I think I've just been sold into slavery.

[razer17]

Well why should you have to work a job you don't like!? What a disugsting suggestion by the government! You should be allowed continue to live on other people's taxes for the rest of your life!

I have no problem with benefits for people who need them, and job seekers for people willing to actually look for and work a job. I intend to claim jobseekers allowance as soon as I finish uni in a month or so. But after that I also intend to find work. I don't care if it's McDonalds, Asda or my local chipshop, I will work it, and look for better on my time off. I will hate it, but I'd also hate mooching of others so I can find my dream job (And good luck with that, almost no one get's their dream jobs, and IT is so crowded right now it's beggining to get harder to find someone younger than 30 without an IT qualification than those with one.)

Edit- I'm not saying you don't want a job or are deliberately mooching, and the guy was a jerk, but he's not exactly wrong.

 

[Forestwolfss]

I'll probably get to go through all this loveliness myself in about four months, but I know people who're on similar schemes at the moment, and yes, they are schemes.

Get placed into a position to work for your benefits.
Not only could this position be given to someone as an actual job, but you're not even earning the wage you should be; you're essentially working for your benefits, which isn't anywhere near minimum wage.
And employers are free to just rotate people out. So not only are they being subsidised by your being there, they're saving money on wages.

It's fucking ridiculous.

Ah well, time for bed. Have to go to the JobCentre in the morning. I wonder if I can get my signing time changed to something a little later than 9am; having worked nights for the past five years and being a nocturnal kind of person anyway, it really screws up my sleep pattern having to go to bed four or five hours early to gather my scum money.
[sub]Before any smartarse mentions it: Yes, obviously if I got a day-shift job I'd adjust my sleep pattern, but it's absolutely not worth it for one fifteen-minute portion out of an entire fucking fortnight.[/sub]

Speaking of the JobCentre, I wonder if their in-house jobsearching machines will again consider Glasgow to be under the remit of my local-area search... from Birmingham.

I wish the JobCentre machines would stop considering Birmingham and London as part of the local area for Glasgow.... actually a few times those two cities have been considered to be within a five mile search radius of Glasgow. It is heart breaking when you see a job you can do but realise that it is in the wrong country.

On topic, I have been on several of these 'courses' and found them to be worthless. What is the point in the JobCentre, a place that is supposed to help you find work, sending you to another company who's purpose is exactly the same? I can not remember spending any longer in these places than I did in the JobCentre itself. You walk in, look for jobs and then leave. Unless you are sent on placement. The placement programs are good in theory but fail in practice. Also, I have known many people who have dropped out of these programs and still received their benefits even though those benefits are supposed to be cut off. In the end it seems to me like an empty threat for the most part.

 

[Maclennan]

I tell him I'm at universtity studying IT

Wait you were in university and were receiving benefits, or graduated and started receiving benefits!
I have to be out of school and working continuously for a year before I would even qualify to receive benefits

I had to move across the country for an internship in my field of study, to put that in perspective it was roughly the same distance as traveling to Paris from home and the Atlantic ocean isn't exactly a river

 

[Doclector]

I hope I never end up there. They had best hope that too. I realise these people, behind their government protection, are only human, and they die, like everyone else. They try that crap with me, I'm going to skip the BS complaints that nobody cares about, and go straight to "Stop this crap, or somebody dies!" Really? I'd be better treated in prison than I ever would in a jobcentre. This is modern day britain, after all.

I amy be alittle drunk.

 

[cookyy2k]

I tell him I'm at universtity studying IT

Wait you were in university and were receiving benefits, or graduated and started receiving benefits!
I have to be out of school and working continuously for a year before I would even qualify to receive benefits

I had to move across the country for an internship in my field of study, to put that in perspective it was roughly the same distance as traveling to Paris from home and the Atlantic ocean isn't exactly a river

Yeah I thought that was strange too, must either have graduated or be a part time student as you can't claim JSA if you're a full time student, that would be stupid. The bit that has been left of is you have the first 13 weeks of your benefits to limit what job areas you'll search and apply for, after that you have to go with anything and they only involve these scemes after a year of claming.

That's not to mention the rise in JSA that's just happened, I don't see my salary rising by anywhere near that percentage and I have to work for that!

 

[Lonan]

Do you think you're above the work you might be given? Many people seem to have such an employment superiority complex.

