MARTIN HADFIELD DIED 24 HOURS AFTER LAST APPOINTMENT
*Thinking dark thoughts?
We promise you’re not alone — and there is help available. Please contact PAPYRUS or the Samaritans now. Suicide is always a tragic waste and it’s never the solution to anything. For support from the Graduate Fog community, comment below or read what’s already been posted below our related stories Jobseeker, 21, commits suicide after two-year search for work and Student suicides rise – are graduates next?
A young jobseeker who committed suicide felt “demoralised” by visits to his local job centre and had “no self-esteem” after applying unsuccessfully for 40 jobs in three months, his family have said following an inquest into his death.
Martin Hadfield was 20 when he died in July 2013. Although Martin wasn’t a university graduate, many of Graduate Fog’s readers will empathise with his experience of coping with daily disappointment and rejection when job-hunting. Some of you who have sought work via your local job centre have told us you were disappointed by the quality of advice and support you received, and have urged that standards be improved, perhaps paying special attention to young people whose confidence may be particularly low.
Martin, who lived in Tottingham, near Manchester, had worked for his stepfather’s car valeting business after his GCSEs before getting a job as a landscape gardener and achieving NVQ qualifications. But in April last year he lost his job when the firm downsized. He unsuccessfully applied for 40 posts over the next three months — and most of these applications went ignored because he was ‘undercut’ on wages by younger and less experienced candidates, he felt. Martin died 24 hours after visiting his local job centre in Bury, near Manchester, where he was only offered a ‘follow-up’ appointment.
Speaking yesterday after an inquest into his death, Martin’s stepfather Peter O’Gorman described how the aspiring gardener “hated” going to his local job centre, saying:
“Many people go in with a sense of self-worth — they really do want a job — but come out feeling demoralised and put down. The human touch is so much better than looking at a name on a piece of paper. The bureaucracy is ridiculous.
“In the last months of his life [Martin] became a statistic to other people. He was a statistic by being out of work, a statistic when he went into the Job Centre and now he is a statistic by killing himself. Sadly this statistic seems to be growing, especially in boys Martin’s age who are struggling.
“On the day he died, his mum gave him some money for the bus home and instead he walked the five miles home and saved it for something important. That was the kind of boy he was, hardworking and with so much potential. Martin never claimed any money or benefits in his life. He got nothing off the government and was proud not to. He wasn’t like some people his age – happy on the dole watching Jeremy Kyle day after day.”
Martin’s flatmate Stuart Evans, 20, who found his body, told the hearing that his friend had been “getting more and more fed up” with his fruitless job hunt. Martin’s mother Annie O’Gorman, 50, said: “Martin was just a regular boy and he just didn’t think to talk to someone about what he was going through. It was just a tragic moment of madness.”
*ARE YOU STRUGGLING TO STAY MOTIVATED AS YOUR JOB HUNT PROGRESSES?
What experience have you had at your local job centre? What advice do you have for other jobseekers who are struggling to stay motivated? Do you have any tips for keeping your confidence up? Share your story or your views below…
I was so sorry to read this. If only the system in place valued the individual qualities and ambitions of job-seekers, and if our society didn’t hold on to a ridiculous prejudice against the unemployed, tragedies like this could be avoided. I know that this is an obvious point to make but I feel that it cannot be stressed enough.
Nobody could disagree with Isabel’s comment above in light of this tragedy. But the reality is that voters like tough welfare rhetoric which is why the media and politicians serve it up to them. Tragedies like this are the result.
I made an analogy with ‘The Hunger Games’ on another post. It is a cynical view but it isn’t rational for the employed (tax payers) to want their money spent on the unemployed if it means that they will face greater jobs market competition.
No one on here needs reminding that jobs are scarce. There are about 5 job seekers for every job seeker and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no public policy solution. Creating jobs through a “bloated” public sector only works during booms and technology and automation mean the private sector can cut its wage bill – my local ASDA has already replaced spotty seventeen year-olds with self-service machines.
