"If you can keep your head while all men doubt you

And all are pissed or busy sniffing glue

If you can trust yourself when all girls tweet you

And make allowance for their twitters too

If you can write and not be tired by writing

If lying in ‘til twelve, don’t lie about it

And fib and say you’ve never stopped

Just study hard, do everything you oughta’

And which is more, you’ll be a social worker, daughter.


Graham Chalk
(apologies to Rudyard Kipling)

Exercise 4

 

It has been brought to your attention, as a Social Worker, that there is an elderly man living in your street who appears quite suspicious.

He lives isolated, almost as a hermit.

Also living in the house is a teenage girl who is not his daughter.

He appears to be quite possessive of the girl and dissuades any relationships she makes with boyfriends.

On enquiry you find that there is evidence that the man is on the run from the law having breached the terms of his parole.

He is a convicted thief and makes a speciality of stealing from churches.

He also has links to a terrorist group.

Describe your course of action.

Oh, and the suspect’s name is Jean Valjean.

Snow Report

Weather Updates: Please check with the college website, it is updated frequently.
I just updated it personally. Great news about the war being over, but it's time to put that all behind us and be nice to the Boers.
Don't worry your little heads about whether or not you have any lecturers here on the premises.
Come in anyway.
People do all sorts of hazardous and apparently pointless pilgrimages.
We don't sell any healing waters or anything like that but you can have all the snow you want.
It is rumoured to have mystical properties. whooooooohooooo
Honest.
Anyway. I just wiped the window with my cardigan and I can issue the following Weather Report:

Snow

Although snow is very pretty, fluffy and decorative it is also horribly dangerous and inconvenient, so, for your welfare, we have provided the following helpful guidelines to get you through this period:

Attacks by polar bears or wolves:

If attacked by fierce arctic animals whilst on college business we recommend that you run away very quickly (in the direction of the nearest classroom)

Take care not to allow any of the aforementioned animals to enter the building, (unless they have first signed in and have been allocated the appropriate visitor’s badge.)

If you cannot run to your designated classroom then find the nearest broom cupboard and run there. We cannot afford to lose time simply because you have been careless enough to be chased or savagely mauled by wild beasts.

Accidents: Having an accident is a great tragedy and we are very concerned that you avoid these.

We suggest therefore that you stay off the roads and sleep in the class.

(Some of you will already know how to do this)

We have everything here that you need at New College, we are all very nice, loving people.

Don’t ring into the office to say that you’ve had an accident and will be late.

Road accidents, especially at high speeds take place in a fraction of a second. Therefore you shouldn’t be very late should you?

Health and Safety Guidelines

Following your accident have a good look around for a few moments

1. Do you have the same number of arms as you had before?
2. Do you have the same number of legs as you had before?
3. Is your head pointing in the same direction as it was before? (Look down-if you see your feet you’re ok-if you can see your arse you may have a problem.)
4. You may have to locate any missing limbs for future surgical re-attachment to your body. (Note: Any hospital time should be taken at weekends or using any available TOIL.)

You may ring into the office to let them know that you will be late in the following circumstances:

1. until you have fashioned some snow shoes from tennis rackets and walked here

2. until you have acquired enough stray dogs to haul your Wilko sledge back to college

3. From the remnants of your own, and other crashed vehicles you have built a small aircraft and flown the required distance to your classroom.

Frostbite:

The loss of fingers is to be avoided at all costs. You cannot do assignments unless you have one or two fingers left, so think ahead and try not to compromise your efficiency. Noses may be sacrificed unless you’re required for publicity photos or you wear glasses.

In the event of you dying of hypothermia please let us know in advance that you are feeling tired and are about to lie down in a blizzard and go to sleep.

In order to conform to current traceability procedures you’ll need to tell us exactly which mound of snow you’re under so that when the spring thaw arrives we can retrieve any confidential items from you frozen body.

Information governance should not be taken lightly, even during an icy death.

Dsc/sno/22/12/10

"Care in the Community"

-or-

Gimme a Break
and a Bite
 and a little bit of Concussion.

Well I dunno. Maybe it's me...again

Today a client/service user/resident was taken out for lunch.

The client/service user/resident has a history of violence.

He is taken to a busy public restaurant for his meal accompanied by two female members of staff.

Client is forbidden a second helping of pudding as staff (many of whom weigh the same as a grand piano, but let's leave that one hanging there) have determined that he needs to be on a diet.

The client is unhappy about the restriction and thereupon decides to become a one-man riot.

He rips glazed pictures from the walls and smashes them.

Staff intervene using the approved "holding techniques".

These work very well when you're demonstrating them in a cozy classroom with fellow staff members who really can't be arsed to put some effort into it, but it's a different matter when a big, beefy client/service user/resident has lost the plot and wishes to stop your breathing.

Staff are struck several times and one thumb is almost bitten through.

