the line with her, or is it just that he’s too busy meddling in Toadie’s life without his consent?
Anyway, all I can surmise is that Erinsborough operates some sort of bizarre flexitime, where you either work all the time, or never. I’d quite like my office to bring in the Susan and Aaron-style flexitime please, maybe I’ll bring it up with management…