At the risk of sounding very very crass a suicide of a claimant counts as a ‘success’ in terms of reducing the claimant count which is what Job Centres are judged against. Tanya asks whether job centre staff need better training? This costs money. We are back at the problem that voters don’t like their taxes spent on welfare.
I am sure David and Gideon care….
*That should be five job seekers for every job. That is what happens when you try and type comments at midnight.
I just wanted to add that because there is no safety net anymore it is important peoples save (hoard?) as much money as possible. The government set interest rates low to try and make us spend but that has to be resisted. For anyone who lives in a house with a mortgage things are really going to hurt when interest rates are jacked up from their current position of 0.5%.
Somehow before even reading the article I knew he would be from Manchester / the north. Visit Salford or Manchester and you’ll see thousands of lads like him wondering the streets every day.
@ Graduate
Landlords in London are increasing monthly rents in view to a rise in Interest Rates. It’s despicable. That’s the reality for those of us lucky enough to have a job. Debt ridden, over-qualified, low paid and never will be in a position to gain a foot on the property ladder.
But I’m sure our good-old parliamentarians, many of which are Buy-to-Let investors could not care less..
@ Shaz
I cannot imagine how grim the job situation must be like up north….
IDS should be prosecuted for inciting hatred against people who are unemployed.
Once a month, I was called into the Jobcentre to see my “Personal Advisor” to review my jobsearch. He looked for vacancies on his computer and printed them off. He was able to avoid the fact that I was a graduate because I had admin skills. Yes, I am a graduate but the Jobcentre treat you as a non-graduate. As the months went by, I became more and more detached from the reality of everyday life. I despised my Personal Advisor and spoke only when required. He called me by my first name and in a befriending tone as though he was my friend. Although polite, my tone of voice was cold and unfriendly.
I kept telling him that my lack of recent relevant experience was the barrier to me getting into work. He had no answer and for this I despised him.
I feel I am treated like a statistic. I deal with the different welfare bodies and each calls me by my name. I don’t know them and I wish they would not patronize me.
As a mature unemployed graduate with my own flat, money to pay for the bills and to eat comfortably, I’m in a far better position than many young graduates who, having had their independence at university, find themselves returning to live with parents once again, trapped.
I cannot give any advice
The irony is that Martin’s depression/mental health problems will have been barrier in job interviews etc. As this website points out elsewhere “Nobody wants to employ Eyeore”. Martin’s insecurities will have resulted in impaired interview performance and further job rejections. He may have given negative interview answers.
I certainly found it difficult when employers would throw curveball interview qns at me trying to evoke negative responses – you can’t take the bait without committing an interview faux pas. Do something like criticise a former employer even mildly and that = REJECTION.
Too many people throw in the towel in this day and age, I was in my late twenties in the days of thatcher and things were a lot worse then than they are now.
I was unemployed for over a year and instead of spitting the dummy out, I had a look at the situation that I was in, enrolled on a law degree at Cambridge, and doctorate certificate to show of my achievements at the end of my studies.
People like Martin Hadfield, really do not have the sense they are born with.
I really do not have any sympathy or time for people who self destruct and make a mountain out of a molehill.
He was unemployed by choice and as a result, became a specialist in failure.
He could of easily of claimed went into his local job centre, and claimed Job Seekers Allowance which would of enabled him to access work experience through the governments work program.
There’s also going to University which is what I did when times were hard and jobs were scarce.
But suicide seemed a better option, and gods wrath will be upon him for the pain and suffering he has caused his family and friends.
Desmond.
The difference between this recession and the last is that back then University was an escape route. We didn’t send every man and his dog to university back then so a degree was something a bit special. Back then university also didn’t cost £9,000.
United Kingdom Eat Their Young!!!
Hi Guys,
I do feel bad for this young man. I cannot believe what your politicians George Osborne, Nick Clegg, and David Cameron have done to your country. That have impose sanctions on UK graduates who are collecting the JSA. I cannot believe they are making you guys work for your benefit (Cait Reilly).It is clear looking at UK’s 2014 Budget that your country is going down the toilet
2.5 million young people are overeducated and underemployed (working at jobs that do not require a bachelors degree). However, many of these young people are on the dole, working part-time, or living back home with their parents.
