Programmed - Intro Leaflet Breakdown

I really am not looking forward to being conscripted. The worst part is that I have to sit around waiting for the damned phone to ring. That could happen anytime, calling me up for service. I don't deal with that situation well at all. Of course they don't think about things like this, instead you get a referral letter warning you of the consequences of failure. Same old stick no carrot.

On top of that I have a leaflet from the Jobfit people, the standard minimal pre-induction crap. It's worth a closer look because I suspect that, if actually called into question, wouldn't be taken seriously at all.

Firstly it says "Removing Barriers" talking about a professional service tailored to each individual's needs and supporting customers to overcome any personal problems and issues preventing them from working. Good to know, then, that I'll be dealing with trained therapists, counsellors and psychologists (like the person I have been dealing with who tells me her voice carries no weight with these people). It's not tailored at all; my first need is dealing with having to travel to the venue which is a) not local and b) a great source of anxiety. Of course they aren't going to respect that, the Jobcentre don't. Yet previous organisations that I have dealt with (independent from the benefits system, which is a major difference) were able to meet in a mutually agreeable public location like a cafe and were happy to do so. It would probably be cheaper for them. But as this is being handled by Jesus and Co. it's not likely they'll shift. I pray forgiveness for them.

"Championing Ability" tells me that they will recognise my skills and abilities with a view to building on them and applying them to the labour market. Well there's the first problem, I don't want to be marketplace chattel and fodder. That's not the human experience I signed up thanks very much. But really, what are the odds they will provide training?

Then it tells me about "Delivering Sustainability" in respect of achieving long-term employment outcomes. So that should be not forcing me into a job I don't want and aren't suited for.

Three straightforward principles right off the bat that already I'm extremely sceptical about. Perhaps I'm just too cynical. These days? Yeah, right! Now we have the "Customer Minimum Service Standards", helpfully printed in green and black.

I will be made to feel welcome and treated with respect with the chance to have feedback received appropriately. I shall certainly hold them to this right off the bat. If they can't respect the conditions and issues (the ones they claim they can cure as just explained) then already we have a problem.

Next it tells me about the 'welcome call' wherein I will be told when to turn up for the first induction appointment, oh joy. Well again we have a problem: limited bus services make the already troublesome issue of travel difficult, I doubt they will take that into account (especially as local funding cuts mean the timetable will be completely rewritten in a couple of weeks). Then a letter to follow this along with an 'induction pack'. Goody!

I'm also told that I can expect good quality advice and guidance about careers (presumably the ones they approve of that aren't of my choosing, despite all the above promises) and the resultant action plans and steps I will of course be expected to follow in pursuit of that. Great, I hate all that shit. It's pointless because you can't plan outcomes for job applications, and it's only there to give these people some purpose while they tell you what to do under threat of sanctions (which of course they don't mention in their service standards).

Then we got to the creating/updating/rubbishing your existing CV section, application forms (thanks but I can manage to answer a series of sensibly asked and worded questions, that isn't the problem I have). It also mentions, along with the usual rubbish about interview techniques (be polite, pretend to be interested, don't dress up in Nazi uniform or covered in excrement, hope that your interviewer isn't a twat) as well as 'accessing the hidden jobs market'. What the hell is this? Hidden jobs? This sounds like more rubbish to me: if employers want staff they'll advertise as broadly as their remit allows. If a job really is hidden it's because it's internal and they don't want John Q. Jobcentre applying for it, it could be a specialist position advertised in trade magazines. What a waste of time: they try to make it sound as if it's some special knowledge they, as a provider, have access to that, if you're good enough, you might be blessed with accessing. Again it's this complication of the issue that makes the problem.

I can also expect to see my adviser fortnightly, much like the Jobcentre who do the same thing, to 'make sure' I'm getting the support I need 'and moving forward to get a job' - that last bit sounds rather sinister! What if you can't move forward at that moment? What if your problems are really getting on top of you? What if your anxiety is getting the best of you? What then? Prayer? Confidence Building Seminar with Mike Dynamo that will pick you up in some superficial radio 1 stylee? Some issues are a bit more serious and a bit deeper than can be tackled with NLP or buzzwords bandied about? But hey, let's all think positive party people! Corporate bollocks is great! Ugh, not for me - again the sort of thing that makes my (apparent) neurodiverse/aspergers/not aspergers/add/what the fuck it is go into overdrive.

