On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 16:51:52 -0000, "Mr E"
wrote:

I have some sympathy with your comments, but dislike being referred to as a
"smarmy git"

That's fair enough - I was not actually referring to you, but to
various politicians and city pundits who come on breakfast time TV and
make sweeping statements about how wonderful it is to have low
employment. Stated by people who have never had to suffer the
indignity of unemployment. I don't think that applies to you as you
have commented that others within your family have been through this.

I remember the days when I had a nice comfy 9-5 job with a major
employer, never having had the experience I refer to. In those days I
was a "smarmy git" who thought that those nasty unemployed people
ought to get off their backside and find work. Little did I know what
the system they were working with offered!

So when I first got made redundant (1995) I automatically believed
that I just had to go down the job centre and sign on, and everything
would be okay. I learnt very quickly that unemployment benefit and
being treated sympathetically were not part of the unemployment scene,
instead it was assumed by the job centre that I was unemployed because
I wanted to be, and that it was all my fault that I was asking for
money to which I had previously believed I was entitled to. My fault
entirely I suppose - I honestly didn't realise that the money I
thought I could expect actually came out of the personal accounts of
job centre staff.

I don't have sympathy for those within the system that know how to
bleed it dry and who live off the system. But I do have sympathy for
those who find themselves out of work through no reasonable fault of
their own. They are treated very harshly by the job centre, at a time
when their world is turned upside down trying to cope with financial
demands they can no longer meet.

PoP

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