OS Singlies - We Do It Our Way!

mum2one

l love the term "hockey cokey man" - one that i will remember xx

Frankiesphone

mothernerd wrote: »

Not really helpful. Bee and Queue do emphasize their policy on taking on older workers but really only want retired tradespeople - I failed their telephone (automated service) interview several years ago (ie way before I hit 50 - I am currently 56) despite having nearly rebuilt my house twice in the 33 years I have owned it.

It has always been true that it is far easier to get a new job if you are already employed - much tougher if you are out of work. Discrimination still happens, employers are just less blatant about it. Don't blame the person who is out of work (that's what the powers that be want us to do). It is understandable that people like Horace get down after rejection upon rejection.

In today's climate even 'low-level' jobs are fought over, the employer's have loads of choice. Take note if you are in your local supermarket on 'induction night' for their new batch of shelf stackers (one of the jobs people assume anyone can do and would be able to get if they were willing). The intake is over whelmingly young pretty girls (there might be one person over the age of 18).

In addition any job which I have applied for over the last 20 years requires the completion of a medical form which requires you to state any days off work due to sickness in the past 3 years (sometimes 5) and the cause and a further form in which you detail any medication you have taken in the same period (and give them permission to contact your doctor to confirm). A company doctor can determine any medical conditions from these details (one of the reasons I refused anti-depressants from my doctor, as long as I had a vague hope of re-entering the workplace) and if you lie (or fail to disclose anything) it's instant grounds for dismissal.

I became self-employed with very low earnings, because of this.

I fully agree with your comments however, the OP clearly states that s/he cannot get a job 'because' of a disability or age!. What utter clap-trap.

moneyistooshorttomention

Horace certainly doesn't give me the impression of someone who will "sit on their backside" from what I've read over time and finds herself voluntary work to do if she cant get paid work.

I'm sure age and disability aren't total preventers of access to jobs, but must seriously restrict what ones it is possible for anyone to get.

Employers these days are so intent on having minimal sick leave taken by staff and can be very "shirty" indeed to staff who have to take much sick leave. Latterly (though I worked in the public sector) they were getting very "hot" on trying to get rid of staff who had much in the way of sick leave.

In more "Normal Times" (I just about remember them at my 60-something age:cool:) it was the norm for employers to take on enough staff to allow for staff having holidays/sickness/etc. There was a "safety margin" in working out how many staff they needed to employ accordingly. For some years now employers tend to operate without that "safety margin" anymore and take on only just about enough staff to do the job on the basis that there will be little (if any) sick leave. Hence they don't want staff they think might take much sick leave and will try not to take them on in the first place or, if they have taken them on, then find an excuse to get rid of them.

So- yep...disability does make things more difficult.

Then we get onto age. Younger staff tend to be cheaper. You can start them at the bottom of any payscale. On the other hand, if its an NMW job, then they have to be a certain age (cant recall it?) before they get paid the full adult wage on that. It's not just a salary/wage level thing either. I would say that staff of a certain age upwards are old enough to remember more Normal Times at work. I'm old enough to easily remember when office jobs (the type I did) were quite a doddle/standard office hours only/etc/etc. These days office jobs are often partly in antisocial hours (ie evenings/weekends) and are much harder-paced than my agegroup started out with back in Normal Times.

I cynically suspect that the last thing some employers want is employees that will remember (from our own experience) what it was like to work in a more "Normal Times Era", whereas younger staff wont have known any different and will accept that antisocial hours/"hard" workpace/etc are "their lot". Us oldies probably wont actually say "this isn't right/this isn't normal" - but they know blimmin' well we will be thinking it and remembering...

So add together age and disability and people with both will struggle a lot more to find a job. Goodness knows...getting a job has been problematic for some time even for those without those factors.

I can recall that when I went looking for my "promotion jobs" back in my 30s (ie many years ago now) that jobs had already started to get difficult to get. Come my first job straight out of school = I literally walked straight into it. No problem. For first years I always got jobs that were obviously "mine". But...just that few years later and I found that things had changed so much in getting jobs that I wasn't even getting interviews sometimes for jobs that were obviously "mine". That was back in the 1980s (and where I personally didn't have to contend with either age or disability)...so you can imagine what its like trying to get a job nowadays. Add age and disability into the equation and I seriously wouldn't event want to try frankly...

But I don't have to try...because I am now Retirement Age. Horace isn't...so she does...and she is obviously genuinely doing what she can to get one.

mum2one

To be honest with the employment debate although employers are suppose to be equal opportunity employers most will find a way around the issue.

I could go for an interview - my requirements would be ground floor unless there is a lift, extended breaks, can't sit in one position for long, need air conditioning, reasonable adjustments to be able to do the job, then I wouldn't know day by day how my health goes but a positive I do have a foundation degree in business. Compared to mr/miss joe blogs - can do anything pretty much so flexible there horizontal I pretty much know which person the prospective employer would pick.

If there was a work placement then yes they would take me as they would be being paid for me to be there - then at end of trial when they have the big list of what I would need etc it would be sorry your a high risk but thanks for the free labour....

Xx

Southern-Girl

Can I just ask, Mum2one - Why do you need air conditioning?
Just curious :-)

Horace

Frankie you are an @rse!

I take it you don't have a disability? I have a severe visual impairment and in case you weren't aware it is more difficult for someone with a visual impairment to find work than it is for someone who is an amputee. I will not justify myself to you because you are merely an ignorant buffoon! One hopes that in the future you are afflicted in the same way and then you can find out what it is like to live with a permanent and progressive disability.

