Going to work

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1

When I found my small one man business started to grow very fast I was able to take on more staff and so I got intouch with the local Job centre,
Well when i interviewed the male’s i found that more than one person had no interest in working for me or anyone else,
One person comes to mind as he said after my serving him coffee and telling him the wage and what was exspected of him & all training would be given to ensure he was safe using the high ladders etc,
He said, can you just sign this form to say im not what your looking for ?
I replied I know you have not worked for over 18 month’s But you’ll soon get into the routine,
His reply was unless you can give me (after all deduction’s £300 per week in my hand it’s just not worth my while as i get housing allowance, unemployment money, and child allowance before i get out of bed;
I was shocked and annoyed, I did phone up the job centre and we had a chat and they we’re not shocked and asked if i still wanted to employ such a chap ?
Being ex HM Forces you can understand my feelings ref this matter and my reply,
I ended up employing two male and one female, The young girl to work in the office (Mywife took a weeks holiday from her long term employment to help this young lady to understand how the office was to work) and the men with me on the outside work, Both needed to learn every thing from how to clean windows and use the Ladders / The cleaning of floors using the machines and chemicles / to cleaning even house hold ovens (I’d got a contract with a large letting company to keep the houses they let out ready for new customers to move into,
By the time another 18month had passed I found myself going on training programs for all chimney cleaning & repair work plus AGA stove company provided trainiing on the correct way to both clean the actual stove’s & the lnsulation and fitting of the lining,etc

The only problem i had was finding staff who wanted to work,
Trying to get staff who were of good health (ie did not suffer with fits or any other medical problems i needed to nkow about was hard, The job centre could not provide any help in this area and the same came for criminal record, ie did they have any convictions ? I’d been asked by north wales police HQ if i’d be interested in taking on verious police buildings? I’d have to tender for the work and if succesfull it was a good contract to have,
I got the work and emplyed another 4 men "all needed to be able to clean the window’s to my standard and in a good cleaning time; “no smoke breakes or chatter after every window cleaned”
Things looked good, the company was moving in the right direction and all sides of the company was growing week by week, But checking on the two questions i needed to know was a pain,

ie Are these men honest trust worthy or had they been part of the great train robbery?
Did any of them suffer from any illness such as fits? Using the ladders and Industrial frames was a danger to unfit persons, Inspite of me providing forms the employee had to read and sign confirming they had no police records for any crimes & they did not suffer any illness i need know about was always a worry, ie we’re they telling me the truth?

One day after i’d been cleaning the police stations & court building I had just employed a young man who could clean windows, He’d been working with his dad who he said had his own house to house window round "but he and his dad did not get on and my wages we’re much better than his dad paid him,
It was his first day and a nice sunny day so I put him with three of my experienced window cleaners on the outside of the large local police station, (get the outside done while the weather was dry)
Myself and my longest serving member of staff “Steve” got on the insides early in the morning hoping to get as many offices/interview roooms done before the staff came in and then it was hard to do all the inside work due to people being interviewed etc etc,

Steve was a nice lad but a pain in the backside as he was a local lad and liked nothing better than to look at the who’s wanted photo’s on the walls in some offices, He’d say hey look boss i sat next to him in school, or I know him, or he use to pinch the milk of the doorsteps on the way to school etc etc etc, This day as we entered this office he started, Look boss (I said just clean the windows and try to keep up with me Im not interested who’s getting hanged next week now come on)
Please boss just this one !!! Have a look at him you already know him,!!!

He would’nt move from that wall so i thought just this once i’ll please him and then “work”
I said come on as i stood looking at the wanted list, who am i looking at?

That one, he pointed to a photo, Why should i know him I asked?

Because he’s working on the ladders outside this station !!!

It was the lad who worked for his dad, i spoke to the desk sergeant who said he’s wanted for failing to turn up at court for house theft, (No wonder he was good on ladders)
we both went out side tobe greeted by an empty ladder, He’d done a runner never to be seen again,
After that we came to an agreement that any person i used for the police work if i gave the police information they asked for ref the employee they’d would say yes or no if they we’re to be able to work on such buildings,
So going to work is not just about picking up your wage packet, Every day can be different and in some ways entertaining,

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2

Send him to Australia, refuse a job offer and your dole is cut off, it is part of the mutual obligation to get your dole. If your dole is cut off there is a 13 week waiting period before it restarts.

You’ll need to do all of the following:

go to all job interviews
accept any offer of suitable paid work
not leave a job, training course or program, unless you have a valid reason.

I think they also have to apply for a minimum of 40 jobs a month.

