Beezelbublog is another of my psychological muses. This is mainly as the posts seems to be ripped out of my own mind, for the most part. The current post is about Centrelink and six months on the dole and the ignomy of having to go to a Job Search Assistance Centre. It ends with the mantra of all the unemployed and most of the employed:
I think I'm having a mid-life crisis. I am going to learn how to make things out of wood, I am going to learn how to sew. I am going to find someone to sing with. I am going to get fit. I will find someone to love (I am going to start looking).
<teardrops and violins>It is truth.</> But she's got me thinking about my time with a Job Skills organisation.
Arrival: “Sit down, show me your resume”
10 minutes in: “There is nothing we can do to help you, you seem to have it under control. When the I.T. market picks up you’ll be fine”
12 minutes in: “You need to fill out these forms and attach details of jobs you are applying for, just make it up from what you do on the internet at home and fax it through. You will, however, need to come in once a week and sign a form saying you were here 3 hours a day”
3 weeks later: “Good work getting a job (Ed: without Job Search’s help), that will be great for our next report to government. It makes it look like we are doing something.”
6 weeks later (after receiving a Job Search Questionnaire): (Phone Call) “Hi, how’s the job? Great. Did you get the Centrelink Questionaire? Yes? Would you like help filling it out? No, well in case you get stuck, just put Above Average or Excellent for each item, that would really help us out with more funding. Don’t put excellent for everything, though, Centrelink gets suspicious about us coaching people to fill the questionnaire out. Sweet. And thanks. Bye”
You may think I am exaggerating a bit, but I am outraged to say that the above is pretty much verbatim. The guy who ran the place knew what a scam he was running and knew I was smart enough to see it. To his credit, he didn’t patronise me and laid the truth out bare. I’ll let you make up your own opinion on the validity of Job Search Assistance programs for the dole in the country, but next time a government minister or Centrelink bureaucrat points to “healthy feedback about the program from Job Seekers”, try not to snicker.
2 comments:
I was tempted to observe that it was the season that had you down; after all, the leaves are ripe and rapidly dwindling from the branches. The sun sets obscenely early; you step out of work into darkness, your evening stolen away by evil daylight savings time. You can feel in the air the cold, dead of winter creeping up on you, resting its boney hand on your shoulder.
Then I realized I was being a moron. In October you Aussies are goin' "Eh, mate, here comes spring! Crikey!".
Or maybe it's summer already and the killer wombats have been loosed. I never can keep it straight.
We are going "Crikey, here comes Spring. Struth!", even though only the most southern parts of Oz actually experience anything Springy. North has the two-season tropical paradigm: wet and hot followed by dry and hot. Here in Sydney (half way) was have 8 seasons: wet and springy, dry and springy, wet and hot, dry and hot, wet and cold, dry and cold, wet and pissed, dry and smashed. And mostly in the same day.
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