Client/service user/resident then starts taking his clothes off.

Eventually the injured staff manage to subdue him and return him back to base.

One staff member goes to hospital, and the other one has to complete a twelve page incident report that details what happened, why it happened, what led up to it, and most important of all...to indicate that only approved holding methods were used.

Bad luck for you if you transgressed and used the wrong move when someone is trying to remodel your face.

The staff do this for the same pay as someone who stacks shelves in Tesco.

Any member of the public injured during this kind of incident may not be liable for Criminal Injuries Compensation as the client/service user/resident is not judged to be legally responsible for their actions and therefore will not be charged with anything.

Similarly staff who are injured may get nothing.

 In the above incident the police weren't even called, and if they aren't called then nobody is charged and an offence never even happened.

The staff team is falling apart.

People who are already exhausted have to work overtime to cover the staff who are injured, and morale drops through the floor.

It seems to me that attempting to manage someone who is this dangerous "in the community" is utter madness.

It is a service neither the client nor the staff nor the public.

Jobbed

Sorry it's been so long
I found an agency and they found me some work.
....well quite a lot of work, as it happens
I'm now working pretty much full-time.
and possibly more than that
I'm not sure how all the other agencies failed to find me anything as this one has me working when I'm asleep and in the bath.
Granted I'm working where most people would rather not work.
Granted the pay is rubbish
Granted the work is so dodgy I can't even write about it...yet.  That's the thing about Facebook.
The only thing it's safe to post on here is a picture of your dinner.
I love living in a free country, don't you?
But hey-ho -it's waged employment.
Still trying to find time to write though, and that can be a problem as I've little time to do it.

This morning I escaped from home to as an army of workmen were busy tearing walls down whilst doing a steel-toe-capped Irish jig

I found a quiet corner of Macspoons, nursing  a frothy cappuccino.

Dreams of Boswell and Mrs Miggins' pie shop were lost in a sea of undesirables bearing bawling babies in burberry buggies. 

 Two minutes later a sack barrow arrives bearing a fruit machine which is promptly  installed three feet away from me.

Flashing lights give me an epileptic fit whenever I raise my eyes from the keyboard causing me to froth at the mouth .
I get no medical assistance as people assume it’s the cappuccino.

Oh now this IS amusing.

 Two fat guys with matching shorts, snooker- ball-bearing heads and  squeaky voices have homed in like hungry wasps to a jam pot and have decided to play on the fruit machine.

At least they have obstructed the flashing lights.

Oh dear, now they’ve gone.

 THE LIGHTS! THE LIGHTS!!!!!

I’ll talk I tell you”!!!!

You make me feel, mighty surreal

In which I get a job.
Or possibly not.

This may mark the end of this story.
Or possibly not.
Always leave room for a sequel.

An account of my day:
I know some employers read Facebook so this is a bit -er-restricted.
Isn't this a sad comment on the twenty- first century?
we have the ability say anything we like on "Social Media" but unless it's bigging up our employer or saying what we had for dinner we need to watch what we are saying, because wherever we are, and whatever we say: Big Brother Is Watching Us.
and most of us are so asleep that we accept all this without a murmur

Okay , so I attend an interview with this charity.
It works with homeless alcoholics.
I have experience!
 I've been homeless (I once slept in a car-it was a nice Ford Capri -three careful owners, but the other two were Bodie and Doyle) the seats folded down-you get a very decent night's kip)
I attend an induction event with a gang of other hopefuls-I get interviewed  –only sessional work, but it’s a start...
A letter comes to say I'm in.
One of them.
A made man.
Months pass and I’ve not heard anything so I send them an email.
 Hello it’s me and I’m not dead, can I have some work please.
Oh. Comes the reply from head office. You need to do some shadowing shifts first
Emails arrive with the details.
Just one line on each email.
Not hello. Not how are you., not who I will need to ask for when I arrive to "do shadowing".
Just the name of the building.
Not the location, just the name of the building.
I think I’m going to be a spy or something
So on the appointed day I get up and go to the first of the shadowing shifts.
It’s torrential rain and rush hour and I have to get from home to them, which is over 30 miles and I’m full of hay fever and neuralgia and soaked.
Never mind.
I have to do my shadowing shifts.Dripping wet I announce my presence in the office.
They look a bit confused.
I spot a face I recognise from the induction day, that I did months ago.
Hi I’m here to do my shadowing"
You’re here to do what?"
My shadowing.
"You’ve done it."
No. I think that was my induction
"No" he replies."I think it was your shadowing."
He vanishes to a back room to make a call to head office, comes back, looks at me and says:
“It’s sorted. You’ve done your shadowing, you can go home”
Oh. I reply. I expect this happens a lot."No" .he says. "It never happens"
So I drive back, Another hour through the Red Sea with Moses parting the waves and drowning the chariots so I can get back to my bed in a sea of pollen and hankies.
I just got an email from “head office”.
About seven hours after my shadowing shift that never was.
(I've dried off by now.)
They are “delighted to confirm that you are cleared to work for us”
Well fuck you very much. I’m delighted too, you bunch of retards.