To top it all off there's the codifying of the above into an action plan which no doubt I'll be compelled to sign (along with all the other stuff which may or may not be optional, as others have discovered). Finally there's mention of the complaint's procedure: a string of increasingly more powerful line managers culminating in an independent case examiner. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. This final part contains one of the most curious parts of all: the plain it speaks of details "the level of contact and support that you and the employer have agreed to, once offered a job". How many employers are going to want to be in this position when, as is more likely, they can choose someone else that doesn't have all this baggage attached? More importantly what happens to someone like me in that position, no doubt I will be seen as not having played my part! This is sinister. At the very least this kind of required (as it seems) employer participation means that the jobs available to you will be limited, so again what kind of choice will I have over my own future?

No doubt I have been rather negative throughout all this, but that's because I can see straight through the rhetoric from the get go. We all know how much bollocks some of that is, but it's still written. Will they take it seriously? Well they will pay lip service to it, but when it comes to concrete action I doubt they will do more than most people these days and pass the buck. That's the corporate culture these days; you get it every time you ring up a call centre. This is no doubt part of the reason places like Jobfit subcontract; if there's a complaint it just gets pushed back and forth and never dealt with. The JC can't deal with it as the Work Programme effectively neuters them, that's why The Psychologist can't get involved (though she could at least try, it wouldn't have hurt).

My guard is up and I shall be holding them to account on every part of this. We've heard all along how great this scheme is, from the likes of ratface Grayling, so I expect it to deliver. But even from the get go they aren't respecting me. I suspect it'll be no different to my time (mercifully short) with Working Links a few years ago: all smiles and support until you got there and then a complete about face that left me questioning my own sanity!

Five Live Unemployment Discussion

I missed it as it went out live, but I'm writing this as I listen to the iplayer repeat. It's broadcast from Salford in the wake of another rise in unemployment. I guess it really is the price worth paying for the unstoppable juggernaut of Tory ideology. Let them eat cake, eh Gideon?

Ok, so the show starts off with a couple of people saying who they are and how long they've been unemployed. Then suddenly some mouthpiece from Morrissons (nice free advertising there, reminiscent of last Summer's BB3 Jobfest bollocks piece that I commented on) saying they are creating 7,000 odd jobs this year. Of course they won't be saying how poorly paid those jobs are, especially given that the big 4 supermarkets are the third biggest employer (together) and that's right after the NHS. Megabucks for the boss class, free advertising, and shit jobs for the rest of us. Fortunately Sainsbury's have had the sense to pull away from the government's workfare frenzy, not so the rest of them. Does that include Morrisons? I don't know, but maybe corporate shill Richard Hammond might. Or Chris Evans, another vacuous overpaid supermarket millionaire. Mr Morrison's is followed by someone from a utility company I've never heard of, more applause. I suspect the Hangman could receive the same applause if he showed up to offer work.

Now this discussion was first mentioned after an earlier episode discussing the Work Programme. Lots of people rang up to say 'the WP stinks'. Curiously, Chris Grayling's seemed instead to hear 'the WP is the best thing since sliced bread'. Perhaps his radio was affected by the smell of money wafting from the unemployment gravy train.

Now a young chap is talking about his experience applying in a theatre highlights a salient point about the ludicrous nature of some job interviews. The job, apparently, was bar work in a theatre, darlings. We've all had these crazy interviews; one in particular, for WHSMiths, features a board game. This game was basically an empty board save for some random items culled from the shop (the board was empty, by the way, the pieces came from shop stock). We rolled dice and, when we landed on one of these items (the sellotape for instance), had to sell that item to an imaginary customer! I doubt even Lord Sir Alan of the Sugar Apprentice could do the hard sell on a round of sellotape, or a pair of scissors, or a pencil! Everyone palpably felt how utterly fucking stupid it was. I didn't get the job.

And bingo, the first goal is scored: someone comes out and says 'the government doesn't know what it's like' in respect of the pittance that is JSA. But that will never change. It is core to the ideology of the capitalists that JSA should be low. They fundamentally believe that, if it were increased (it's among the lowest rates in Europe), everyone would give up work. They believe that welfare is a lifestyle choice in that respect. Tells you all you need to know about the Tories: know thy enemy. They hate welfare and they hate claimants. The speaker is living with a mortgage she can no longer afford.

Three politicians are introduced: a Tory whose name I can't remember or spell, someone called John Leech (or Jon, I don't know) for the Libdems (so two Tory contributors then) and a Labour person called Emma Reynolds. They are asked if they could manage on JSA and the latter two admit they couldn't while Mr Tory dodges the question. This character is all over the place; he's nervous, and he's on the defensive. I expect him to resort to trotting out the usual Tory propaganda and try and bluster his way through.