 

[Xanthious]

If you don't like the way the country is being run, vote out the "rulers" next election in 2015. I wouldn't give high hopes for them or anyone-else being able to solve the problems you've described in your post though, it's a fact of life that we have to work hard to keep our society afloat and that probably won't change, at-least not until someone invents robots who can do the work for us ;-)

Until that day there's no room in our society for free-loaders, people who genuinely can't find any work or are disabled I don't mind getting benefits since I'd rather not having them starving in the gutter but I don't see why hard-working taxpayers should have to pay for people who have been offered a job but turn it down because they're too lazy or it isn't up to their "standard".

...And yet you're just fine with hard working taxpayers paying for failure

you didn't answer any of my questions and guess what, the current government didn't get voted in so that's your "vote for someone else" idea out the window

There's no room in our society for rewarding failure a hundred thousand times as much as surviving money for a down-on-his-luck unemployed person

I want proper answers or else don't bother replying

Sadly two wrongs don't make a right. You can either suckle at the government tit or you can take responsibility for yourself and work. Just because there are wealthy people doing wrong things doesn't mean you should be able to do the same. That kind of logic leaves everyone lying around with cradle to grave dependence on the nanny state.

Is it wrong that there are banks and and massive companies getting bailed out? Sure it is. However, to think "the poor" don't get theirs too is just being intellectually dishonest. The unemployed in the US get well over a year's worth of unemployment benefit. Not too long ago it was pushing two years. That's a government bail out. Don't get me started on welfare and food stamps and the rampant fraud that plagues both of those programs.

The problem now is that both rich and poor want to stay on the government payroll now while pointing at each other and screaming about how the other side needs to take a cut in their government benefits. Maybe everyone just needs to focus on their own matters and stop worrying about other people so much.

 

[Albino Boo]

Do you think you're above the work you might be given? Many people seem to have such an employment superiority complex.

"Our parents told us as kids 'study hard and go to college, you don't want to work at McDonalds'. So we did. Now, with the economy as it is, we can't find the positions we studied for. So they call us entitled when we don't want to work at McDonalds."

Why should the poeple who work in MacDonalds pay for people to sit around and watch tv? They subsidized his education, health care, housing benfit and dole money, while working in a crap job with little prospect of it getting any better. Just because you work stacking shelves in Tesco doesn't stop you applying other other jobs. The very fact that you work makes employers think, this guy is motivated and will work hard. If employers have 2 CVs in front of them, 1 has sat at home for the last year feeling sorry for himself and the other and gone out got some crap job and held it down for year , which one do you think they pick?

The bus drivers, binmen, cleaning ladies, checkout girls and all those other menial dead jobs workers shouldn't be paying for someone sit around watching TV. Put your name into google maps and you will find the world isn't centred on you

 

[Astoria]

If it's anything like the job centre I had to go to they'll never contact you again. I went through the same crap and told them I was interested in retail. They told me they knew of several jobs available and they'd call me in a week to give me a list of them. Didn't happen. Best thing you can do is get a job before they eventually do drag you back in their to do a crappy job.

Do you think you're above the work you might be given? Many people seem to have such an employment superiority complex.

Trust me, if it's anything like my job centre it's not jobs like Maccas, it's jobs like chicken gutting and stamping lables on cans. Work that's above everybody basically.

 

[Gordon Freemonty]

I'm currently trying to claim disability benefits...

I've seen 4 different goverment "health specialists" who have all classed me as being "disabled" in some way, yet after 2 years I'm still filling in the same forms and having to make daily phone calls to chase up my claim.


I'd cry if it wasn't so pathetic!

Really!? That sucks dude, i got my disability pretty quickly AND i didn't even have to see a health specialist (although that may be because i'm just diabetic (please don't hate me for it!)) maybe get in touch with your local mp to try and help you sort it out ( you must also be owed a hell of a backlog of money)

OT:i'd complain about that guy if i'm honest he seemed a bit of a dick, the job center have finally got off their ass and helped me so i should be able to apply for employment in about a month

Wait what? I applied for that... I'm T1 Diabetic... I didn't get it... :S

 

[LtWigglesworth]

Well I think it is fair enough to be disappointed with working at MacDonald's when you have spent 4 years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars in order to better yourself. And you want to get a decent job to pay off your huge student loan. But you should still take it if it is the only thing available. Its simple self-respect and it doesn't preclude you from searching for other jobs.

It's another thing when an employer says that you're too qualified...