So that's it. My story far.
Probably not the end, probably not the beginning of the end, probably not even the end of the beginning.
What have I learned so far?
A few things. None of them particularly helpful.

1. The systems don't work. When you're out of work it takes forever for the system to recognize the fact. Think of a number. Multiply it by the square root of 132. That's how long it will take to process your claim. The cogs move very slowly and with all the efficiency of a pissed apprentice tap dancer wearing clogs.Through treacle. You  probably have been back in work having been the Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions before you get any money. And now you've passed on and you don't need it. Tough. The consequence of this is that people who are on benefits stay on benefits. They know that if they take a job it'll take forever to process their claim if their job ends. And these days jobs end rather frequently.So people stay put. Chasing them off the figures with an axe won't work. (Dear HMG - clean up your act before you ask your people to clean up theirs.)
2. The people who are supposed to help you get a job are too busy trying to keep theirs. I lost my job servicing a DWP contract. One of the major players in "getting people back to work" have been done for fraud. The others are (reputedly) just as bad, and are so concerned about meeting their targets that they are encouraging laughably unsuitable people to "sign off" and thereby come off the unemployment figures. Which is when they get paid.
3.  After all this fancy footwork, I don't know whether I would employ me either, if I was an employer. I am just a teensy bit of a pain in the arse. I won't stick to things that are cast in stone if those things are a bit naff. And to be honest, in my opinion?:

 A lot of things The System does are a bit naff.

A lot of services appear to exist to continue the service, and not to make any kind of difference at all.

In fact they seem to exist to keep things just the way they are.

Which would be okay if the way they are is good.

But it isn't.

The Western World is in a crisis and the way things are right now is, in a number of ways, pretty shit.

They can continue like this.

But they really, truly shouldn't.

Malice in Pikeyland

 This morning whilst working the dogs I discovered the following items:-

  An abandoned three litre bottle of white cider. It was still 1/3 (33% or 600 units) full.

I think this must be a reaction to HMG's new guidance on drinking.  

The owner probably realised they had exceeded their units for that particular day. How very responsible of them.

Then I found that the quality of the air, being so full of fog that transformed Earth's atmosphere into that of Venus, meant that sound was carrying for miles . It was like walking in a bell-jar. I heard clear conversations from invisible people who may well have been in the next county.

As I continued along the forest path, suddenly I saw :

Two figures strolling towards me in the distance.

As the gap between us closed one of them looked at me and asked

 "Where are the baths?".

Both chaps were fairly dishevelled and of Jamaican descent, the one who spoke had  a pronounced  accent.

I do not live in a cosmopolitan area.

The only people around here who aren't white are those who don't wash because their baths are full of mephedrone.

So, a strange fog indeed was present this morning , materialising as it did cider, disembodied voices and hopelessly lost Jamaicans.

Austin Powers IV: Octopuppys

We all troupe in, looking a bit confused - having eventually found the place-despite the fact that the invitation to interview came with no directions, and according to Google and the satnav this road doesn't  exist.

How very mysterious....

There appears to be this delusion amongst some employers: "We know where we are therefore everyone else will"

Of course it might have simply been part of the interview:

"Client displays initiative:  He found us."

So we go into a sparkling new building (someone has some funding, chaps!)

A "Service User" appears at our table.

He has been, at various times, a "client", a "customer" and according to some  a "useless tosser" but today he's a "service user".

He's a nice lad is Brian. His arms are decorated with so many pictures you wouldn't need a tv set, you'd just sit back with a beer on an evening and read his limbs.

He has alcohol issues, and has been homeless and is very grateful to have a roof over his head.

So, I enquire, by way of conversation "Have you done this before. Helping new job applicants?"

He looks back, furtively

"No. Never. I was only told this morning I'd be doing it"

Brian later tells me that he didn't sleep well the night before.

Thinking it might be because of this new task I ask him why he couldn't sleep

"Oh" he says "I'm going to gaol tomorrow"

I didn't laugh out loud as it would have seemed insensitive.

But let's see...

You're having a batch of disorientated applicants today. Who do you ask to look after them?

"How about this guy. He's never done it before and he's getting banged up tomorrow, let's get him to do it"

Anyway....

The first part of the day:

Q- "In front of you are some pictures of animals. Choose one that represents you."

I look the cards.

It's like Happy Families.

Lovely. I choose a rather attractive muticoloured insect

A- "Look at me, I'm a butterfly flitting from sunbeam to sunbeam in search of yummy pollen wheeeeeeee!"

Everyone looks at me like I am a service user with alcohol issues getting banged up tomorrow.

