One thing has been preying on my mind ever since I realised just how many people would be effected by the (medically necessary) lockdown.

It's just that we've been through this large-scale increase in unemployment before, in the 80s. And we did not equally pull our weight then.

We were far from a Team New Zealand - unless it is expected that a "unified" team spend most of its time eye-gouging those who aren't superstars.

During the 90s I found an interesting article in a New Zealand business magazine, where the writer argued for more employers to employ long-term unemployed.

He used the argument that employers and management shouldn't be put off by the extra effort that might be required to get the long-term unemployed back into the swing of things.

And I thought, hold it, isn't being unwilling to put in any extra effort supposed to be the hallmark of the workshy? I'm sure I could find - in archived Tauranga phone directory ads - precisely that accusation.

It's not the workshy unemployed that is going to hold us back - it's the workshy employers and management that is going to do it. It's going to be the workshy employers unwilling to employ the unemployed thus creating a large group of long-term unemployed, that is going to hold us back.

Eye-gouging your team-mates isn't going to win any games.

Wesley Parish, Bellevue