Isn't it weird. The Work Programme is supposed to be, as we all know by now, bespoke and tailored toward heloping the 'customer' (I don't remember buying anuything) achieve something meaningful. Not just be funnelled into the first job they happen to make you find by ordering you to search on basic jobsearch websites. As if those were the vacancies fhat needed filling the most.
When I tell them I want to be a writer (I have many interests, as I'm sure most people do; we aren't two dimensaional) they couldn't dismiss that quick enough. That gets classified as a 'long term' job goal; which is to say you get patted on the head for showing some interest in the idea of work. Then they get to use that 'interest' to compel you toward what suits them, not you.
Yet if I'd gone to college/university and become a writer on my own; for example let's imagine i'd gotten a degree in journalism and subsquently found a career accordingly, no one would be telling me I was wasting my time. I wouldn't have the Work Programme dismissing the idea and forcing me to apply for something i'm not interested in. "Well you wouldn't be unemployed", you might think. That's the difference; you can do what you like, but when you're on the 'payroll' of the state then your freewill as to your career amnd how you make money is forfeit.
I find that utterly bizarre.
I suppose the reason for not allowing you to make becoming a writer your primary job goal on the wirk programme is a simple "well it's taxpayers' money ain't it? Why should taxpayers fund the dreams of the unemployed?" But this is a strange argument, since taxpayers fund all sorts of people's dream jobs via university funding, which allows people - as you said - to pursue their dreams.
ReplyDeleteBut make no mistake, we are approaching the point at which via the Work Programme the unemployed will become little more than government-owned indentured servants, forced to partake of any activity no matter how demeaning or dangerous. The future is forced labour for the jobless.
The whole system is borked. It just doesn't help people; everything is entirely one sided. The social contract, which the JSAg represents in effect, is entirely biased against the individual. You are born, here are the rules obey them at your peril. Same with the JC: look for a job, do what we require and we might give you a few quid. No interaction or interest in what you might want or be best suited to doing, or what's actually valuable to a good society (as opposed to woriking in a call centre and harassing people daily, for instance).
DeleteThe future is indeed forced labour, and the staff at the JC will soon be joining us.