The candidate opposite me has chosen a rhinoceros. She holds up the card for all to see.

 She is rather young and not at all unattractive.

I wouldn't personally have chosen the blouse she  was wearing for an interview.

It doesn't look like a rhinoceros as much as two small lively puppies fighting in a sack

She looks at me as one would look at a rather naughty poodle.

"I" she begins in a haughty tone "Have chosen a rhinoceros. Is anyone going to ask me why I have chosen this card?"

An idea leaps into my head like a pea popping from a pod.

I know I shouldn't but I just can't say no.

I put up my hand.

She glowers at me , then with some indulgence she says

"So why do you think I am a rhinoceros?" 

I look at her puppies and reply.

"Is it because I make you horrrrny baby?"

 I fear she hasn't got the Austin Powers link so I continue (perhaps unadvisedly)

"Do I make you horny?

Do I?

Do I?"

There is a pause when nobody laughs and magically, out of nowhere a tumbleweed is seen to roll listlessly down the aisle.

The rhino tuts. The tut echoes forever.

"That is the wrong answer" she replies "I am a rhinoceros as I have a very thick skin"

I may have got the job.

Or I may not.

I shall keep you posted.

In the meantime I spotted a lovely dandelion over there.

Must flit.

Toodle-oooh

  

 

 

Bang Off Target

Ah see how the mighty have fallen
Emma Harrison (CBE) http://emma-harrison.com/ (the Blog on her site doesn't seem very up to date ;)

Darling of the Coalition and of the BBC
(but I'm knocking off and going home for it's almost half-past three)
Your paperwork's all checked and signed
In different hands, but never mind
In another month it'll be forgot
another £8.6m bonus and that's my lot

It's all about targets.
Granted she missed hers (well, A4e did) but she came out pretty canny (as they say oop North)...but that's the funny thing about targets....
Targets are very trendy these days, even in places where they really don't belong.
You can go and see someone, get them signed up to whatever work experience/workfare scheme is current and the client might be:

1. Annoyed that you're wasting her time
2. Relieved as she hasn't seen anyone all week and her cat just died and she's feeling bloody awful and needs to offload
3. You might have some useful information to impart to the client and they might be improved by this meeting

But whichever it is, you get the same signature.
You hit the same target
If you're looking at this mathematically, which we should, as it's supposed to be in some way scientific, then we have to say that if plotted on a graph the values would be all over the shop.
 What would these targets indicate? What would they prove?
You may as well throw dice.
Of course Ms Harrison is only one person. As The Guardian has pointed out her sin was that she allowed herself to become a TV personality, so slinking away silently from the wreck like she was an Italian ferry captain wasn't really an option.
It's not really her fault though is it?
The coalition needed a cheesy Tony Blair type grin and Emma was there to provide it.
There are quite a lot of huge companies working on government contracts spending our money and they are all anonymous. And that's not a coincidence. You become a public face and the public may love you one minute and hate you the next, and they'll certainly be able to throw cabbages at you in the street.
Too recognisable
Can you say the same about the chairman of Group 4? Or Serco?
Targets? They do have value.
In a spiritual sense. But not in the sense that you could get someone to tick a box, leave a box unticked, or forge a tick.
A couple of months ago I was working with some "Service Users with Learning Difficulties".
I took one of them for a cookery session. He attends these sessions regularly.
If there were targets for this client group (there don't seem to be targets for this client group. The idea seems to be that you warehouse them for life in suspended animation) then we could tick that box and meet that target because he attended.
But most of the time when he attended he didn't do any cooking.
He sat still and watched while his staff "minder" did it for him.
But I didn't think Getting Me to Do Everything was such a good idea.
So, here we are: Recipe of the Day.
Your favourite: "Chicken Casserole"
I took a turnip out of the bag.
A turnip has many characteristics.
It is pretty large, after all when I was little there weren't any pumpkins and we used to hollow them out for lanterns. They are irregular and inelegant. They roll about a lot. They are also pretty solid.
We need a good solid piece of cutlery for this...
So I started looking for a knife to cut the turnip.
The knife drawer was full of cheap blunt knives with blades that were so thin the would bend when you breathed on them.
"Oh" the voice of the supervisor sounded helpfully behind me
"We don't have sharp knives. For Health and Safety reasons, you know. We don't want anyone getting hurt"
How anyone with poor motor skills, a wandering attention span and anxiety issues was supposed to carve up this cannonball of a vegetable using a knife that would struggle to cut soup wasn't explained.
But he did it. I found a blade hiding at the back of the drawer and properly supervised as he did it. And the rest.
I was told that this was the most that he has ever done.
And that wasn't surprising.
It's usually  much easier to do something for someone, that to get them to do it for themselves, but of course they learn nothing.
As this group of Service Users is not meant to learn anything nobody cares about targets anyway, but if they did, the target would be that they turned up. What they did, and the quality of what was done, would not have been considered.
Oh, and they wouldn't have been consulted much either, come audit time.
As long as we can tick the service user involvement box the job's done.
The quality of the involvement is a bit Will O The Wisp, really.
Oh and the next day I asked the Service User if he enjoyed the chicken casserole.
Without looking at me he replied "It went in the bin"
"In the bin?" I asked "Why on earth did it go in the bin?"
Still not looking at me he answered
"Well I hate chicken casserole"

The Death of Captain Scarlet

Coming soon !