Well it is snowing here - big fat flakes of it, I am so glad I got home before it started. I missed my Tai Chi class today because I had some chores to do - pick up my prescription and take it to the chemist and collect my eye drops (all 5 boxes of them with 2 to be collected tomorrow). I went into FF and noticed that their T&L sugar was 59p a bag or 2 bags for £1 - these are 1kg bags that are normally 79p each in Mr M's. I got some pink wafers and some kit kats too. I nipped into the children's hospice shop and bought a book and 4 mugs. These mugs are fab because they have dark interiors which makes it easier for me when I am pouring milk and hot water into them because I can judge the depth more easily (can't do that with white inners).

I then went to Mr M's for milk, bread, cold deli meat, salad leaves, grapes, onions. Picked up some sausages that were reduced too as well as boxes of tissues. If it is not snowy tomorrow I will go out again and get a huge pack of loo rolls as I didn't have enough cash on me to buy any today.

Best crack on with some lunch and then some job searching as well as some study.

Winter_Phoenix

Working life is certainly a lot tougher than it used to be. There are zero-hours contracts (how does anyone ever survive on one of those?), "interns" working for free in the hope of being offered a job later, work being contracted out to third-world countries because the cost is so much lower, the relentless mechanisation/robotisation of blue-collar jobs, the continual "retraining" for yet another career as the old one ceases to exist. I've come across graduates working for cleaning contractors (all credit to them for biting the bullet and taking any job offered, but what a waste).

Of course, it's lovely to think of a future where no-one has to work for forty-five (or, now, more like fifty-five) years at mundane, repetitive tasks which they hate, day after day, because all the dull grind stuff is done by machines ... where people can follow their own interests and enjoy every hour of their lives. But quite how this is to be financed, is beyond me. We can't all be entrepreneurs or inventors or creative artists, and even entrepreneurs and inventors and creative artists need a population with enough money to buy their goods.

moneyistooshorttomention

WP

Note your signature with interest....never did pay much (any:p;)) attention in Latin lessons at school...ahem....

Sounds like there is A Tale behind that signature? Are things going okay for you at present?

ellie99

It's not impossible to land a job, but it is difficult, for everyone, these days. Employers may not say it out loud, but I think being older is seen as a negative. Until about a year ago I was applying for jobs, even without my date of birth being on my CV it's easy to work out my age from my employment history. Occasionally I would get the "sorry but no thanks" email/letter. Mostly I just got ignored. (And these were jobs like MITSTM describes, ones which I was qualified for and which I knew I would be good at).
I applied for one job in a field I really wanted to work in (and I hope my covering letter showed my enthusiasm)...I was hopeful because it was a small local company, started by a woman a little older than me, so thought she wouldn't be biased. Made no difference, was ignored yet again. Looking at the company website, all the staff she has are at least 20 years younger than me.

and that's our problem nowadays...the young people need jobs too, and the employers have their pick. I've seen it from the other side with my sons, the demand for apprenticeships is much higher than what is available. My DS2 struggled to get an apprenticeship for over a year, and was panicking that he was getting *too old* (at 18!)...older apprentices have to be paid more, so not as attractive to employers. He got a job doing night shift cleaning in a supermarket, which actually helped him to be chosen for an apprenticeship post, as they said they were impressed he was working (again...easier to get a job when you already have one!)

(As an aside...all the staff were taken on by the cleaning company at the same time as it was a new supermarket...the supervisor was a Polish lady, and in the six months DS2 was there, members of staff were fired and replacements taken on. By the time DS2 left, he was the only original one left, and *all* the new staff members were Polish...staff meetings were conducted in Polish, and he was definitely the "odd one out". I can't comment on whether the sackings were fair or not because I wasn't there, but it's easy to see how resentments can arise).

For myself, I've gone back to what I know, and become self employed again. I know I could have been an asset to the companies I applied to, but I couldn't convince them of that. I had hoped to find work inside and a little less physical as I got older, but never mind. It means I have no job security, no paid holidays or sick pay, and no national insurance paid, apart from my self employed stamp, which doesn't qualify towards JSA and other benefits. But apart from all that, I quite like the job really

moneyistooshorttomention

'Blimmin' cheek to conduct meetings in a language not of the country concerned! (inserts "Err...well...that means in Wales I expect them to be either in English or bi-lingual then and not just in Welsh"). People shouldn't be excluded in their own country.:eek:

But...yes....there is that other point too of "age profile" (or whatever the phrase is) and I do recall a job interview I attended one time where I was specifically told "Our staff (ie the ones in that type of job there) tend to be young. How would you feel about working in a group of younger staff?". To which I obviously replied that it wouldn't bother me (whilst instantly puzzling about just HOW young these staff were supposed to be for goodness sake, as I hadn't yet reached middle age myself - being in my 30s at the time).

I've certainly noticed that staff in some workplaces can be of a very similar age to each other. My bank is a case in point, ie walk into it (not that I can anymore..as its back in Home Area) and every single member of staff I have ever spotted there seemed to be in their 20s.

EDIT; wouldn't that fall under the Race Discrimination Act not to speak in English at any meeting in Britain (if, as well as A.N. Other language if there were a large chunk of native speakers of A.N. Other language there?). That way...no discrimination and other-language speakers would understand too.