I haven't really felt much like looking for work these past few days. Fear is such a dreadful emotion; anxiety blunts one's sensitivity until all that remains is a cold fixation on the source thereof. You become withdrawn. Consequently arguments for looking for work are too far removed. It's like listening to someone trying to be heard behind double glazing; you can't hear them, and you can't relate to what they're saying. The problem is the outside world doesn't understand any of this. You are like a radio tuned to a completely alien channel.
There is a real lack of support in this society. A complete dearth of understanding, even a willingness to understand. For too long all I've heard is that work is the answer. Even The Psychologist says this. What hope is there? That's too easy an answer. It's the same with the Work Programme. The JC is too reliant on using them to be the panacea to any claimant's woes/lack of work. This, again, isn't helping.
So I looked through the JC jobsearch site as I do most days (it's about all I can do). It's the same poor effort: nothing is organised properly. The jobs are just bizarre: one moment you are looking at a part time cleaner job (too part time really, I've done cleaning before) the next there is a position that requires a ton of experience such as a research assistant or scientist! It seems entirely random. Again, I believe the programmers just grab whatever ads they can off other sites and stick them on.
What I see I just can't deal with. I really don't feel I can hold down a full time job right now. My Jobseekers Agreement is set at 20 hours a week, but the reality is that, with bus fare costs, that just won't be practical in most cases, and I'm not likely to find a job on my doorstep.
I hope 2012 is the year this sytem changes because I just cannot see a future except on the gravy train that is the Work Programme. More and more I'm hearing now about the work for welfare aspect thereof. That fills me with utter dread. At what point does a 30 hour a week ostensibly experiential placement that ends up lasting several months become exploitative? Why is no one asking this? How much experience does one need before people start realising there's something amiss.
Anyway that's all for now. I'd like to moan about Ed Miliband, but he's just hopeless. His speech was the usual wishy washy 'Middle England please vote for me!' cry it always is. He's a lost cause as far as I'm concerned and consequently so are Labour. I think the key to changing the government is to take the scales from the eyes of the LibDems. There must come a point, surely, at which they will wake up to themselves and think, to quote David Byrne, 'my god, what have i done!'. Well you'd hope.
I think labour has forgotten who they were, to hear labour supporters they say the tories are all upper class and went to oxford. when a lot of labour people now are upper class and went to oxford. They are professional politicians, rather than you or me or joe bloggs down the street. Then you come up against the politicians who get sent to seats where they have never lived or experienced. This is all politicians, The work programme was started under labour and carried on under the tories, But they have forgotten the human face of the unemployed. If the work programme is going to be so big, why should employers hire people for the national minimum wage when they can get the job for free. I fear for the future..
ReplyDeleteLabour have become obsessed or perhaps even fooled into fighting the tories over the same ideological ground. Irt seems a battle for the centre/centre right. So if Cameron is seen as getting tough on 'scroungers' then Miliband's advisers will tell him he needs to be seen to do the same. It doesn't help that Miliband is a dreadful communicator and a complete wet blanket. What labour needs is a proper old firebrand.
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