Stop The Press

This is the second time I have spent ages talking to BBC journalists about "my experience of being unemployed"
They ring me, I don't ring them. I'm not that sad.
The problem with this is that I keep sounding too upbeat.
Okay I'd like a job that lasted longer than five weeks but:.....The world is in the middle of a recession so it's not just me.....It could be worse I could be Greek.....It could be worse I could be materialistic and want the Aston that Jezza tells me is "just great and much better than their last p.o.s."
But I'm ok really.
 I'm not living on toast in a frozen bedsit with no money for the meter and seven dwarves to feed.
So although I DO have Incredibly Important Views on the current situation I'm obviously not worthy of interviewing as I'm not about to top myself.
How about that for balanced news then?

Five Weeks in Another Country

Roger Rees, David Threlfall:
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1982)

Well it didn’t go all that well, really.

Did it go as well as could be expected?.
 I suppose it didn’t sound all that good did it? It looked dodgy, right?

Yessss….. I was quite apprehensive about this job.

Apart from the odd setup at the start....You know, the bit that went:
Have you any relevant experience with this sort of client?: 
No
Have you a current Criminal Records Bureau Disclosure Form to show you're not an axe murdering Satanist?:
No.
Do you have any references from people who can vouch for you?
Might be difficult. Everyone was made redundant. Everyone who could have written a reference has gone "poof"
Poof? I see. That's a "no" then? No references?
Possibly it's a "no"..... probably it's a "no"
Excellent. Sign here and can you start tomorrow?
Apart from that, which was a Bit Odd, I was quite scared at the prospect of working with people with Learning Difficulties.

Now there’s a label for you: “Learning Difficulties”.

It doesn’t really mean anything does it? But that seems to be the point

Once upon a time the great unwashed public knew what the collecting tin was for.

You know, there was the collecting box in the shape of a girl with leg callipers. That was for the Spastics Society.

Now you can’t say that word anymore. It’s like using the “n” word to describe a black person. It could get you arrested and deported to Abu Ghraib.

But people used to know what you meant when they said your donation was “for the spastics”. Now they say it’s for ‘Scope’.

“What’s that then, some sort astronomy project?”

And “Learning Difficulties”.

Used to be mental handicap. Now it isn’t.

Mental handicap is a pejorative term, so we say Learning Difficulties.

Which nobody understands.

I mean I have learning difficulties. I can’t read a map. My sense of direction is useless. Also I never did learn my multiplication tables.

Do I have Learning Difficulties?

No, I don’t. I’m just a bit thick.

Names get changed to protect Service Users.  And don’t get me started about the term “Service users”. Sounds like someone who jumps on a bus.

Society is always trying to protect vulnerable groups. Nothing wrong with that. But you can go too far in the wrong direction. Just like me when I try and read a map.

Old geezers will remember Brian Rix.

He starred in lots of TV shows in the 60’s and 70’s then dropped out of sight.

He had a child who had “learning difficulties” and decided to dedicate his life to that cause.

Except it was called mental handicap back then.

Brian Rix’s son was on the radio in a debate about political correctness.

He said “I really don’t like the new terms people use.

Nobody understands them except the professionals. “Mental handicap” the public understand. Nobody knows what you mean when you say “My child has learning difficulties”

I wonder if anyone asks the service users before they change their labels. But no. They cannot give their informed consent and so they need to be protected from the world.

Anyway, I digress….

I was quite apprehensive about working with these people.

Why, I’m not sure. Something about looking into the abyss and the abyss staring back at you. Maybe.

When I arrived at the large, brick-built house I was shown around it by one of the residents.

Simon was a middle aged man and had been in one institution or another for many years. His parents had recently passed away and this had caused him huge anxieties. Recently the police had been called and he had been arrested following an emotional and physical outburst.

Simon was one of the reasons I was being placed on this house. No more single cover from staff teams.

 He did an okay job showing me around though. At least his sense of direction was better than mine.

I met some of the other residents. They were friendly and seemed quite content.

Content. Now there’s an interesting concept.

Is that what we should aim for with people?  Contentment?

Some of the residents exhibited odd behaviours that were probably characteristic of some mental illness or other. I didn’t know enough about these, but it would become obvious that nobody else seemed to know what these behaviours meant either.

There were lots of strange hand gestures.

