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!