Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Can't, Blog About It

[verlaine]

For a long time I was steering clear of LiveJournal because (a) it doesn't work as a write-only medium, it's only any good if you read everyone who's reading you; and (b) keeping up with my overstuffed flist had become a full-time job, I had to commit a good number of hours to it a day to do it justice

Comments

[barrysarll]

I was nodding along with that admirably-put summary until the last sentence. Most modern jobs are entirely pointless, the equivalent of Revolutionary France's attempt to create work by paying half the unemployed to move rubble from site A to site B by day - and the other half to move rubble from site B to site A by night. If governments would just adopt this, drop the ghastly tatters of the Protestant work ethic and pay a living wage instead of a slightly-too-skimpy dole, we'd be laughing, and it would still cost less than bailing out the venal, clueless (w/b)ankers who claim to be creating the wealth.

[verlaine]

Tessa works for the local government (though she gets a year of maternity leave starting next week, yay) and it's very depressing hearing her talk about it. Having hired her on on the basis of her university degree and people mediation skills... as far as I can see they use her to do basic maths because no one else can do it. The office is infested with 50-something ladies who have been in the same job for over 30 years and cannot do the simplest tasks, but have total job security due to "seniority". Some of them are at retirement age but refuse to retire because they would be lonely and apparently cannot be made to. When there are cutbacks, and there are, there's a first-in-last-out policy so the new recruits are shown the door independently of any merit or facility they may have shown

[barrysarll]

The system isn't there to achieve any theoretical result. The system is there to perpetuate the system, and any result is at best a bonus.

[verlaine]

I haven't quite reached those depths of cynicism yet. I think the (governmental) system is there to perpetuate the system *and also* carry out a fairly simple set of administrative tasks. It beats me why they can't do the second part of that remit well; I guess because you're right and the first part of the remit is what's actually important to them.

[eponymousarchon]

...and those who can't blog, use Facebook.

[bateleur]

If I apply to minimum-wage bookstore or customer service jobs I am knocked back, allegedly because of the danger I'd move on when something "better" came along.

Back in the previous recession - the one that hosed our parents' generation - my father was asked to write a reference for a friend of his. She was a physics teacher, very highly qualified, but couldn't get work. So she'd applied to work in a Post Office. And they were so paranoid about it. They didn't want to know if there was anything wrong with her. They wanted to know what was up with her. Because they'd smelled the rat alright. Oh yes.

I was half hoping that the following year she'd clean half a million out of their accounts and flee to Barbados, just to retroactively justify their attitude.

[verlaine]

Yes, there's a real belief knocking around that different types of people are manifestly destined for different kinds of work, and it would be a crime against nature to subvert that. It shows a commendable faith in the system: why would anyone allow there to be high-flying, prestigious degrees in the humanities if there weren't high-flying, prestigious jobs in the humanities to go with them?

Personally I think they should bring back the eleven-plus. Letting people choose the nature of their education clearly results in a lot of twentysomethings with skillsets woefully non-appliable to society's actual needs! :P

[editor]

Write a damn book already. Or at least sell some ad space on your blog.

[barrysarll]

Someone else I know tried the 'ads on blog' route recently (he's already in a bloody brilliant band, but it goes without saying that's no moneyspinner). Made peanuts, though there was a certain amusement in seeing what ads were considered relevant to any given post on a blog about how the last decade was shit.

[mrlloyd]

Are there any NGOs where you are? While I'm not sure if any of the big causes would float your boat, I find it easy to imagine you working for 'The campaign to reintroduce Latin at high school', or strategising on behalf of 'Conflict mediation via Bridge'