One of the residents would punctuate his sentences with a bizarre motion which involved placing his hands in front of his mouth and wriggling his fingers furiously. This made him look like a feeding crab or something decidedly insect like. Maybe like an Ood for you Dr. Who fans out there.

 Whatever the gesture meant it was repeated regularly and without variation during his communications.

I asked another worker about it. The other worker said to me

“Oh, it’s him being threatening. I’ve told him off about that”

“Threatening?” I replied. “No, I don’t think so. He does it when he’s happy. He does it when he’s excited. I don’t think he does it when he feels threatened”

“Really?”  He said this in a way that suggested that nobody had ever brought it up before. Either way, he didn’t seem to think it important.

There were lots of strange facial expressions in this group of service users.

Lots of repetitive behaviour and lots of speech disorders.

I hadn’t seen anything like it since Prime Minister’s Question Time.

There was a young man. Eighteen years old. His name was Thomas.

Thomas was a big lad, about six foot three and well built.

He was very friendly, he made excellent eye contact. He was quite appropriate in most of his communications, except that his voice was way TOO LOUD and he would make some repetitive and sometimes bizarre statements.

He would say to most of the staff team, regardless of their gender that they looked like Cheryl Cole.

 Or better than Cheryl Cole.

I think I got “You look better than Cheryl Cole” but he might have just been trying to get in my good books.

I think I struck up a good relationship with Thomas. Or he struck up a good relationship with me. I’m not too sure which way round it went.

Although he was an adolescent he had a learning age of three and he couldn’t read or write at all.

He was, however very enthusiastic about almost everything, and he loved being busy and engaged. He loved music. His taste was a little off the wall but he loved music.

It was Christmas and he’d been bought an MP3 player by the staff team.

I asked him what music he liked and I put some on his machine. Culture Club and Status Quo. Weird.

I tried to teach him how to download but as he couldn’t read we kept running into brick walls.

Ditto with the MP3 player.

 In order to navigate around menus and find the tracks you need you need to be able to read.

And he couldn’t read.

But buying presents for people in institutions is like that.

This is your present.

Isn’t it lovely?

Now go away and stop bothering me.

Thomas had previously been bought a camera.

 Great idea. I love photography

“Can I see what you’ve got on your memory card?” I asked him

I looked at the pictures he had taken.

There was one of him staring at the camera and gurning.

And here was another one him staring at the camera and gurning …and another….and another.

That night we went for a walk. It was cold, too cold to be out really but I was determined we would come back with something other than gurning pictures.

So we stood in the freezing night air

So he turned the camera round

Darkness.

Inky black. Chill and oh so very clear

Apartment blocks lit up like neon signs, reflecting shimmering pools of light on the lake surface.

So he turned the camera around, we took some pictures and he was happy.

We walked back to the house through the winter cold and the freezing mud.

Thomas showed the pictures to another worker who seemed almost shocked by them.

They are…very artistic really.

Yes. They were.

Really.

Thomas would meet me at the door when I came on shift. He was keen to do stuff.

It didn’t really matter what the stuff was, he just wanted to do things.

I was quite happy to do things with him, and to do things with anyone else who wanted to do things. And there seemed to be quite a few service users who wanted to do things.
Maybe they wanted more than just being content after all.

That’s when I took a look at the staff rota and found that I was to be moved out….

To be continued...

The Waiting Room

So my last two interviews .....
One was for a mental health charity. I was asked to wait in the front room of a converted terraced house in Darlington.
In the room were two abandoned service users, covered in cobwebs and staring into space, some Christmas decorations left over from the Boer war and a tree that was the size and appearance of an unpleasant fungal growth.
I don't know if this was some sort of test and I was supposed to organise a singalong with the room's occupants-if it was, I'm sorry-I failed.
I think the interview went okay, but they still haven't told me the result, which I'm assuming means I didn't get it.
Would be nice to be told , though.
They did the same on the last interview I attended with this company.
Not a word.
Not a "Thanks for showing up and missing Jeremy Kyle". Nada.
Thing is that they were interviewing candidates from three days...and there was only one job.
I hate that kind of maths.
But then there's the other kind of maths.
My next interview was at a local City Council.
It was being handled by an employment agency. mmmm lovely. I love agencies.
But I applied and got my interview
I'm not sure exactly what was going on here but it was quite intrigued.
Instead of one job and three days worth of candidates there were twenty-six jobs that needed filling by next week.
It was one sort of job (do everything and do it yesterday) and all sorts of clients.
From Alzheimer's to Autism.
And some that didn't start with the letter "A"
Again, I think it went fine.
I gave them a rundown of my "professional" life, which is now quite broad and varied. I steered through the dangerous rocks of various questions, for example:
Client-centred approaches.
It's weird but although people are happy to see that twenty years ago the job they are doing wasn't client centred and now it is more client centred, they always seem a bit prickly about the thought that in twenty years time their approach will seem like they're those guys with pointy hats from the Spanish Inquisition.
It's the way life is.
Things change. All the time.
But I didn't say that.
I said that "I'd known bad times in work practice environments, but now times were great and everyone was really scrummy."
Then the time came for me to ask if I had any questions.
 I couldn't help but pop one in, as it were:
"How come you need twenty-six workers by next week?"
She seemed a little furtive."....errrm....We're not allowed to recruit any staff through normal channels.
There's no funding.
So we have to fill these posts somehow.
So we're hiring people for four months through an agency."
I couldn't help but wonder what sort of economic miracle she was expecting to occur by March 2012 that would release all this funding. All the forecasts I've seen suggest this year is bad and next year will be worse.
So I looked at her sympathetically and said
"Twenty-six people to start next week?....I'm glad I've not got your job"
She looked at me with horror, shot a defensive look to her colleague and replied:
"I love my job".
So I guess in the end I said  the wrong thing anyway....