According to the Local Government Association they state:
“A third of all young people will be out of work or trapped in underemployment by 2018 unless local areas are given more control over skills and training”
2.5 million young people are struggling to find work in England and Wales. The LGA estimate only 340,000 of these people will be able to find jobs over the next four years. This leaves 2.12 million people still unemployed or underemployed.
The massive scale of youth underemployment is hidden because Government figures focus on the unemployed and not young people who are only working part-time hours or are over-qualified for their current job.
This is a devastating phenomena in the lives of graduates and is a definite indicator of institutional ineffectiveness and inefficiency. Since the start of the economic recession in 2008, increasing numbers of graduates have been unable to find permanent positions in their chosen field.
My advice to UK graduates is to start your own business because it is clear that the UK Government has no interest whatsoever in helping you.
Thanks to Nick Clegg tripling tuition fees, young people cannot afford to go back to university. They are forever stuck in a vicious cycle of unemployment and underemployment.
Switzerland is implementing a new policy called the Living Income Guarantee which will give a basic salary of $2500 to every person who is employed or unemployed to solve the issues caused by capitalism. Perhaps your country should do the same.
The US dollar is going to collapses and the entire world is going to have a “Global Great Depression”. The UK pound is also heading towards a collapse. These are facts and there is no way out of it.
I want to remind you that no country that uses a “fiat currency” has ever escape a financial collapse.
So, my advice is to buy a one way ticket out of your country or start preparing survival items when your fiat currency collapses.
Thanks
Chris Wells
Yet another sad case, and a sign of what our over-emphasis on work as identity, money and arguably outdated work ethic (as the demand for labour on the traditional wage/salaried model plummets) does to some people.
The cynic in me – as indicated especially by ministers’ attacks on food banks, and by the appalling treatment of the disabled under this coalition (basically flipping wildly from encouraging people onto the sick to massage figures, to treating them as cheats and rendering many destitute and drowning in uncaring bureaucracy)wonders whether the government actually care about cases like thus.
After all, every out-of-work person who emigrates, kills themselves or stops looking for work and lives off their family (or ends up on the street and no longer claims anything) is one number off the number of unemployed, and one less claimant 🙁
@Graduate
“Creating jobs through a “bloated” public sector only works during booms and technology and automation mean the private sector can cut its wage bill — my local ASDA has already replaced spotty seventeen year-olds with self-service machines.”
Surely the real solution is to alter the socio-economic system to recognise than automation and digitisation is going to massively reduce the demand for traditional wage labour? For instance, a basic income system or less working hours?
Unless we’d rather have something akin to technological feudalism, with the élite and a small number of technicians hiding in gated communities behind armed guards from the impoverished masses?
Basically, we seem to have forgotten that without consumers who feel secure enough to spend money (i.e. that they can pay for housing costs, and can survive periods of unemployment), and sufficient employment for most of the population, our system can’t work. At the moment, consumer debt and a reinvigorated state-backed property bubble is just about keeping things ticking over, but can that last?
And also that money isn’t an end in itself. Surely the purpose of the modern economy is meant to be providing as many people as possible with a reasonable standard of living and ensuring a stable society through whatever method works, and – in a mass consumerist society like ours – to provide consumers for the vast quantity of items produced?
Not to chase so-called “economic growth” at all costs or to amass and hoard money (which is after just electronic records and pieces of paper and metal with no intrinsic value)?
Hi Guys,
You should subscribe to the YouTube Channel Living Income Guaranteed. It is a YouTube Channel that is raising awareness around the world for the urgent need to change our political system. What your country is facing is also happening in Greece, Spain, United States, and Europe.
