The Official Nonsense Thread

[Minty]

You fainted? Glad to hear you're alright, but I think the next time I visited the Globe I'd be taking a carbon monoxide detector with me as well in case their ventilation & heating are dodgy.

Hamster wheel? It'll take more than gimmicks to get me watching Eurovision ever again. Amazed Russia were allowed through considering current events.

The recruitment agencies & temping agencies are one & the same up here, part of the problem. If you are offered a job by one of them, you can never tell if they are telling you the truth that you're only on temporary contract (& temp wages) for the first 12 weeks (which is the law) or whether the contract is really for a couple of weeks at best & the first you'll know it's finished is when you go home that night to find a message on the answering machine from the agency telling you that's it.

I got my fingers very badly burned in the distant past. After several temp contracts under my belt every regular employer treats me like I had measles because all they saw was never staying anywhere for long & the agencies who promised to vouch for me to other employers never did because they didn't want to lose "a good temp". I discovered the hard way I was better off staying unemployed & continuing to apply for permanent part-time or full time than temp ever again, because it never led to permanent. Years later I ended up back at a firm I'd once temped for, this time full time, & was shocked at the way the regular staff regarded the seasonal temps as almost sub-human (ok, one of them did qualify as that considering the number of Friday mornings he came in still high on drugs from the night before). An eye opener to be sure.

The big problem is firms no longer handling their own personel. Many now hive off their "human resources" to these employment agencies to cut costs (& to use them as a deniable asset, if they hire some psycho who offends a customer they can blame the agency) or use them as an "outsourcer". The agencies have no interest in the long term welfare of the company as they're being hired to reduce costs (ie. the wage bill), & the company has none in the agency or who they're hiring - it's "their" problem.

The result is a drive down not only in wages but in staff quality & motivation - being threatened with the sack if you don't hit targets has a hollow ring when everyone knows you're going to be sacked before reaching your 12th week of employment & full working rights anyway, you may as well coast it. Those at the bottom have learned from those at the top not to bother trying when you've nothing to gain doing so.

A company I used to work with that prided itself on staff quality is already on its third recruitment drive of the year in the local papers for 20 new employees having "let go" 20 during March-May. It was only 5 years ago hiring 10 new staff members there in a year was regarded as a turbulent year.

I wouldn't mind doing local voluntary work to look better with employers (anyway, considering the number of local council employees now on zero-hours contracts, in some cases there's little difference!), but after the Pound store affair with that girl in Brummieville last year you have to be careful what you take up & for how long to avoid getting "sanctions".

Yesterday I visited the problem agency & was interviewed at length by a Cersei Lannister lookalike (you can guess how uncomfortable this made me feel!). To be fair she was OK & very honest how bad the market is & all the agencies undercutting one another to ridiculous levels (resulting in wages being less & less) isn't helping anyone. She said "as long as companies aren't financially penalised by the government or consumers for exploiting workforces, nothing will change. You may as well temp & hope someone in the company you're temping with drops out or drops dead or whatever." That was cheery!

(Ollie, I promise this is the last post about job hunting before you end up topping yourself from reading it!)