Sometimes it takes the eyes of a foreigner to see the clown world state that Britain has descended into. A Britain where the health service is woefully institutionally unhealthy, the police don’t properly police crime and which has a Border Force that can’t control the invasion that is pouring across the country’s borders.
This particular Ukrainian guest, discussed by the author Harriet Sergeant, who I discovered via Baroness Fox of Buckley’s Twitter feed, found out the hard way that what a British institution says it is for often doesn’t exactly match up to what it actually does.
She clearly isn’t asking the right question. Not my experience at all. Maybe she requires an interpreter?
This entity, like so many other UK state ones, offers patchy service. You might have been very lucky in what you found but there are others, such as Ms Sergeant herself who point out that the Job Centre falls down when it comes to being proactive in finding people jobs.
All organisations can be iffy. It often comes down to the skills, experience and I suppose even attitude of the service provider.
I tend to buy my railway tickets in person at the booking office (until they all close). The advice and therefore value for money is in part a product of the service provider, but in part the way I phrase the question and the level of detail I provide.
Yes, my experience is limited to two Job Centres but several members of staff.
Like any other service provider, it’s something of a lottery, but broad brush condemnation based on statistically irrelevant evidence has little value.
I flew once by Ryanair 22 years ago, it was a dreadful experience, ipso facto, Ryanair is a poor service provider.
I agree that you can get public servants who are absolutely excellent and who do provide extra value for money, as in your example of the ticket offices. The problem as I’ve found out is that there are some entities, especially state ones, where the service is particularly poor and where excellence is almost non existent. Back in the days many years ago when I did go to the JC to look for work I found the occasional member of staff that was helpful but a great many more who were just time servers. Yes these are anecdotal comments but judging by the comments BTL on Ms Sergeant’s post there are a lot of others who have had similar negative experiences of JC’s.
They left ‘worth’ out of the centre’s name – it’s set up for them, not for you.
Nice one! Mind you I’ve found that dealing with lots of bits of government is like dealing with a ‘Jobsworth’ centre.
I’m told that job centres stopped being useful when they went computerised. They used to display job ads on notice boards, so an out of work plumber could get à job pushing wheelbarrows while he looked for something better. Now it’s “Computer says no plumbing jobs “.
You might have a point there. There are a lot of people who might prefer the ease of looking at the boards rather than searching on the computer.
Absolutely agree. For all the benefits of a database (volume, ease of access, ease of filtering) for some people the computer is and always will be a terrifying foreign language and completely. impenetrable.
There I live the bus route maps at the station were just that, maps. Now they are “interactive”, they flicker all over the place, confuse people and are frankly useless. An over complicated answer to the question “which bus do I want?”
I have to agree with the article posted. My one experience of a jobcentre was very negative indeed. I actually wanted to find a job and naively thought that was the place to go, the first question I was asked was “do you want to claim benefits?” When I answered no they lost interest instantly and said “look at the screens then”. They were a disinterested waste of time.
Strikes me as being entirely the right first question, unless you are one of the fortunate few who has savings off which to live while looking for a new job. Most of us are “two pay cheques from poverty”. You’ve been paying taxes for long enough, gratefully accept what is rightly yours. Then go and look for a job. Indeed is probably as good a place to start as any.
Have I upset you in some way Julian? You seem to be trawling this site in order to disagree with me or is picking on individuals online and trying to provoke them a hobby of yours?
Sorry Roy, I thought this was a site for discussion. If it’s just a place where we all agree each other one of us is on the wrong site.
Discussion is valuable to civilized reasonable people, hurling abuse and making infantile assumptions in public tends to be the hallmark of the troll. I only engage in discussion and will no longer be replying to your ranting.
PS. I think you mean “uninterested” or “not interested”, “disinterested” means something else altogether.