Like I said Switzerland is perhaps the first country that is going to try and implement the Living Income Guarantee which will give a basic salary of $2500 to every person who is employed or unemployed to solve the issues caused by capitalism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqKkERp-ias
I want you guys to know that there are people out there who are busting there butts off trying to come up with solutions
Living Income Guarantee YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5rA6LDTwLoA1g8RePrLTJA
Living Income Guarantee Website
http://livingincomeguaranteed.wordpress.com/the-proposal/
Some YouTube Google Hangouts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6okCU0BEbb8&index=16&list=PLh8mEFUk3QlITe0zugpGT-jax5zmKxdno
@Desmond – You work at the job centre, don’t you. I can tell by the caring, empathic tone of your response. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is for those of us who would love to study to be denied the opportunity? Even if he could have received funding for a degree, you still have to support yourself while you’re there plus pay for whatever certificates you need to qualify. I don’t know what it was like in your time but you certainly can’t just walk in to university and nobody’s going to be paying your way unless you’ve got rich parents. I’ve been looking at going back to study but even the most basic of qualifications can set you back thousands of pounds.
I don’t think that many people in older generations know how terrifying and depressing it is to know – not just fear, but KNOW – you are being left behind. Your career will be at best mediocre and at worst non-existent. You won’t be able to have a family or a home of your own because you don’t have the money to support yourself. You’ll be beaten again and again in job interviews by people who are much older than you, people who have had wonderful careers already. The years will go by and your chances of getting your foot in the door will be slimmer and slimmer until eventually you’ll be beaten by people younger than you, who will have had better chances as the economy improves. There won’t be a true improvement until people change their attitudes and wake up – it’s not just a minor problem. People are dying because they think they’re being forgotten – our society has told them they are useless and, worse, that it’s all their own fault.
@Sarah
Joblessness, redundancy etc is something you can only understand if you’ve been through it yourself. I certainly didn’t understand until it happened to my family. We were worried about losing the house. It was the most terrifying experience of my life and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
When you are at your lowest and frankly not a fun person to be around you learn who your friends are.
An old school friend’s father rejected me for a job at his insurance firm in London. In retrospect it was probably just a “courtesy interview” with no chance of a job but it really hurt and still does.
Here we were worrying about losing everything and someone you know dangles a job in front of you and then takes it away.
In a way I’m pleased. As the saying goes ‘When you’re up, your friends know who you are. When you’re down, you know who your friends are…
When I started on £11K in a non-graduate job in Bristol with 2 degrees behind my belt (and one year on the dole applying to so-called ‘graduate’ jobs), I had to swallow my pride working with non-graduates and a meaningless job…if anything this chapter in my life taught me humility….and how ruthless society (if there is such thing since it’s dismantlement by Thatcher) is for the majority of us….
Humility and suffering because I knew my situation was irremediable. As Sarah rightly points out, you KNOW and that is the hardest part. I am 40 now and have come to accept it having done the best I could….
@Sarah
Never set foot in a job center in my life, and due to my age. Probably never will.
The opportunities are there to be jumped upped up and grabbed, people who fall into a ditch only do it because they have one, studied at an ex polytechnic university, and two, decided folding would be a better option than actually standing out from the rest of the crowd.
Certificates from the likes of Cambridge, Oxford and the like will put you at the front of the Que in the labor market.
It’s all about decision making, and quite frankly a lot of students in this day and age make mistake after mistake.
The David Beckham degree, a mean come on, no wonder a lot of today’s students are a complete laughing stock to most employers.
I was unemployed back in the 80’s and in and out of low paid jobs, instead of crying about it, I decided to go to Cambridge to study law and came out at the end of with doctorate certificate.
I’m now nearing retirement age, but have been on £140,000 a year plus for over 15 years and if I can get to that level on the employment ladder, then a lot of today’s students are without excuses.
I was privately educated in my childhood days. That does have it’s part to play in as most employers rate private education as far superior than state education.
Desmond.
@Nicolas
There is no such word as I can’t do.
If i had that type of mentality, I would of not only failed to plan, but planned to fail at the same time.
You are only suffering due to making the type of errors many of today’s society make in there chosen career.
Listening to school teachers in state funded schools will lead to academic and career destruction.
They go to school, then on to some ex polytechnic university, then back to school.
Most are complete and utterly useless at giving career advice.