Ah Mr. Jones, Please Take a Seat...

So anyway At my last interview I was asked a question that took me a little aback
No, it wasn't "Are you wearing fishnet tights under that suit?"
That would have been sexual harassment (and also a spookily good guess)
The question was:
 "Has any manager or supervisor ever had cause to question your practice ?"
Now I'm used to the bit about criminal convictions:
"Have you a criminal record?"
I usually answer:
"Well I've got "Abba's Greatest Hits". Does that count?
Brings the house down.
Or you'll get:
"Have you ever had disciplinary proceedings brought against you?"
But not:
"Has a manager ever given you grief about anything you've done"
The real answer I should have given would have been something like:
"Look. I've worked with vulnerable people since 1986.
I've seen some changes.
When I started my professional career I worked in an old fashioned asylum where some staff would beat up the patients. I didn't like it, I said so and I got into bother.
I worked with young people before the Children Act was passed.
When The Management rule was :
"Ask the child, tell the child then make the child"
I didn't like that.
It got me into bother.
I've worked with some pretty unprofessional, non-client centred and sometimes hysterically illegal  outfits.
I've worked with people who did illegal things routinely.
Condoned by The Management.
So if you're asking me to provide an honest answer in this little interview room that doesn't make me sound like an egotistical paranoid nutter then I'll say:
"Nope. Nobody ever questioned what I did. Not ever"

You what now....?

Mrs. Newt rang me : I hadn't got the job.

"Oh well, thanks for letting me know...."

"Would you like some feedback?"

"Yes, sure"

"Well you knew your stuff but next time you might make more eye contact."

"Oh, erm...ok....."

This had me puzzled. I was making a pretty conscious effort to make eye contact.

I'm getting the hang of this interview lark..."eye contact", that's paragraph three,

Just after the part that tells you not to stare at the interviewer's tits.

"You mean during the interview I wasn't making eye contact?"

"Oh no" she replied "During your presentation"

I had to do a ten minute Powerpoint presentation on a subject they had given me and I had prepared the night before.

I had to use their laptop.

There was no projection facility so I had to read from a laptop screen which faced 180 degrees to the interview panel.

 I know ideally you don't read your presentation from a screen but as it was a subject they had just given me, I didn't exactly know it by heart.

And  I did keep turning round to them (with lots and lots of eye contact) when illustrating my points with some (admittedly largely fictitous) anecdotes from my working life.

I felt I should give some feedback to my feedback:

" er...how could I possibly make a lot of eye contact when I was reading off a little laptop screen, and the laptop was at the other end of the room facing the other way?"

"Yes" she said" I can see it would have been difficult"

I hope I had pressed the "end call" button on the 'phone before I screamed some rather harsh language.

So I have a plan:

 Next time I shall wear antennae, so that I can look two ways at once. 

And possibly paint myself blue.

These things may stand me in good stead.

I read that these days employers have to value diversity.



Frogs!