 

[raptor1181]

Been there done that and i got my job inspite of them! Im not kidding i had to fight them to get the job i wanted. They dont care about you, but they are a tool so just use them as one and you should be fine.

 

[The White Hunter]

Sorry if this sounds harsh but I really feel that only small children, the elderly and disabled should rely on the state and that if you are an able adult getting paid our tax-money, you should be willing to put back into society in-exchange for what we give you. It's only fair.

Yeah pretty much this, I mean I think you should get tax breaks for certain things but not straight up hand outs. I'm currently studying at university and I can't claim any benefits because I'm a full time student, seems kinda dumb it's not like I can work but whatever.

OT: It's a temp agency, they suck, but they tend to pay you more than the workers wherever you go. Thats how it worked when I used to work in a factory anyway. It might be really shit work but you get paid at the end of the day. Work will set you free and all that.

 

[Doclector]

Do you think you're above the work you might be given? Many people seem to have such an employment superiority complex.

"Our parents told us as kids 'study hard and go to college, you don't want to work at McDonalds'. So we did. Now, with the economy as it is, we can't find the positions we studied for. So they call us entitled when we don't want to work at McDonalds."

Why should the poeple who work in MacDonalds pay for people to sit around and watch tv? They subsidized his education, health care, housing benfit and dole money, while working in a crap job with little prospect of it getting any better. Just because you work stacking shelves in Tesco doesn't stop you applying other other jobs. The very fact that you work makes employers think, this guy is motivated and will work hard. If employers have 2 CVs in front of them, 1 has sat at home for the last year feeling sorry for himself and the other and gone out got some crap job and held it down for year , which one do you think they pick?

The bus drivers, binmen, cleaning ladies, checkout girls and all those other menial dead jobs workers shouldn't be paying for someone sit around watching TV. Put your name into google maps and you will find the world isn't centred on you

1) We are a generation denied our promised reward for years spent in a crappy education system, a system so poorly looked after that some schools are downright dangerous. I know my one was. They told us if we endured that, that if we put up with all the beurocracy, basically not having a right to think for yourself without being punished for said thoughts, and being trapped for the better part of your childhood in a building with a load of people who may want you dead, we'd be able to get whatever job we wanted and worked for. It doesn't mean we can turn down work for mcdonalds and stuff, but we have more than a right to be angry. Which brings me to the second damn point, these days, not only are the jobs we actually worked for usually out of reach, but even a gorram shelf stacking job has become nigh on impossible to get without knowing someone.

I was put through more hell in my childhood than any one should ever have to deal with in their entire life, and now the powers that be fail to come good on their promises.

 

[raptor1181]

Do you think you're above the work you might be given? Many people seem to have such an employment superiority complex.

"Our parents told us as kids 'study hard and go to college, you don't want to work at McDonalds'. So we did. Now, with the economy as it is, we can't find the positions we studied for. So they call us entitled when we don't want to work at McDonalds."

Why should the poeple who work in MacDonalds pay for people to sit around and watch tv? They subsidized his education, health care, housing benfit and dole money, while working in a crap job with little prospect of it getting any better. Just because you work stacking shelves in Tesco doesn't stop you applying other other jobs. The very fact that you work makes employers think, this guy is motivated and will work hard. If employers have 2 CVs in front of them, 1 has sat at home for the last year feeling sorry for himself and the other and gone out got some crap job and held it down for year , which one do you think they pick?

The bus drivers, binmen, cleaning ladies, checkout girls and all those other menial dead jobs workers shouldn't be paying for someone sit around watching TV. Put your name into google maps and you will find the world isn't centred on you

1) We are a generation denied our promised reward for years spent in a crappy education system, a system so poorly looked after that some schools are downright dangerous. I know my one was. They told us if we endured that, that if we put up with all the beurocracy, basically not having a right to think for yourself without being punished for said thoughts, and being trapped for the better part of your childhood in a building with a load of people who may want you dead, we'd be able to get whatever job we wanted and worked for. It doesn't mean we can turn down work for mcdonalds and stuff, but we have more than a right to be angry. Which brings me to the second damn point, these days, not only are the jobs we actually worked for usually out of reach, but even a gorram shelf stacking job has become nigh on impossible to get without knowing someone.

I was put through more hell in my childhood than any one should ever have to deal with in their entire life, and now the powers that be fail to come good on their promises.

