It's like some kind of medieval trial, but with paperwork "In order to save the princess and the realm, you must slay the dragon of administrative incompetence! But unless you can prove you have insurance we will not give you a sword - which you need to have a license for, and go to this sword safety and team bonding seminar we're holding next week. What's that? The dragon is setting fire to the crops and killing the villagers as we speak? Shut up and go to the seminar!"
I remember getting that kind of runaround with the Aussie equivalent, Centrelink - especially once they outsourced all the actual jobseeking stuff to employment agencies who honestly didn't care about helping people: they just wanted the payment they got from Centrelink when they could claim to have put someone into a job. Not necessarily a job they were qualified for, or that would last more than a week, or one with an employer who would actually pay them - just a job (they put a friend of mine with a heart condition that has left him with 17% cardiac function to work as a garbage man - not driving the truck, mind you, but actually running behind the truck, lifting the bins. He did it for a day, 'cause he's a stubborn bastard. His wife went and had a few choice words to the employment agency the next day, while he was bedridden on oxygen).
My favorite experience with them was when someone at the Centrelink side of things told me that if I had a substance abuse problem or was homeless, then they had all kinds of helpful programs, training and grants that they could offer me... but since I was reasonably stable, educated, and clean there really wasn't anything they could, or would, do to help me find a job.
Yep, pretty much. There was a memorable seminar in which an 18 year old spent the entire seminar whining about how he wanted a job right now and he just couldn't get one. The lady running the seminar said, "Right," turned to a computer and asked him, "Do you have a car?" "Yep." "Are you fit?" "Aw, yeah!" "Are you on drugs?" "Aw, just weed." "Can you give that up?" "Aw, yep." "You have an interview with this logging company three days from now. Bye." "Sweet!"
We never saw that guy again. Basically, if you've got a car and the body of a relatively fit guy then you are absolutely qualified for any number of jobs in the Hawkes Bay region. Girl without a driver's license or significant amounts of job experience? Bahahaha, yeah, sure, you'll find a job no problem. We have no idea how, but we'll keep reassuring you of that while we do not do anything to actually place you in a job, because you are so not our target demographic. Maybe if you got a meth problem?
I remember getting that kind of runaround with the Aussie equivalent, Centrelink - especially once they outsourced all the actual jobseeking stuff to employment agencies who honestly didn't care about helping people: they just wanted the payment they got from Centrelink when they could claim to have put someone into a job. Not necessarily a job they were qualified for, or that would last more than a week, or one with an employer who would actually pay them - just a job (they put a friend of mine with a heart condition that has left him with 17% cardiac function to work as a garbage man - not driving the truck, mind you, but actually running behind the truck, lifting the bins. He did it for a day, 'cause he's a stubborn bastard. His wife went and had a few choice words to the employment agency the next day, while he was bedridden on oxygen).
My favorite experience with them was when someone at the Centrelink side of things told me that if I had a substance abuse problem or was homeless, then they had all kinds of helpful programs, training and grants that they could offer me... but since I was reasonably stable, educated, and clean there really wasn't anything they could, or would, do to help me find a job.
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We never saw that guy again. Basically, if you've got a car and the body of a relatively fit guy then you are absolutely qualified for any number of jobs in the Hawkes Bay region. Girl without a driver's license or significant amounts of job experience? Bahahaha, yeah, sure, you'll find a job no problem. We have no idea how, but we'll keep reassuring you of that while we do not do anything to actually place you in a job, because you are so not our target demographic. Maybe if you got a meth problem?
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