jobs

Excuses or obstacles?

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This observation is regarding one of social barriers towards employment and housing. Both briefly touched on in Work ethic and employment and What you see here, but only from a general view of those subjects. The personal impact of which I have experienced myself and witnessed others go through.

I’ll explain. Society appears to have put in place multiple restrictions and obstacles to make society harder for some people. Deliberately. It seems remarkably easy for someone to find themselves in a difficult position financially, that is not new. But how they are able to get themselves out of it, has changed.

I noticed it years ago as I got old enough to start looking for work and somewhere to live. I left home a month after turning 18, with no qualifications, a bag of clothes and a cheque for £240 from my stepdad. Headed for somewhere I had visited a couple of times and where I knew someone. Who ironically left for University just as I moved there, but his mum let me sleep on her sofa for a month or so. That was my first leg up, I traded cleaning and school runs for food and somewhere to sleep. I couldn’t get any government help until I had somewhere to live where it wouldn’t compromise their benefits. So I made friends with people, offered to help where I could and tried to form a network. Of people, of places, of opportunities. I got work behind a bar, and at an agency. Cleaned toilets and kitchens, pulled pints, worked in factories or whatever work was going that paid money. I was not fussy or work shy. I wanted better and always believed you have work for it.

At 22 I got my first office job and at 27 I started my own business. Studying and working full time at home to get there. But, and its a big but, I had an extra helping hand along the way. Without parents in my life (long story but from 18 I was on my own) my grandparents stepped up to help me once I had proven I could support myself. They gave me my deposit for my first house at 22 after the office job was held down. Without them helping me, I wouldn’t have been in a stable enough position financially to study, or think about what I wanted to do, and then do it. I get very stressed when worried about money or wondering if I will have somewhere to live. It takes over everything. So I have lots of compassion for people who are having a tough time, and can’t just be positive, or constructive with their thought or time. Worrying about affording food next week and rent is real for many.

But now I shall move to the system that creates that cycle. Everything has a gateway to it now, money through a bank – looking to be made even weirder and more controlled with digital, mentioned in my article Cash. Rent and somewhere to live through a letting/estate agent or council usually, casual jobs through an agency. All of those things are essential for basic living, so if you tighten the reigns on any one of those, the knock on effect is directly on people and how they live.

The middle man gets to decide your fate. If you don’t have a bank account, usually you can’t a job, which means no rental unless you can find a good private landlord directly. Most of the private rentals here state no DSS. That’s not new at all, but many now say no pets. No smoking. No kids. Which of course, is the landlords perogative, but where does that leave someone who is trying to get themselves together or move up a bit. Or when there are 10 people applying for each property, more probably.

People having to cohabitate because they can’t afford not to. Or stuck in a job they hate because there aren’t better paid ones you can do because while they held down wages, they upped the cost of living dramatically. Of course, its easy to say, just leave. Just quit that job, just move somewhere else. And it is. If you don’t mind winging it, and not having any Security initially, and working it out as you go. But not everyone can deal with change or can think on their feet, so I see where they are in a bind. Excuses become obstacles, because there is usually a logical answer to suit any personal situation. But when you are talking generally, not every answer will suit everyone. We all have different needs and wants, but are forced into this one size fits all regime with jumping through hoops for housing and work just so we can lay our head at night in safety and not go hungry. Now with the looming restrictions of making it even harder for people to access basic amenities and securities, it doesn’t look like anyone is getting any kind of helping hand or a break anytime soon.

So all I can hope is that we stop looking to government, councils and authority to help us and start helping ourselves and each other.

I have linked a number of my other recent articles, in case of interest as they are all observations of society.

(c) K Wicks

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Work ethic and employment

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I have wanted to work since I was a child. I saw that work gave you money, and money gave you freedom to live. Understanding of course that freedom was not free, you have to earn it, buy it and maintain it. And fully believed that if you didn’t work, you would starve. I had no idea until almost a teenager that benefits were a thing. My mindset was that I should be as helpful and productive as possible, to give myself the best chance of survival. Of course, life gets in the way of whatever you think you will be, or what you want to happen. And it did. I had a rough patch for a few years from mid to late teens and I had to drop out of school and mainstream education. No exams. which of course made me think, no future. It was the mid 90’s, there a big drive for people to go to university, student loans took off and suddenly there were all sorts of courses to do and it was made accessible to people from all walks of life as they put it.

But it didn’t appeal to me for many reasons. Firstly, I did not have a subject that I was taken with at that age, I liked so many things it was hard to narrow it down to just one. I was very good at drawing at the time, so got talked into trying art college. I lasted 6 months, and of that my attendance was shocking. I did not like the relaxed setting for learning, and it was too corporate for feeling creative. Although I met some really sound people, it struck me that most of them were just wasting a couple of years by being there. To take the pressure off so their family didn’t hassle them to decide on uni. It started to become more interesting to question people on their motivations for choices, and where they hoped those decisions might lead them. Studying art felt like a complete waste of time. Because that was not what I wanted to do as a career. It looked like a very hard and thankless job ‘the struggling artist’ perception. Luckily, I do it for enjoyment now, because it really doesn’t pay the bills for me despite having created quite a portfolio of drawings, paintings, photography, books and designs.

It dawned on me though, that many people of my age group were getting themselves unneccessarily in debt, on the whim of having a degree in something, whether it would be useful or not. So I looked at that as the starting point, why did everyone want them? I’ll use my own family experience, my grandparents on one side went to University, and fully believed that if you had a degree it would mean you would be guaranteed employment. Because I think in their day, that is how it was. I held my ground and said no, a degree was not needed. Four years out of the job market when I already felt behind was not going to suit me at all, got to get on and all that, and why would you want to start so far in debt, it made no sense to me. Within a few years and a great number of jobs later, I found myself working in recruitment. Helping people find work and prepare their CV’s and understand their skills to assist placing them.

What I found were a couple of prevailing attitudes. Firstly, the worn down type, who seemed to realise their situation of extreme debt, limited jobs in their chosen field and the reality of life after uni. The other was the self-entitled one, the “I have a degree and I wont work for under £15.00 per hour”. Which is fine to have that attitude, it really is and may work in some walks of life. But when there is work available for £8.50 per hour, and you have no skills or experience for the higher rate job, you have to start somewhere. So maybe it was a good thing that I have had jobs in finance, catering, property, care homes, recruitment, pubs, and markets. That I got myself experience in all sorts of industries and with all sorts of people from different backgrounds. And even though I may be doing ok at the moment having worked really hard for it, I still might end up cleaning toilets again for £5.00 per hour, because you really don’t know what life may throw at you, but having a ‘let’s gets on, can do’ attitude can possibly help along the way.

Aside from all that, I understand we are now in very odd times for employment. Many jobs and futures have been taken away or restricted of late, automation seems to be moving in where it can and what was once a sound career may now need revisiting. In this we may have to come up with new ideas and ways forward for peple, to keep things moving and progressing at a pace that includes everyone and can be maintained.

(c) K Wicks