[HPFGU-OTChatter] Trivia: How did it come to this?

[Kathryn Cawte]

> Beryl King was told by a Jobcentre that her advert for warehouse
> workers discriminated against people who were not industrious.
> >
> bboyminn:
>
> "Has our world gone mad?"
>
> Apparently so....
>
>
> Steve/bboyminn
>
>
No not the world - just jobcentres. Bear in mind that whatever the original
purpose of job centres they now have one purpose and one alone - get people
off the unemployment lists. Consequently they want a) employers to submit
ads that are as broad as possible so that they can shove as many claimants
towards them and b) to get the unemployed into a job, *any* job.

Having been on the unemployed side of this equation more than once I can
testify to the way they work. *way* overqualified for a particular
position - don't care, either go to an interview or we'll cut your benefit.On the other end of the scale I've been told to go for a job that I know in
advance won't pay my rent (which isn't an extravagant rent, and I wasn't
long term unemployed either, so *technically* the rules say I could still
pick and choose a bit). I was told to 'move somewhere else' (I have a fixed
term lease and couldn't quit that early in it - job centre reaction, yep,
'don't care').

Now I have no doubt that there are people who would rather claim benefit
than work - but most people don't fall into that category. In fact most
unemployed people I've met at job centres are more intelligent and almost
certainly more competent than most of the staff (who in my experience will
happily wander off because it's their tea break than deal with the long long
queue of people waiting in line - grow up and drink your darn tea at your
desk like most of the other office workers in the world). When I was working
part time a while ago I actually met a staff member who needed a calculator
to work out my wages (3.01 per hour, 3 hours per day, 3 days per week -
hardly requires a PhD in mathematics).

Not to offend any job centre employees on the list - I'm sure many of them
do the best they can under stupid guidelines, I just haven't met any of
them.

K
who can't believe she has to go through the job centre thing again but on
reflection the morons there are still better than the former boss