"The British at Work - To Have and Have Not, 1980-1995"

Saw this BBC programme looking at work in the 80s and early 90s, where our jobs could "enrich and exhilarate" or "humble and humiliate". It referenced the politician who said "on yer bike", panned to a north-eastern man who did his best to take this advice, showing the pitfalls of staying in temporary accommodation to work at a nuclear power station in Kent, showing the stark reality of the effect on his family life. There was also reference to the emphasis on "entrepreneurial spirit" with early adverts for Enterprise allowance with the rather preachy psycobabbly coaching-speak caption of "Inside every unemployed person is a self-employed one."

Interview feedback

Must admit didn't feel too good about yesterday's interview. I'd parked and walked up the road in the address following the internet map, not seeing any sign of the premises and reached a named road which was past it on the map, and looking ahead it all looked residential so turned back to see what I'd missed and walked on the other side of the road, by which time it was gone 10. I eventually found it looking carefully at each junction, it had been concealed by a hedge with only a very small gap and a more prominent entrance on the side road, the time was about 10:07.

Didn't wait long to go in upon arrival, there were two interviewers, it broke the ice early on when they said "don't know if you know much about us but we're builders" so I got to drop a mention of their work on one local historic building and one modern one that I'd read about from their website. They described their setup and the role, pretty like other accounts roles I've had, then very unusually said "anything you'd like to ask us now?" which really caught me on the hop as I'm used to there being many questions from interviewer to me before that. I hesitated a bit then, really felt the nervousness in contemplating whether this was the right time to mention my disability, decided I'd probably best do so now, also raising the work trial scheme. They'd said there were normally 4 people (including this role) based in the office so whether that's enough to have the supplier contact I wouldn't be able to do I don't know. It was a bit more positive after that when I got chance to talk through what accounts packages I'd used and how doing my club accounts on computer has kept my hand in while out of paid work. They did say they were interviewing for most of today.

No job worth crying in the night

Going back to that thread on MoneySavingExpert about the girl who was nervous about taking the credit control job here's her post where she'd walked out this morning after crying in the night. No job is worth that.

Interview

Post has arrived and I've got an interview on Tuesday, my first since November. It is at a builders company I'd applied last week. Fingers crossed!

"No jobs without phones"

This poster is currently in a call centre and looking for ideas of what to do that didn't involve phones or dealing with the public. Most of the replies have been to the effect that there's no jobs without phones and public contact except factories. I know I've had to keep applying for things I could otherwise do apart from these aspects, hope to get an interview, mention my disability at that stage and stress that's the only aspect I'm less able to do.

BBC News - "UK unemployment total hits 17-year high"

See this link, will add some comments later

Credit control - "we have to improve your assertiveness and confidence"

A post on MoneySavingExpert, this girl has just been offered a Credit control job. The interviewer had warned her "a lot of the job will involve taking abuse from from people who don't want to pay up their debt" and that "we would have to improve your assertiveness and confidence in order to deal with this."

I should know with how awful it is to be on the other end of the phone, in that I was being given abuse by the credit control bods, even though the decisions about when to pay were being taken by the cretins higher up, they hold on as long as possible, but then it was ME who took the flak on the phone. Yuk!