Well it's been an interesting week
On Thursday and Friday of last week I had three interviews and today, Tuesday, I've had another.
It was at "The Frog Centre" in Middlesbrough.
I tried putting this in the satnav ...nothing....ribbit
I looked for a map on Dr Google....nothing...ribbit ribbit.
I headed for the nearest place that my satnav could find....ahhhhh...there's a van with a frog on it!
Nowhere near the van was there any evidence of a Frog Centre.
 I pressed the doorbell of the nearest building.
Nothing. No answer.
ribbit ribbit ribbit
I drove around the block looking for random amphibians....aha!....sitting outside a local school was an ornamental green frog.
I asked a guy walking past:
 "Frog Centre?"
and.......... he pointed me back the way I had just been
I looked at the building for any reference to "Frogs" or "Centres" but reference was there none.
I was now ten minutes late for my interview.
After much hammering on the suspect door a small newt arrived and said she was expecting me.
"Is this the Frog Centre?" I asked
"Yes" she replied "it is indeed"
I looked her for a moment. Then at the building. Then back at the newt.
"How can anyone tell?"
She looked at me contemptously and swam off.
It was not a good start.
On Friday I had another treasure hunt.
The headquarters of a local charity in Middlesbrough
It was a sensible address.
No frogs, no aadvarks, no drysophila to squeeze into the satnav
I parked the car and looked over to the building.
There was a row of shops, and a sign for the Job Centre.
I investigated further.
One of the shops was a large off- licence.
It looked like any other off -licence until I looked a little closer.
Bars.
Not the kind you drink at.
Yards and yards of steel bars reached from floor to ceiling separating the customer from the booze. Enough Lambrini to refloat the Titanic, but sadly out of reach.
There was a little hatch, like a bank teller's window where you could put your money through and take your tinnies, but other than that there was no browsing allowed.
Odd really.
I mean I haven't really come across a place that sold anything that had to be built like it was expecting a frontal assault.
Interesting though. The place was enormous, so obviously was doing quite well.
And the fact that it existed at all suggested that the usual places for cheap booze-supermarkets- were keeping we away from the hood.
A nifty place for an entrepreneur with three tons of scrap iron and a sawn -off shotgun.
Anyway....back to the treasure hunt.
I entered the gates of the Jobcentre, a place where all the locals gather to worship, bringing offerings of Stella and pork scratchings
Past the (spookily unmanned) reception area.
Past the signs saying:
"Don't leave bikes here"
"If you leave your bikes here they will be stolen"
and:
"If you leave your bikes here they will be stolen and some bastard will come back for your legs"
I took the lift. It delivered me to the floor above the Jobcentre.
I don't think people normally came this far...
There was a long corridor with several dividing doors.
I walked through each of them.
I examined each door.
They all had very temporary looking signs on them, one of them read:
"The Deaf Centre", which had been altered to read:
"The Hard of Hearing Centre" and then changed to:
"The Differentially Enabled Auditory Association"
I suspect the sign had been there for some time.....
I walked past my door - I'm not sure what was written on the sign- it referred to other services the organisation delivered and the company logo was teeny tiny.
In a darkened passage where I was in imminent danger of being bushwhacked by an unemployed cider-swilling cyberman I had missed the vital clue.
I entered, did my thing, strutted my stuff and went home
So there you have it.
Sometimes actually finding where you need to be for an interview is a challenge.
Prospective employers may think:
Well I know where I am, therefore everyone else will know where I am.
Or maybe it's an initiative test.
Or maybe, as most of these jobs have already gone to someone's cousin who works at the company already and therefore knows where it is....or maybe they are trying to head me off at the pass.
Nope.
I got there.
I got to all four of my interviews
Four in three days.
Frogs and all.
Ribbit!

Cars 2

So the Insurance Assessor came to see our battered Ford Ka and shook his head:
"They'll write it off. They always do."
He filled in his paperwork and vanished.
That was three weeks ago, we've heard nowt since.
In the meantime we've been supplied with a brand new Peugeot 207 (dreadful car) which costs somebody £50 a day to hire.
So let's see...that's £50 a day...we haven't heard anything back from the insurers yet.
No offer for the wrecked Ka, so it'll be at least another week.....28 days at £50 a day...that's £1200.
But I think it'll take longer than that.
Usually they make more than one offer and you negotiate...so let's say it might take another month...£2400
The vehicle is worth-at best £500
Do  you ever wonder why our insurance premiums are so high....?
I rang Swintons, the brokers today.
 I couldn't see the point in keeping the Ka insured as it wasn't being used. So let's cancel the insurance and save some money.
I rang them to do it.
"Well we don't think you can do that.... We think they changed the law and you have to keep it insured."
I rang the DVLA: "Yes you can cancel the insurance on the Ka if you take it off the road.No problem. Fill in a Sorn while you're at it"
I rang the car hire company to double check.
"The replacement vehicle is covered separately so yes you can cancel the Ka insurance.No problem"
So I rang Swintons, the brokers back.
"I want to cancel my insurance on the Ka"
"Oh, have you got another car?"
"No" (I lied. But I wouldn't insure a Dinky Toy through these guys again.)
"Oh well...we'll have to check and see if you can do that....We'll call you back."
That was three hours ago.
You know, you pay people money for some sort of service and you assume they know more that you do....in some cases this obviously isn't true.
Next time I call a plumber I don't expect he'll ask me how to solder a pipe.
If I ever go for an operation I don't expect I'll come out of the anaesthetic and the surgeon will ask me if I have "any idea where this bit goes".
With some people its all about meeting their targets.
These people are just there to sell you stuff.
Don't expect them to have a clue about anything else, and if they do have a clue, don't expect them to tell you.
You're just the customer.