The only universities where you will stand out in the labor market are Cambridge, Oxford and the like.
The rest are just throw away institution’s.
Desmond.
My father once took the kind of attitude displayed by Desmond Wakehurst.
He had been in work for 30 years without ever claiming benefits only taking time off for his parents’ funerals.
He took the attitude it couldn’t happen to him. He worked at a refinery and the world runs on oil. He was a top performer and they would keep him at all costs.
One day his employer made the entire 850 strong workforce redundant.
He had to ‘sign on’ for mortgage relief. He realised the dole office wasn’t giving away money like the Daily Mail says. That ‘no reply’ is the standard response to a CV these days. Worst of all was the questions from HR
Why were you made redundant? How many others were? The underlying
subtext being ‘Was it your fault?’.
There but for the grace of God go you….
@ Desmond
I did not attend an ex-poly. Plus, my parents were not rich enough for me to mingle with the posh boys. Because that is really all there is.
If you strip people of their social etiquette and market connections, there is very little that separates the common man.
I would never want to be a parent to a child in these conditions and blessed that I have none. Man is as despicable as it gets.
@desmond
My self and my wife, peter & annie o’gorman
Thank you for your career in law,
As you woud be dreadful as a samaritan.
Pre haps a little speel in the real world might be of benefit.
@Desmond
Although I admire your “opinions” and some solidified facts, your dialogue drips with disdain for the topic of this forum which indicates to me that you have no regard for it’s sensitivity. Keep in mind that many individuals at a young age can take insensitive, apathetic words to heart and may lead them to “self-destructive” decisions. Furthermore, ivy-league universities and the “like” are way too expensive for the middle-class man or woman, regardless of country. I urge that any further writings you may post here will involve a lot less guile and a lot more understanding and open-mindedness because your pessimistic tone is completely uncalled for. Thanks
Nathan
Desmond Wakehurst, go and fuck yourself you heartless, arrogant, delusional, scumbag piece of shit.
This will be me when I finish my degree next year. Back on the doll and three years older.
I havent had a graduate job since I graduated about 5 years ago. After three years graduate jobsearch, I stopped and accepted that I would not get a graduate job. In my experience, I went through a period of doubt, low self-esteem, low self-worth, self-loathing.
It was my Degree Supplement which helped me through it. When I first graduated, I filed it away for future reference. Then, when I felt really low one day, I decided to actually read it properly. As I read it, my degree began to really mean something to me. Despite of what the Jobcentre thought of me, despite the fact that non-graduate employers didn’t even mention my degree in job I interviews, and treated me as an entry-level employee whilst they employed me, my Degree Supplement told me that I am a highly skilled, highly intelligent person. I began to believe it and today, even though my employment situation hasn’t changed, I read my Degree Supplement regularly and tell myself and believe it that I am a strong, resourceful individual and that I can achieve graduate status in public life.
I undertook a degree course in order to make a mark on British society. I do not intend to disappear into obscurity.Private research has taught me that I can make a significant contribution to society, which will lead others to follow in my footsteps. It’s a huge undertaking ahead of me, with many years research to go before I publish.
As graduates, we are stronger than we think. If no one is going to employ us as graduates, then we must find our own way. We must seize the statements on our Degree Supplement and develop a plan for success, where we are working for ourselves every day, whether we are unemployed or in a non-graduate job.
@John: What does your degree supplement say that’s so profound? I’m intrigued.
Mine is really drole reading.
@ John & CostaDel
Just remember how much that piece of paper cost you! Universities are laughing all the way to the banks…
@Nicolas
Thanks Nicolas, but I’m perfectly fine with that. Given the choice again, I’d still do a degree. I might consider a different subject, but I’m pretty happy thanks.
sister just got a job after a long term stint on benefits. agency work but better than nothing. where are the real jobs
Very tragic and I feel for all the young people (and older) who are caught in this situation, it sucks! Desmond your an arrogant asshole. The fact that you were privately educated and went to university in the 80’s or before means you are already 10 steps ahead of the young people today. I don’t know how they manage and it takes some guts to go into Uni knowing your going to be straddled with debt and with no guarantee of a job afterwards, I salute you all. When I was at state school in the eighties they wouldn’t allow me to do more than 3 O’levels as they told me I wasn’t capable of achieving more, it meant I would have had no chance to go to UNI. I was very LUCKY when I was given the opportunity to go to a church funded private school for two years to do my O’levels. I came out with 9…I then went on to UNI, got an average degree, took the first (crappy) job i could in my field (fashion design) and worked my up in 20 years to a being a director. I am now unemployed at 45 and finding it very tough to find something (ironically I’m now over-qualified!).