Another speaker, more vociferously, challenges Mr Tory to live on Jobseekers for a week. At this point the Tory does indeed resort to type: yes folks it's Labour's fault, they maxed out the credit card. Excuse me, I must vomit. Ok, back. Ugh, sometimes it just takes a long time to get the taste of Tory bullshit out of my ears. Now Emma is talking, in response to that point. Ok, she's pushing at an open door here. To be fair, she doesn't overplay the card. Good move, I'm no fan of Labour but it's their fight to lose (and so far they've lost every time, but then they are no less right wing than the Tories).

The spotlight shifts and a speaker from Church Action on Poverty (something like that) raised the point about work paying by way of mentioning the poverty wages that some people earn. I hope we come back to this issue, but for now a young man called Matt is laying into the Tory MP (Sam someone or other, I'd look it up but I can't be bothered). He knows what's going on; it's privatisation all the way. That's what all this Work Programme (which I'm sure we'll come onto) is all about: privatise the JC+ and give it over to the likes of Emma Harrison to make more money from.

Over to the John Leech now who is, in my view, comfortably equivocating. He mentions Nick Clegg's Work Experience scheme that has had some success (51% apparently) getting people back into work within 13 weeks. I don't know this scheme, but that may well be true, but given the lack of jobs out there, this initial success rate is naturally unsustainable. I think he's being a bit disingenuous here. The jobs will dry up and the spotlight will move away to another scheme in another area run by another provider and so on.

Over to Norman (his name, apparently) from Morrisons; it seems the local community wanted him/them to come up with 'pre-employment schemes' (the usual confidence building bullshit) so they delivered. But what about the quality of these jobs? Supermarket work ffs! Is that really what we want for our society? A nation of supermarkets. I've commented on this before, but I don't believe a job at any cost solves the problems our society has. It might make a given applicant smile (assuming the wage isn't a joke).

Michael, a trained teacher, speaks now. He's noticeably emotional in verbalising his feeling of humiliation - and the suicide of a young graduate who couldn't reconcile her qualifications with her exoperience trying to find work, very sad and sadly very unrprusing. That's the effect of months (years, to be truthful) of right wing propaganda. A society so browbeaten that the supermarket sector can come in and prey on these people. A society so cowed that it believes willingness to do anything is less gullibility (the boss class don't care) and more a virtue. This is categorically NOT the answer, but that's what hardworking Britain's are told to believe by the newspapers that routinely claim to be the voice of the taxpayer and the conscience of the great and the good. Fuck that and fuck their ideology. I'm looking at the DWP jobsearch page as I listen and it's the same selection of crap. Am I meant to be thankful for these opportunities? A job packing petfood? Fuck off!

And now we have some twat that wants to play the John Galt card. "Why do people always blame someone else?" Right out of the Paul Dacre Playbook. The answer is they don't. Move on.

And move on we do (i'm not discussing some upwardly mobile twat's worldview, sorry)...to Hayley fucking Taylor! Oh fuck me, so much for an informed debate then. I wonder how many people will bring up her propagandist crap on tv. That said she is pointing out the damage that unemployment can cause. Well ok, fair enough. But that doesn't excuse that awful populist Fairy Jobmother crap.

Onto the jokeshop, sorry I mean the Jobcentre, now. This should be good - which is the opposite of the opinions provided. They are useless, but that's no surprise to us. We know how they don't help. We hear comments about how the JC staff are themselves looking for new jobs. Some guy, used to work for Connexions, says he's better off out of work than enduring the target driven uber caseload culture! Interesting. I am a bit concerned with the view coming forward regarding how the JC are not helpful and don't do much; while this is true, the threat of sanctions is not being discussed. The implication of further distancing people from society is huge and giving the JC more authority over people regarding their jobsearch efforts is far too dangerous.

I think, now, I'm done. This debate has tired me. It's like watching people flailing around in a pool of water, rather than getting to the real meat of these problems; ie a discussion of the system - capitalism, I suppose. We can talk numbers, we can talk about how the Jobcentre is rubbish, we can talk about how we are prepared to do anything for a job or to look for work. This isn't enough: we need a fundamental change - a sea change - in all areas of society. We need to evolve beyond notions of competition: the audience applauds when one person says they just got a job. Well that's great and I'm not churlish, but that's one job less for others to apply for, and the rest of the cohort that applied for that job will be grilled by the JC and blamed subsequently for their failure to beat that person to the punch. This debate has told me nothing, but for those interested it's up on iplayer on the Victoria Derbyshire show, today, 15/2.