the story so far
My name is Lumpen, and I'm in my mid twenties.
This will be the longest post, since I have to bring you up to speed.
I've been on the dole (unemployment welfare) for 9 months.
I got a letter from the government
the other day. It informed me that I was now "eligable" for Work for the Dole. This is a compulsory program designed to humiliate the unemployed on the pretext of "giving back to the community" by "[becoming] more competitive in the labour market".
Next I was sent to a day long session at a christian charity that I was assigned and who run the Work for the Dole program (Work for the Dole is outsourced to private enterprises, mostly dominated by the business wing of christian sects). Let's call them 'The Matey Mission'. The day was divided into two sections; Induction and Certificate in Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S).
The Induction was predictably lame. We sat through a video produced by the Matey Mission that compared unemployent with mental illness, and all the benefits derived from business partnerships between religion and the state.
Next was the compulsory OH&S certificate. Excruciating repetition (writing sentences from a whiteboard into a book) was broken by a training video that featured computer animations of various forms of industrial death and injury. I embarassed myself by being the only one that laughed.
Highlights included the two blokes who decided to be really enthusiastic about the whole thing. There's always a person or two like that. When [Kylie], our supervisor and 'teacher' asked if eye injuries or bone fractures should be reported, one of the keen blokes nearly jumped out of his seat when he shouted "You must, must, MUST!"
When Kylie left to retrieve an overhead or worksheet, the other enthusiast, who looked like a dehydrated fraggle, would loudly discuss with the other keen one, how sexy she was. When the fraggle actually made some comment to her about her looks (she was quite nice looking), she said to him "Fraggle, don't be so racist." I think she meant 'sexist', but you can never be sure.
Another highlight was the refusal of some in the group to sign 'publicity forms', giving the Matey Mission permission to use our name and images to promote themselves and the Work for the Dole scheme.
So I was put into a Work for the Dole program called 'Web Design'. Now, this was okay by me, as I was planning to do a course like that anyway. As it happened, the Matey Mission are running that program in the same building as the Induction and other stuff. I turned up for the first day yesterday.
I was greeted by [Ronald], one of the supervisors, who saw a badge on my backback that read 'No Gods, No Masters, Anarchy'. He stared at it for a while, looked me in the eye and said "God bless you." I think he thought I was going to start yelling at him. When I asked Ronaldwhat the structure of the course was, he told me there was no course structure. They had tried that before, he said, and participants had objected to being told what to do, some people had political reasons. When he said "political reasons" he looked straight at me (another guy was asking him questions too) and did this kind of Black Panthers fist salute in the way people usually do air quotes. It was weird.
Now, on one hand, this is great, for obvious reasons. However, I actually wanted to learn how to be a master of the various technologies of the online interweb. Ronald showed me the locker full of 'Idiot Guides', and said go nuts.
So for fifteen hours a week for six months, I'll be in an office with a bunch of other unemployed people. Join me as I reveal my adventures in following the line of least resistance and report the various goings on.
This will be the longest post, since I have to bring you up to speed.
I've been on the dole (unemployment welfare) for 9 months.
I got a letter from the government
 |
Apparently this guy is one of the seven deadly sins, and I'm not supposed to be like him. |
Next I was sent to a day long session at a christian charity that I was assigned and who run the Work for the Dole program (Work for the Dole is outsourced to private enterprises, mostly dominated by the business wing of christian sects). Let's call them 'The Matey Mission'. The day was divided into two sections; Induction and Certificate in Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S).
The Induction was predictably lame. We sat through a video produced by the Matey Mission that compared unemployent with mental illness, and all the benefits derived from business partnerships between religion and the state.
Next was the compulsory OH&S certificate. Excruciating repetition (writing sentences from a whiteboard into a book) was broken by a training video that featured computer animations of various forms of industrial death and injury. I embarassed myself by being the only one that laughed.
Highlights included the two blokes who decided to be really enthusiastic about the whole thing. There's always a person or two like that. When [Kylie], our supervisor and 'teacher' asked if eye injuries or bone fractures should be reported, one of the keen blokes nearly jumped out of his seat when he shouted "You must, must, MUST!"
When Kylie left to retrieve an overhead or worksheet, the other enthusiast, who looked like a dehydrated fraggle, would loudly discuss with the other keen one, how sexy she was. When the fraggle actually made some comment to her about her looks (she was quite nice looking), she said to him "Fraggle, don't be so racist." I think she meant 'sexist', but you can never be sure.
 |
Not only can he smell if you're on heat, but if you follow him at lunchtime, he'll take you to his pot of gold! |
Another highlight was the refusal of some in the group to sign 'publicity forms', giving the Matey Mission permission to use our name and images to promote themselves and the Work for the Dole scheme.
So I was put into a Work for the Dole program called 'Web Design'. Now, this was okay by me, as I was planning to do a course like that anyway. As it happened, the Matey Mission are running that program in the same building as the Induction and other stuff. I turned up for the first day yesterday.
I was greeted by [Ronald], one of the supervisors, who saw a badge on my backback that read 'No Gods, No Masters, Anarchy'. He stared at it for a while, looked me in the eye and said "God bless you." I think he thought I was going to start yelling at him. When I asked Ronaldwhat the structure of the course was, he told me there was no course structure. They had tried that before, he said, and participants had objected to being told what to do, some people had political reasons. When he said "political reasons" he looked straight at me (another guy was asking him questions too) and did this kind of Black Panthers fist salute in the way people usually do air quotes. It was weird.
Now, on one hand, this is great, for obvious reasons. However, I actually wanted to learn how to be a master of the various technologies of the online interweb. Ronald showed me the locker full of 'Idiot Guides', and said go nuts.
So for fifteen hours a week for six months, I'll be in an office with a bunch of other unemployed people. Join me as I reveal my adventures in following the line of least resistance and report the various goings on.
posted by Lumpen at 6/05/2003 01:33:00 pm
<< Home