Quote:
Originally Posted by Ignitionnet
I remember working for a supermarket, about 12 years ago. Earning a majestic 4.27 per hour with no uplift for the evenings I had to work.
Prior to that I worked in a warehouse freezer.
Then off to a call centre for a whole 4.75.
Then into IT. 12 years, and some ridiculously long hours later I make enough to be thoroughly irate at the amount of tax I pay.
It was good enough for me, and I am now doing well, what makes these people so special that they're too good for those wages?
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I did a similar sort of thing.
Prior to doing my degree, I had some crap jobs. My first barely paid enough to cover my travel costs and expenses involved at work (eating at lunch etc). Thankfully, I was still living at home so did not not need to worry about other expenses. Having almost no money for a social life was a bummer though.
I stuck with the job because I thought it important to get experience, even though it was a crap job in a company who I thought (frankly) were a bunch of people the word I would use to describe is a little to impolite for family use.
After that, i had a succession of jobs that while they were not as badly paid, they were still too badly paid for the amount of responsibility required.
Then I did my degree. While I was doing that , I have to admit, I think I strike lucky with jobs. For the first few months, I was a shelf stacker in Sainsburys. It was a crap job, and paid miniumum wage, for which I had to work 4 hours a night from 8pm weekends. It was physically demanding (due to the amount of stock we had to put on the shelves) and boring. The manager also actively discouraged any banter, or communication between the workers of any kind.
The other job I had was the one I kept for most of my degree. Renting out videos at Blockbuster. The job itself was hard, badly paid (minimum wage again) and sometimes involved both long shifts and late nights. Stock taking was done once a month and couldn't be done while the shop was open (the in store computer system would not process anything else while a stocktake was going on). But, we did have a good excuse to watch all the latest films (the company didn't like it, but customers expected us to know all about the latest films, so we had to see them) and I did make a few friends there.
My current job is paid quite well (although I could earn a lot more if I wasn't happy to stick with it), frequently inolves late nights and unpaid overtime. But, I feel all the hard work is worth it.
My has been lost a little in all that rambling, so I'll explain it more clearly.
If I had looked at any of my jobs and decided to go on benefits rather than work for a pittance that barely covered my expenses in working, I could well still be on benefits, and earning a lot less than I do now.
Arthur, there is one reason that people born in the UK don't get these jobs. They aren't applying for them.
Despite appearances to the contrary, I actually don't agree with a lot of what the coalition say, but I do agree with one thing. There is a whole benefits culture in the UK where entire families have been claiming benefits for several generations. This needs to stop.