All that for $781 a fortnight. No one in their right mind wants to be on the dole.

https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/mutual-obligation-requirements?context=51411

3

Same here, Daniel. Employers find it hard to recruit suitable people at that wage level which often competes with the allowances an unemployed person with children usually gets.
One could ask the naive question why the wage is that low or why allowances are that high. So either the wage is raised or allowances are cut to create a gap that motivates employees.
Since you worry about the physical fitness of the employees, for that kind of work accident insurance is paramount. Is there any and who pays for it?

4

That’s the society we live in now, however, if someone gets their housing ect paid, and the wages of a job leaves them with very little money, ( after they have paid their own costs) then why would they work? Until people can work for a decent living wage then this will continue…

5

Another issue is higher education. Everyone want a top office job doing nothing but sitting on backsides. No one wants to learn a trade and even if they do what can they learn doing just a 6 month appreticeship? you can learn virtually nothing in that time frame.
Long gone are the 3 year apprenticeships for little pay but you actually learnt a trade to last a lifetime

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6

I’ve never had a job in an office but I have lots of jobs that involved sitting on my backside or wandering about looking at things. Most of my working life involved waiting for something to go wrong, 95% boredom (well, reading a book or doing the cryptic) followed by 5% terror, getting things to work again.

It was for the 5% that I earned the 100% of my salary.

7

Reminds me of the time a friend asked my husband if he would give his son a job. He agreed until the son came up with his “conditions”, he would only accept the job if he was collected from home every morning at 9.00 (everyone else started at 8.00), he required at least an hour and half for lunch, should not be expected to do any heavy lifting (the job was in construction) and to be returned home by 4.00 pm My husband withdrew the job offer!

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8

Did the Lad end up in Politics? :grin: :icon_wink:

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9

When you find something good to do, best keep shtumn, ya don’t want anyone else jumping on the band wagon.

10

Every young person I know who went to university do not do a job that relates to the subjects that they studied at university. In a nutshell, they/we have wasted public money to educate them in subjects they will never need.

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11

Foxy, do you need reminding about the loans and student debt, they carry their own burden nowadays.

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12

Paying for their own dole money :frowning_face:

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The majority of students will never have to pay back their debt Spitty because they have to earn a certain amount before they need to pay off the debt. The debt will also be waived after a certain amount of time.
An apprentice, although earning a fairly low wage, not only doesn’t end up with a debt, but they get the appropriate training gratis, and pay into the national purse by way of tax on their earnings. It’s a win win for all concerned…
:grin:

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14

You know I know that, but the farming of our youth into further education at their cost to avoid unemployment seems a double bluff :icon_wink:

15

Have you not forgot some of the waste when we went to school ie the so called subject of career advice for employment when you leave school?

How many of us students we’re told or given any Information about careers we had never thought of such as working for the RSPCA or the R,A,CE, / The council welfare offices/ the list is long and all job’s to train for, even working in the health care dept in O.A.P homes helping to care for these much needed people?
Just because you did not have the education to go to the university should not stop you from knowing what jobs you could do if only you know about them, “Vets assistant for animal lovers”

As far as any careers advice given in our school was very very limited,

I do remember helping to take the junior form to the River Mersey to show these young kids what happend to their waste, It was a huge concrete pipe that let all the human waste enter the river
myself and two of my class mates had the job of keeping these kids from getting run over or strangling each other,
Some of the comment’s really were text book stuff "

Oh look miss that’s a Mersey gold fish is’nt it miss ? ( It was a human number two floating down river)
And an other young future thug asked "Whats that miss? As a Gorex(excuse spelling) full of water went floating past fully inflated and looked like some kind of baby shark,

Miss decided not to reply to this question,
“But help was on hand from another child”
It’s a willy mac to keep it dry when it rains,
Who said you need a higher education to get the message over? :roll_eyes:

16

Never had any career advice when I was at school, it was always assumed that you would take “A” levels and go on to Uni. I left school the day I finished my last “O” level, started as a “Youth in Training” with the then GPO Telephones and never looked back.

17

Always wondered if it were possible to become a Careers Advisor, with never actually ever having had one!
I think the school staff had a quick meeting and decided who is going to do the careers thingy this week :icon_wink:

18

When I left school at 15 it was a given that all the blokes went down the pit. and the women went to work in shops or stayed at home and raised the kids.

19

And look what the future had in store for both the mine workers and the women ,

20

The only “careers” advice we got was you either worked in the local tobacco factory or went into an office. (I did both, worked in the office of the tobacco factory!)

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