I agree with the above and can i just point out there are no were near enough jobs out there i applyed for and shelf stacker in tesscos i just want a job and 500 other people applyed for it but i have been in higher education so i shouldnt have to! But i did and paid even more of my dues so now i have a nice job but whats the point of people going into higher ed if you end up working in a basic job and the only way you can get a better job is experence not what degrees you have.

 

[VonKlaw]

I know how you feel OP, knew what their game was as soon as I heard "we get paid when we find you employment". Still, it's a step up from the JobCentre - atleast they'll be doing something to help.

I'd be a little less angry if nearly every job I saw didn't involve either "experience essential" or require some absurdly high level of qualification (relative to the job) - I get that companies can't be assed to train people but its just silly now.

EDIT: Gotta love the people basically pulling a "kids these days" - how much was university in your day? How much did you pay for your ex-council house?

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

We have something similar here in australia called centrelink.

It does feel sucky, depressing and awful. Especially after the luxury of school.

Just remember, FREE MONEY! and FREE HELP FINDING WORK!!!

You have to work, and even if you cant immediately find work in the area you studied for just get a crappy job to pay the bills and keep applying for jobs on your own to find the job you really want!

 

[Craorach]

Well I think it is fair enough to be disappointed with working at MacDonald's when you have spent 4 years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars in order to better yourself. And you want to get a decent job to pay off your huge student loan. But you should still take it if it is the only thing available. Its simple self-respect and it doesn't preclude you from searching for other jobs.

It's another thing when an employer says that you're too qualified...

This.

I was on JSA for years when I lived in Cornwall, the place became a job hole just about the same time I left school. I was sick.. both physically and mentally.. but not enough so that I could claim Disability, and honestly I'm glad I wasn't.

However... I cannot honestly claim I tried hard enough either. I should have accepted any job that came along, but I did not. I didn't try to impress the interviewers in when I did get an interview, and I made excuses.. it's to far away, I don't like the area, I didn't like the people, it wasn't what I wanted to do...

When I came to Australia, I had a stark choice. Get a job or starve. I took the first thing that came my way, fast food, and moved on from there. It was shit, I hated it, I worked long hours for bad pay and terrible treatment from customers... but it paid the bills.

Once you get a job, it becomes many times easier to get another.. better.. job. Yes, even if its a job you are forced into by circumstances or by legislation. Even if it's working in a charity store or a fast food joint. The next employer looks at it and goes "oh, he isn't a lazy twat and can get up and to work on time".

 

[CAPTCHA]

Do you think you're above the work you might be given? Many people seem to have such an employment superiority complex.

"Our parents told us as kids 'study hard and go to college, you don't want to work at McDonalds'. So we did. Now, with the economy as it is, we can't find the positions we studied for. So they call us entitled when we don't want to work at McDonalds."

Why should the poeple who work in MacDonalds pay for people to sit around and watch tv? They subsidized his education, health care, housing benfit and dole money, while working in a crap job with little prospect of it getting any better. Just because you work stacking shelves in Tesco doesn't stop you applying other other jobs. The very fact that you work makes employers think, this guy is motivated and will work hard. If employers have 2 CVs in front of them, 1 has sat at home for the last year feeling sorry for himself and the other and gone out got some crap job and held it down for year , which one do you think they pick?

The bus drivers, binmen, cleaning ladies, checkout girls and all those other menial dead jobs workers shouldn't be paying for someone sit around watching TV. Put your name into google maps and you will find the world isn't centred on you

You assume that because I'm am dissatisfied with the situation I'm in it must mean that I am lazy? You can't place everyone in the same pigeon hole like that. I left school with no qualifications due to illness and since then have had a steady work history of jobs that never ammounted to anything. I decide to change that by educating myself and attended collage in 2006. Unable to find work that would allow me to attend I was forced to declare myself self employed (which includes paying the government for the privlidge) and scraped by for two years doing manual labour where I could get it. The only help at this time coming in the form of £20 a week student allowance. After that I went back to the work place, but couldn't find work due to the two year gap in my work history. A year of voluteer work didn't remedy this. The last year I've been unemployed and attending university part time. And yes I feel that I should now be worth more than a warehouse packer or carpark attendent. And I don't think it's unreasonable for the government to help find a place that matches my skills. I'm trained in electronics and IT, so they should be helping me find a job in the area. Even if it's working as a sales rep in PC World or on tech help for an broadband provider. Just so long as they don't place me in something totally unrelated, which they almost certainly will because helping the indiviual is not their intent.