Sound & Fury Signifying Nothing

2004-12-17 at 10:31 p.m.

Spent today arranging this work experience thing. Spoke to someone in Newcastle and I've written to their personnel department, and spoke to a very nice woman at this private clinic place (which I still don't know the name of) and have arranged a day with them in January when I come back. Apparently they're going to give me a uniform for the day so I blend in! Which is rather odd, and makes me rather worried - as mum is now insisting I buy a pair of tights just in case and I am rather worried that any uniform they provide for me will not fit - being rather on the fat side. Still hopefully it'll just be a white coat or something of that nature.

All this meant that I woke up at the unprecedented hour of 9:30am today, though I went back to bed afterwards as I was tired.

Today has been freezing - dad's been complaining of being cold all day. Parents found themselves a new Chinese restaurant they like.

Which - obscurely - reminds me of what I was going to say about the Employment Solutions place. They let down the jobseekers incredibly badly - Peter, our adviser person basically told me that the others have no future ahead of them! They've basically said that they see me differently from the others because I have a degree and therefore can be expected to get a good job, whereas the others can expect only casual work for the rest of their lives. What is galling about this is that the others do have ambitions of their own - Sabrina may want to be a barmaid now, but in the future she wants to own a bar, Imem wants to be a high-class bodyguard, some of the others want to be heads of schools, things like that. They are not without ambition or hope for the future - so why is our lovely government-approved place assuming that they will never achieve their ambitions, whereas I will? They don't even bother to help them to work towards them - for instance I know there is a lot of money floating around the borough for career development, for education and the like. Now most of them know that they need X qualification in order to achieve their ambitions but are not given the information that they need about how to pay for this education. If the advisers could be bothered with them, they could really help them to find work, good work - I had to speak to some woman with money from the council on Tuesday about how they should spend money, and really they should spend it on advisers with a bit of hope for their charges. People who can join up all the various elements - work experience, starter jobs, education, money - join them all up and advise people properly. Rather than just saying "here is a better CV, get on with it". No wonder Tower Hamlets has (apparently) a problem in that Employment Solutions and the like have a good record of getting people into work but their unemployment figures are not changing. If they don't get people into work that they like, long-term work with prospects, how can they expect their unemployment to get any better?

Honestly, people are really irritating sometimes. I'm trying to help the others as much as I can - pointing out jobs they can do now which might offer training, for instance, telling them about the money available from the council, telling them to contact politicians and the like - but I don't have all the information at my fingertips like the advisers should have.

We shortchange the poor, really. The others in this group are in a different situation from me - but that does not mean that anyone should assume that I will make something of myself but that they cannot.

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