Life is just as much about luck as it is hard work and talent. It’s about having goo mentors and the right advice at an early age. Coming from a balanced supportive family. It’s about knowing the right people, being in the right place at the right time. Those who have money and the power in the UK and elsewhere don’t want this to to change, they are happy to hang on to their privilege at the expense of the majority. The system is broken, it needs fixing. If you are young get political, try and change it from the bottom up, there are millions of disenfranchised people in the UK who would support REAL change. Otherwise it will carry on getting worse and becoming more and more like the U.S. grab what you can while you can and F*** the rest..
I have been unemployed for a very very long time. I’ve done course upon course improve my job prospects. All the certificates that i’ve recieved arenlt worth a damn. I entertained the thought of going to uni, but the givernment defecated on that idea. With so much time and energy on my hands i’ve become an autodidact. I’ve learned that these problems are not new, and they will always be handle with intellect and delicacy of a blind walrus.
I have been unemployed for a very very long time. I’ve done course upon course improve my job prospects. All the certificates that i’ve recieved arenlt worth a damn. I entertained the thought of going to uni, but the givernment defecated on that idea. With so much time and energy on my hands i’ve become an autodidact. I’ve learned that these problems are not new, and they will always be handle with intellect and delicacy of a blind walrus.
Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight. – Malcom X
I was unemployed for 3 years after finishing university, now after having found shit, unskilled low paid work I am unemployed again at the age of 31. From ages 25 to 28 I had nothing and I don’t know how I got through it. But the point is I won’t be going through that again. Now at 31 I have no decent future ahead of me and I refuse to go through unemployment again and mark my words I will die before this happens.
I want nothing to do with this world we live in, your future is entirely in the hands of other people and ridiculous employment criteria for the easiest of jobs. Work means nothing to me now if how we judge people is by how successful they are.
My message to the state, my parents generation and the majority of employers out there is that you can go fuck yourself. And to those on the dole, if you really are trying your hardest to find work then just step back a little now and again and enjoy your dole money – the tax money these fuckers who won’t give you a job pay. Enjoy it, buy an iPad, book a holiday or something else you enjoy.
All I want in life is a decent job, a little house and a little car up the drive, but my fucking go is this a lot to ask and truthfully I don’t think its obtainable anymore, or ever really was.
I’ve had enough
@job seeker
A CV gap is unacceptable. Even if it means lying that you worked for a business that no longer exists you need something on your CV for that period.
I’ve a couple of lies on my CV and it has resulted in more interviews. I might get found out but the consequences of getting sanctioned are clearly greater.
Life is tough.
I graduated recently with a Master’s degree in a very up and coming biologically technological degree from a leading university. I have 8 years’ experience working in a medical environment and currently run my own company.
I find that there are too many graduates, wait too many high-calibre graduates including myself. There are too many hoops to jump through and employers can afford to be very picky.
For e.g. recently applied to IBM, these are the steps
– online application
– psychometric tests / numerical and verbal reasoning
– then they evaluate your CV
– group assessment/ where I failed
( essentially in a room of other graduates, where you’re vetted against each other)
– interview
Not sure how many interviews till the job. It’s arrogant for me to say but the processes are very demeaning, especially if like me you’re highly introverted. My exceptional research abilities and my passion for the sector gets clouded by a barrage of mind numbing processes. The human factor is completely gon. Surprisingly they don’t tell you all this at university, according to them there are many jobs. And, why for entry level positions and junior jobs do they ask for 2/3 years experience(well some of them do).
