Failure and bitterness.

moggylover

SamIAm wrote: »

I don't see why there should be shame/embarrasment on your part. You were working before and are clearly looking for work and improving your qualifications so I don't see how you can see yourself as part of the minority group who are not looking for work when they should/could.

I may get flamed for this, but although there are clearly a lot of cases where benefits are needed and justified, there is always going to be a minority few who play the system or don't see the need to work when they could. I just don't see you fitting into this group!

I think the thing is that you are right - especially that it is a MINORITY, a few.

I do, however, think people are wrong when they assume that it is a life choice for many not to work. I doubt that the majority wanted it to be that way, but given the area they were unfortunate enough to be born to, and the poor schools many of these areas have they somehow ended up with all the pride and hope sucked out of them and gave up before they had even started.

It may not be something to be proud of: but having actually visited some of those areas worst affected by long-term unemployment it is totally understandable if one looks with an unprejudiced eye.

mower5

moggylover wrote: »

The first part of this post made a lot of sense! The second paragraph misses entirely the fact that many of the areas worst hit in the early 80's have not seen any appreciable influx of jobs since, and remain depressed and hopeless places to live.

The knee-jerk reaction at that time, when it was realised that the free market was not actually going to invest in those areas and had little use for the people there was to "shift" them on to longer term and more generous benefits instead of creating jobs. Many of them, by that time, were already seriously depressed (not in the acute and desperate stage, but past that to the hopeless and demoralised one) and many had health problems that come from that depression, so in many ways it was not actually a "lie" at that time.

However, at no time since has anything constructive been done to address the criminally depressed state of what were once proud working areas and the benefits just get increased to "keep the masses quiet". This has the second benefit that whilst most of middle Britain is moaning about the Daily Mails "lazy scroungers" they are not keeping their eye on the corruption above and so the old divide and rule system is working just perfectly;)

IMO what IS criminal is that the wealth at the top of our Country has grown massively in the last 15 - 20 years, and yet even with all of that at their finger-tips no-one was willing to invest in the most needy parts of our Country and attempt to give these people back sufficient work that they could return to work. It is absolutely NO flaming good keep telling people to work if there is no work for them - and despite all the protests to the contrary there simply is not work in many areas, nor enough help with re-training or even moving to areas where there are jobs.

Thanks for your interesting reply.
However 5 years ago i would have agreed with your thoughts about lack of jobs in rural areas and old industrial areas however the vast influx of eastern europeans of recent years has shown that jobs were present thoughtout the whole UK. (I am not having a go at the Poles, i admire the determination they show to improve their lives.) The jobs still are there if you want it enough.

A Slovakian friend of mine came to this country about 5 years ago with the ambition to work as a dustman, he had spent a couple of years in Germany then when he arrived here with not a word of English he walked to all the local factories and warehouses begging for work. He got a warehouse job for 2 years before he got his dream job as a dustcart driver around London earning good money. Unemployed Brits need to get off their lazy @sses and work.

moggylover

carolt wrote: »

Agree, but that said, having no money and being about to starve would probably do wonders for those lacking 'confidence' to apply. We all lack confidence in certain situations, but when you have to deal with it, you find that actually, you do survive. I've been unemployed and was v shy as a teenager - yet I still coped with going for - and getting - jobs. There's nothing like actually being made to face things that bother one to enable one to get over them and realise they're no big deal after all.

What unemployed people need is a job, even if it's not perfect - so they can get something on their CV's, develop skills in situ, develop that elusive 'confidence', and even if they hate the job, at least learn that and plan towards getting a job they would like.

Sitting on their !!!!!! achieves none of that, and costs the rest of us who do bother to work.

I refer to long-term unemployed here, BTW - not those recently unemployed due to recession etc.

I agree in some ways, but Carol you appear to have a reasonably good education, and to actually be aware that there are things you are good at. Were you to have not been able to learn in school for the various reasons (including poor teachers and disruptive pupils) and your family were too down-trodden and beaten to encourage you, and you had absolutely no idea about what you could do other than work in McD's perhaps the motivation would be harder to find.

moggylover

mower5 wrote: »

Thanks for your interesting reply.
However 5 years ago i would have agreed with your thoughts about lack of jobs in rural areas and old industrial areas however the vast influx of eastern europeans of recent years has shown that jobs were present thoughtout the whole UK. (I am not having a go at the Poles, i admire the determination they show to improve their lives.) The jobs still are there if you want it enough.

Sorry, but the majority of them were not working in those areas that are most depressed for a start off. Also, many of the Polish were migrant workers, not immigrant ones and the standard of living offered by our minimum wage (especially when one was not supporting ones family on them in this Country, but were living in shifts in overcrowded houses and sending the money back to Poland, including in many cases the WTC and CTC that they were claiming) in their own Country was a hundred times better than the standard of living people could achieve in this one. Furthermore, the Polish migrant workers often had a better standard of education, and more confidence in their ability to turn their hand to things they were not necessarily trained for. Furthermore, they could afford to take the seasonal jobs (which abound in this area in the Summer) because they were not going to have to make 6 months of minimum wage last months more than that because the system does not make it easy to then sign back on when the contract ends, and the waiting period, and processing period can leave you in debt before it is sorted.

moggylover

lynzpower wrote: »

Agree in the main- howeverwhat does happen to those who become long term unemployed ( ie lost job long ago) is that often many of them really dont "survive" and find themselves embroiled in lives of crime, drug addiction and alcohol dependency, or develop mental illness from mild depression- to lack of self esteem - and the longer it goes on, for SOME, thier illness becomes debilitating.

I think this benefits bashing really does have it all wrong.

If someone is reaching 20 years of age and left school at 16 we really do have to ask ourselves as a society why that is. What in our all encompassing state has failed here? Why is that? What do we as individuals contribute to helping that person, in word or in deed?

