Imagine this is you:
You work hard at a hospital in the South West. It was always your ambition to be a nurse, not really for the money but because you seemed to have a calling. You work is a vocation, and you devote your life to caring for others, surrounded by a team of similarly dedicated and highly trained colleagues.
It's hard work, but you love it.
One day you hear that your bosses are to review staff terms and conditions, including pay rates, number of working hours, amount of annual leave and sickness leave entitlement. Taking a wild stab in the dark, you guess they are not considering reviewing your pay upwards or giving you another week's holiday.
You also hear that your bosses have signed up to a "consortium" that includes all other similar employers in the region to discuss pay.
So how do you feel?
This is the reality for thousands of NHS staff here in the South West.
Nearly 20 NHS trusts have signed up to the South West Pay consortium to review pay and conditions for all of their staff.
They include trusts that run and provide services in Plymouth, Exeter and Truro.
Unions have dubbed the consortium a "cartel" and staff have been understandably concerned.
MP Stephen Gilbert has labelled the cartel a "deplorable attempt to bully" staff.
So today we welcome the news that some of the region's MPs are urging the Government to halt the plans for the pay cartel.
A parliamentary petition tabled by Cornwall MP Andrew George calls for the Government to do "all it can to resist local pay variations in the public sector".
All NHS staff deserve the backing of all Westcountry MPs on this one.
The move could see nurses and other staff in the region being paid less than counterparts elsewhere in the country.
This could harm ambition, recruitment and see a drain of talent from the South West to better paid areas.
Low pay has long been accepted as one of the chief restraints to economic growth in the region.
Extending this into any areas of the public sector would simply perpetuate the situation and further ingrain a culture of low pay into the Westcountry's workforce.
It's ridiculous to assume a nurse or a teacher in the South West does not need as much money as one working elsewhere, apart from London, where there is already a London pay weighting in existence.
It is also a concern that the cartel's plans could be used as an experiment on the "soft" South West before it is rolled out into more metropolitan areas.
It should not happen.
We have said this before and make no apologies for saying it again.
Regionalising public sector pay will be bad for hardworking people in the Westcountry.
It is unfair and it must not be introduced.