This is an introverts perspective. Oh by the way Desmond, you got more money than rational thoughts.
@ Job Seeker
How is your situation now?
I’m about to go to uni soon, but as I’ve been unemployed for a while & dehumanized by the slave (sorry ‘work’ programme) been told I have to do 30hrs Community Work Service a week or JSA stopped! :I I feel so upset & angry over this. I’ve had 5 different Sales & Retail jobs over 7 years inbetween college so I’m by no means ‘workshy’ I’d love a PAID job & going insane applying hundreds of jobs. It’s an insult expexting me to work beside criminal OFFENDERS when I come from an honest family. Jesus Christ…No wonder so many young women these days resort to Prostitution! (Especially @ uni!) it really does make you think.Not even allowed to do voluntary work full-time at a Care Home – my JSA will be stopped. I feel so trapped even though I explained I’m starting a degree soon (but are heartless). Many people are so quick to judge unemployed as ‘lazy scroungers’ when so many do the best they can. No paid job is beneath me…cleaning toilets, fine..but telling me to go out & pick litter amongst the druggies for no wage is what is morally corrupt & slave labor, no place in 2015 Great Britain.
Of course they don’t want you doing voluntary work. It might lead to paid work and if that happens then eventually the job centre staff would lose their job!
I want to scream, but what good would that do? Fortunately, there is this website with sympathetic readers.
The longer I’m on the Work Programme, the more the government stooges sink their claws into me in their “intervention”. They suck the life blood out of me and destroy my soul.
I’m doing an activity which is supposed to be helping me to improve my jobsearch, but it’s more like an intrusion into my personal life. I felt like telling the advisor where to go, but I would lose my benefits, so I have to play along with the patronising, self-righteous individual. He was talking to us like we were children who needed to be given life skills.
They know that jobseekers will resist and kick against the goad, and they continue to push and invade our space until they have supremacy over the group. They continue along their schedule and do not deviate. We are treated as criminals who cannot be helped until they accept individual responsibility for their unemployment.
We are given praise on how well we communicate and work as a group. But this is only to a level of very basic human interaction, so forget applying your graduate presentation skills because it doesn’t get you any recognition. My advisors are so patronising it’s unbelievable.
Those in their chosen jobs at management level act as though they are a class of people above the average person and manipulate and cajoule those below them until they get what they want. Whereas I have to cooperate with the Jobcentre, I will not always “play ball” with others and I will not justify my actions to them, just as they do not justify their actions to me.
Tomorrow might be a good day at my volunteering place, but that’s hit and miss. I know staying home as I want will be even better and catching up with chores around the house.
Although I’m anonymous, Graduate Fog have my name on my email so they know who I am. But I want to remain anonymous because of the Jobcentre.
Geoerally, I’m optimistic but today I’m down.
The fact that graduates are even being sucked into the Work Programme is a measure of how bad things have been. Such schemes used to be the preserve of school-leavers with the kind of GCSEs you could spell FUDGE with.
People I know who didn’t go to university are now leading adult lives. They are not getting a mortgage but in some cases buying flats outright after saving hard for years. They are having children. Buying cars. Putting down the Jagerbombs and entering long-term relationships.
In contrast I’ve saddled myself with a 20k student debt for a degree that counts for nothing in the jobs market. Buying into all the hubris that it would be good for my earnings potential. Back living with Mum and Dad I’m less independent that I was at university and I’m competing for scraps in the jobs market. Those who didn’t go to uni have three years of money and experience on me!
It is pathetic really. I feel a bit stuck in this odd “delayed adulthood” phase and it is all my fault. I’m just kicking myself for following everyone else off to university. It was all a con wasn’t it?
I’m looking at a property I like the look of on right move. £132k for a one bedroom flat by the station. For two people that is £66k each. The way my mind works if I had got a 22k job for three years rather than a degree and someone had done the same we could buy that flat.
Not everyone will have had a chance to save for years, perhaps only those who still live at home or with a partner. I also find it hard to believe they are buying flats outright, unless they are in very crummy areas.
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