Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

Don't be a victim of todays society or beurocracy, live your life as you want to by NOT joining in the rat race and scrabble for glitz and 'things' and status. Be true to your own heart and live a simple life that gives YOU personal satisfaction. You can't fix the ills of this world, you can't stand in front of the tank containing the rules and changes and expect it to stop because you want it to. There will be ways to achieve much better and satisfying lifestyles without rocking anyones boat. We have the skills and the innovative thinking to do much more with what we DO have than most people. When the chips are down and we have to fall back on our own resourcefullness and we have the collective here to ask for ideas and solutions. I know you can't fix it for everyone and there will always be those in society who cry 'it's not fair' but will not lift a finger to help themselves but most folks will listen so stick to your own idealisms and help if you can is the very best any of us can do!!!

Broomstick

Thank you for that post Mrs LW. It's staying optimistic that is the tough one and that needs all the bolstering up it can get.

I was going to post this anyway, but it's fitting here because it cheered me up so much. I've just got the latest course list from the Weald and Downland Museum in Sussex.
http://www.wealddown.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Trad-brochure-2015-Website1.pdf
I have no connections with them and haven't visited the site in ages but I've realised that doing some of these courses, or ones like them in other places, would make me very happy and would be a fun way to meet up with new people. It's given me a new goal for sensible things to save up for! Nothing this year but definitely next.

B x

Karmacat

That course list is **amazing** ... I can't see me having the money or the energy to do them right now, but yes, its a plan for next year thanks Broomstick.

[Deleted User]

The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum is one of my very favourite places to go to and having done quite a few of their courses I can heartily recommend them if you have the inclination to learn something new. I love the actual place and the way the site staff have dressed the cottages and houses in accordance to what is known about the period of history they belong to. Biggest delight is watching the gardens of the houses, which are actually planted up with whatever would have been grown in that time grow on and get harvested as the seasons go on, particularly the herbs they grew both for the pot and medicine. Fascinating stuff and very relevant to prepping too!

BROOMSTICK I'm not sure I'm an optimist and I certainly don't wear rose tinted glasses to see this world, I see it warts and all. What I do have is the confidence and reassurance gained from actually knowing how it worked in bygone times and the skills from those times so I know we would still have a reasonable life if the world as we experience it these days was changed and gone for some reason. It doesn't terrify me as a thought like it did years ago. There really is a lot to be said for actually doing things on a practical level like your forebears did, it can be learned, and it gives a certain measure of peace of mind.

moneyistooshorttomention

ivyleaf wrote: »

Me too.....

ETA After I'd been on long-term sick with ME for quite a while for the second time, I popped into the local Jobcentre, literally just down the road, and asked one of the staff if he could photocopy my med cert for me so I could send the original in to HR (which was now a couple of hundred miles away.). I usually had it copied at the chemist, but I was too ill to get there.

He glanced nervously round at the Manager, in her glass-walled office just behind his workstation, and said "Come with me."

I assumed he was taking me to the photocopier. No; he led me to a telephone, where I was expected to ring a callcentre somewhere else to make an appointment to come back and have my med cert photocopied in the building I was currently standing in.

I commented that it seemed ridiculous when I was actually a member of staff. He said miserably "Yes, it is ridiculous, but that's how we've been told we have to do things now."

You can guess who I used to work for too then...as I promptly burst out laughing in recognition of this sort of thing:cool:. That sort of pettifogging attitude did start creeping in big time latterly and the whole idea of "serve the public" seemed to go right out the door:(

You can imagine just how popular I was(nt) sometimes because I took a much more practical view of things and it did not go down well in some quarters. I wasn't prepared to "live in fear of my own shadow" though and stuck to what I regarded as the ethos of it (ie "Serve the public") if it came to it.

You don't want to know how many times I got told off...I lost count by a long chalk....they gave up trying to do so come the end LOL.

ivyleaf

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You can guess who I used to work for too then...as I promptly burst out laughing in recognition of this sort of thing:cool:. That sort of pettifogging attitude did start creeping in big time latterly and the whole idea of "serve the public" seemed to go right out the door:(

You can imagine just how popular I was(nt) sometimes because I took a much more practical view of things and it did not go down well in some quarters. I wasn't prepared to "live in fear of my own shadow" though and stuck to what I regarded as the ethos of it (ie "Serve the public") if it came to it.

You don't want to know how many times I got told off...I lost count by a long chalk....they gave up trying to do so come the end LOL.

:T Well done you! I couldn't believe it when he said I had to ring and make an appointment, I thought he was joking at first. You couldn't make it up!

moneyistooshorttomention

ivyleaf wrote: »

:T Well done you! I couldn't believe it when he said I had to ring and make an appointment, I thought he was joking at first. You couldn't make it up!

Thank you.

If I'd been that colleague then I'd have sneaked off to some photocopier somewhere in the building and done the photocopy on the spot (if I'd had to pretend to be going to the loo to do so). I certainly had to sneak in a fair amount of photocopying one way and another I do recall. Fortunately, it was very much come the end of my time there that management got wise to sneaky photocopies (unfortunately, I suspect there was quite a lot of personal photocopying going on) and changed the machines to ones that had to have our personal details input before photocopying if my memory serves me right. But I would have thought one little photocopy (even marked up as being down to me) would surely pass through the system without comment.

I wouldn't do face-to-face confrontation if I could help it, but I would definitely do "sneaking around" to do the practical thing, whether it be on behalf of myself/other staff/the public.

You just learnt in the end which staff would "keep their mouth shut" and nod and wink along and which were jobsworths that would go and "tell on you", though I have had some outright rows before now.

The equivalent I had to your situation one time was where a jobsworth type member of staff needed to let me into the building one time when I didn't have my security pass on me. He acknowledged he recognised me, but was intent on first ignoring me at the door/then just opening the door to tell me he wasn't going to let me in. At that point I had to push straight past him and tell him in no uncertain terms that he well knew I was an employee there and just head past the little Herbert. I was furious because I knew full well that I had seen other members of staff having relatives/etc in through that door for some reason, but he was trying to keep me out (despite being a member of staff). Yep...I was thought to be persona non grata by some members of management and he would have been acting like that because he probably knew it....despite me being a fellow employee.

Some other members of staff weren't like that, but were rather "cowardly". I sussed out which ones would just grin/wink and be more practical.

Karmacat

Thanks for your posts, you guys. I've been self employed forever, and I'd no knowledge of how broken the system is, despite a friend of mine working at a jobcentre (she's a union rep, so maybe her energy is focussed on how to get round this kind of craziness too) ... but this is a real eye opener.

RAS

Thhis might be of interest to those further north than Wealden https://www.facebook.com/HeritageCraftAlliance - the web-site appears to be down but the FB page gives you an idea.

charlies-aunt

As an ex-civil servant - .In my latest incarnation, I am now on t'other side as a Welfare Benefits Adviser for a charity...and I find my bit of insider knowledge is a wonderful thing...