Man Walks 11 Miles To Job Interview - Ed Miliband Offers Hope

Jennifer_Jane

For my last job before retirement, I was encouraged to consider working for a large company who are the major employers in this area.

To get even the chance of a permanent job you had to have worked, on average, two years as a contractor, and before that as a temp. To get the first temping job, I had to attend an interview, which meant taking time off from the current temping job and then:

Walk to the train station - 45 mins
Two trains to the Company's local village station
Taxi from the station to the Company.

I asked the taxi to drop me at security (as I'd been told to do); and then discovered that security was a mile or so from Reception! Across all the Company's fields in which sheep were baa-ing at me as if they'd never seen a woman walking past them in an interview suit on a blistering hot day in little white shoes...

I arrived at the interview and after a couple of minutes was told what time to report on the Monday for a week's temping job.

I then walked across the Company's land to the bus stop on the road, (now the buses access the site); bus to the station, two trains to my local area, and walking back home. I arrived home from my 4 pm interview at 10:30 that night.

The employment agency kindly phoned someone also on their books to give me a lift until, after a couple of months, some money had come through and I could buy a small car.

Jennifer_Jane

out_of_cash wrote: »

Maybe stinking rich businesses would like to share some of their profit with their employees via the wage packet, instead of paying them rice grains.

Walking cos you like it is totally different than having to walk to work on a daily basis.The Tories would see this as perfectly acceptable with their out of touch mentality as they think we are all in the same boat! posh boys in cruise liner and jsa claimants in a rowing boat.

Many of them do this: certainly only the larger businesses could be considered "stinking rich" and many of them are suffering these days. At least my last company is (I won't mention bad management, that's another thread!).

But we did have share options, SAYE, discounted bikes, discounted laptops, private medical aid paid for by the Company, discounts at various local companies, a very generous pension plan (I mean where they contributed generously), discounted child care, and so on.

When I worked in London I certainly mostly used to walk to and from work (Chelsea to the West End), about 1.5 hours walk. Rather than taking two tubes, say.

ALIBOBSY

Well I haven't worked at the DWP for over 6 years and even then we were given some guidence on dealing with people who threatened suicide or had mental health issues as well as dealing with the many, many agressive threats made against us every day and visiting officers/job centre front line staff were given more training.

The fact is the front line staff are dealing with alot of pressure, number of staff have been reduced and the number of claimants have increased. Under every gov of all "colours" the number of targets and pressure from above increased and the amount of leeway you had to help people was cut and cut. At one point a decision maker could take into account personal situation when making say decisions on backdating at their descretion within the law (as do the tribunals), this was gradually taken away to the point where many decisions were down to a set number of criteria and if the customer doesn't exactly fit them no chance. No wonder the number of appeals went up.

TBH I am one of the so called floating voters and have voted for a number of different parties over the years, but so far ed et al haven't done the 2 things it would take for me to feel less betrayed about my previous labour votes and go back to them. The 2 things would be 1) be honest and accept that the problems we have now are not just because of world wide issues and the credit crunch-hold you hands up and admit we used the extra cash to throw at people to get votes and popularity instead of saving for a rainy day and the no boom and bust statement was the biggest error since chamberlin waving his bit of paper.
2) come up with a credible alternative to what the current gov is trying as opposed to the old flannel "we would cut slower" and everything the gov do is wrong-politics of negativity

Ali x

GeorgeHowell

The fact that existing staff are being trained is a step in the right direction. Labour would have put an additional specialist counsellor in every JobCentre and borrowed some more money from China to pay their salaries.

Wookster

It is quite incredible that some posters believe that spending a few billion more here or there will turn the economy around.

They have been duped by Ed 'spend it all' Balls.

BobQ

My great uncle told me that in the 1930s he had to cycle 25 miles each way each day to the docks to stand outside the foreman's office with dozens of others to see if he was lucky enough to be picked to work for a couple of weeks on a ship.

Give Cameron a few more years and such stories will be commonplace.

GeorgeHowell

BobQ wrote: »

My great uncle told me that in the 1930s he had to cycle 25 miles each way each day to the docks to stand outside the foreman's office with dozens of others to see if he was lucky enough to be picked to work for a couple of weeks on a ship.

Give Cameron a few more years and such stories will be commonplace.

That one turned full circle didn't it. The dockers unions eventually called all the shots and as a result put their industry out of business.

GeorgeHowell

Wookster wrote: »

It is quite incredible that some posters believe that spending a few billion more here or there will turn the economy around.

They have been duped by Ed 'spend it all' Balls.

Ed Balls tells them what they want to hear.

DecentLivingWage

Ed 's point was that hardworking decent honest working men like BobQs grandad should not be forgotten or glossed over or left on the scrap heap to fend for themselves while others live off the fat creamed off by indolent do-nothings. The millionaire cabinet are in danger of getting this label in their new NoHopeSociety - things won't be easy but his message was he'll not forget them or abandon them or the other millions of the working poor and job hunters.

ILW

DecentLivingWage wrote: »

Ed 's point was that hardworking decent honest working men like BobQs grandad should not be forgotten or glossed over or left on the scrap heap to fend for themselves while others live off the fat creamed off by indolent do-nothings. The millionaire cabinet are in danger of getting this label in their new NoHopeSociety - things won't be easy but his message was he'll not forget them or abandon them or the other millions of the working poor and job hunters.

You do seem to do nothing but spout platitudes, but never come up with any suggestions for practical alternatives to that which you so dislike.