I was raised by parents who believed that having a good education and never stoping learning is fundamental to success. Not huge flashy mansion success but financailly contributing, emotionally contributing and staying well away from the wrong side of the law. this is the recipe for a fulfilling life, which includes having positive relationships, interesting jobs, and a reason to live. Above all, it gave me great resiliance- not pasing that exam first time, is simply an opportunity to pass it the 2nd time and to not give up on anything you really want.

We have to look at why we have such a chronic underclass in this country. I dont believe its the benefit system alone- although I do believe it is part of it, along witha complicated system in general. I truly believe that the benefits system is SO complicated that it IS a full time job to claim them, and when the system ***s people over that people fear what would happen to stop thier claim, then undertake some sort of temporary work -when this ends they find they cannot claim/ recieve for ages. its also a total nightmare for those who move a lot (eg people in hostel accomodations) This deters people taking on "bit work" something that might give them confidence and skills to find permanent work later on. I support the use of ID cards to monitor and trace every individuals claims to state benefits with the intention that this information does away with the myriad of forms that claimants have to fill out every single time they sign off and on. We will see a lot more temporary & short term work obver the next few years, an people should not be discouraged from taking it .

The underclass is becoming very entrenched in this country and I personally believe that media attention will make some vulnerable people appear very brazen and present as "untouchable" by the DWP ( eg those families we see in the daily mail that wew shout GET A JOB AT) The fact is they are much more vulmerable to state whims than me for example. I wont have my income chopped off due to admin error. Of course it makes some claimants aggressive, many of them,( from first hand experience as a socail worker) are petrified that they can be made destiturte at any time.

I could ramble on and on, but to me the most important thing any of us can do is to promote resiliance in any one you know.

"if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem"

:T :T :T :T :T

LillyJ

mower5 wrote: »

Thanks for your interesting reply.
However 5 years ago i would have agreed with your thoughts about lack of jobs in rural areas and old industrial areas however the vast influx of eastern europeans of recent years has shown that jobs were present thoughtout the whole UK. (I am not having a go at the Poles, i admire the determination they show to improve their lives.) The jobs still are there if you want it enough.

A Slovakian friend of mine came to this country about 5 years ago with the ambition to work as a dustman, he had spent a couple of years in Germany then when he arrived here with not a word of English he walked to all the local factories and warehouses begging for work. He got a warehouse job for 2 years before he got his dream job as a dustcart driver around London earning good money. Unemployed Brits need to get off their lazy @sses and work.

We have about 8 friends who work on the bins (OH's colleauges from when he was in the TA), and they absolutely love it. They think it's the best job in the world. It's hard to get into though, mates of ours coming out of the forces are trying to get the guys who are already in to get them a job, but they are pretty sought after. Good pay, fab hours (start early, finish early), and apparently pretty good banter too.
They say it is very hard physically and is draining but none of them would change it for the world. Most of them have also got HGV licences out of it too.

mower5

LillyJ wrote: »

We have about 8 friends who work on the bins (OH's colleauges from when he was in the TA), and they absolutely love it. They think it's the best job in the world. It's hard to get into though, mates of ours coming out of the forces are trying to get the guys who are already in to get them a job, but they are pretty sought after. Good pay, fab hours (start early, finish early), and apparently pretty good banter too.
They say it is very hard physically and is draining but none of them would change it for the world. Most of them have also got HGV licences out of it too.

He had friends who drive for the company and you right about the pay :beer:

The_White_Horse

Cleaver wrote: »

Oh, sorry, did I take it out of context then?

You're comment above is correct, but the OP was using it very clearly along with the 'bad back brigade' slur to assert that people who don't work due to certain physical and mental illnesses are 'lazy scum'.

they are lazy scum.

all this depression stuff is nonsense. my friends mother was depressed, she hanged herself. she still worked though, up till that day.

sitting in the priory is a new remedy, for a new illness. 30 years ago, how many were "depressed" compared to today? hardly any.

that is because 30 years ago, they had to work. now they don't as the state lets them sit around the house in a dressing gown.

most of the time, the cure for depression is work and socialising. not wearing a dressing gown and watching jeremy kyle.

the bleating liberal lefty is too blame. they have the wool pulled over their eyes time and time again, if you don't agree with them, you are labelled as thick, homophobic, zenophobic, a nazi, anti-green or whatever bee is in the collective lefty bonnet this week.

if you really want to see how many "depressed people" and how many "bad backs" there are - take away council flats and benefits and lets see who can and can't work.

Kenny4315

olly300 wrote: »

Kenny4315 wrote: »

Being on anti-depressants doesn't necessarily mean you are sleepy and so in theory you can still drive, however I agree with you that due to their sleeping problems (not every depressed person is given sleeping tablets) and depression they would hardly be driving around.

Being depressed does make you have strange thoughts about death, also tendency to have panic attacks, etc, hardly good for driving ?

If you don't need sleeping tablets then it is very unlikely that you have a severe depression, at one point I didn't sleep for 3 days, the first set of tablets that were supposed to knock out a horse didn't work either, finally after some time they found something that did knock me out, but it took a high dosage, and anyone who drove on such medication would be a danger.

Kenny4315

The_White_Horse wrote: »

all this depression stuff is nonsense. my friends mother was depressed, she hanged herself. she still worked though, up till that day.

A symptom of depression is suicidal thoughts and tendencies.... given your illustration you have proved this point.

Although I agree there are plenty of guys who claim depression who are not, I work for myself, so there is no advantage of taking time off but I had to, I don't get any benefits as my net assets are to high, I had too much on the go and I had stress from every side, eventually your brain can not cope with it all, and it was my cash on the line when I had it not anyone elses, and lots of it. £1m plus.