Confused re attitude to benefits and work experience

I'm afraid you don't understand Publicly Listed Companies, Tilly. The model is completely different from a privately owned company.

Once you're listed on the stock exchange, your ultimate products are your share price and investor returns. Your intermediate product, whether food retail or building warships, is just a means to increase the above. In the same way, customer service is simply a means to achieve profit, not an end in itself. The lower staff might believe they're there for the clients; the board don't harbour any such illusions.

I'm not adducing any moral value to this: it's just the legal duty of a PLC to serve the interests of its shareholders.

Which is why it was so bonkers when Cameron stood up and complained people viewed PLCs as just out for profit! Er, they are! That's what it says on the tin!

Quite why we persist in confuddling ourselves with a notion that PLCs should somehow be moral entities, is a mystery.

Rabbit - I like your analysis but your view of business is v negative. There are bad businesses that have too much power, but they are not the whole story. Most people in the UK work for small businesses where the balance of power is completely different. And businesses anyway are shaped more by their client than owners.

Tesco is more shaped by British consumers wanting cheap food than some pension fund manager looking for a return. They want cheap food. He wants Tesco to meet the shoppers requirements, which could be Fairtrade and high welfare. But they aren't at the moment.

Hecuba, you just sound so down on this thread.
You will not end up on the street, and you will get the benefits you need.
I was in a similar position 7 years ago, my marriage broke up, I lived in a tied job and I had an 8 year old son.
I was as desperate as you and looking at leaving this small village and going into hostel accommodation when I was lucky enough to get an HA house, one of the very few around.
There is still a benefits system, the con/dems haven't managed to destroy it yet, and people like you are the ones it was designed for.
As for getting a job, it'll happen eventually, but until then get yourself to CAB and find out what you're entitled to.
Good luck.

I agree with Tilly that if you work hard at school and beyond you have a greater chance of being one of the lucky ones. However, unless you are exceptionally resourceful, resilient, flexible, intelligent, mentally tough and a little bit ruthless, hard work is no guarantee of anything, except possible exhaustion. But that's not the message you are given at school. At school, you are told the world will be your oyster if you get a good education. But what constitutes a good education is under debate, which doesn't help. Why are children being forced through a longer and longer education if all employers really want of them is an ability to read, write, add up, work hard and use a computer? Do employers REALLY know what they want, or do they just know it when they see it and know what they don't want and know what they aren't willing to pay? If employers really knew what they wanted and how to get it, wouldn't we have a better education system?

Some people are too nice to do really well. Some are a little bit too stupid. Some are downright unlucky, or happen to have the wrong sort of skills for the world they live in. Some people overdo the hard work and regret it later on, when they have a breakdown. Some people are really exceptionally smug about their success, as though they earned it all by themselves and other people and luck haven't had anything to do with it. Some people do really well by ruthlessly exploiting others, or relying on others who provide what they do by ruthlessly exploiting others. In fact, we all rely on ruthless exploitation of others in this country, since we are not remotely self sufficient. We don't produce enough food for ourselves, we don't have enough natural resources, we don't want others to get to these things before us. We don't even see the need to be nice to each other within our own shores.

Sorry things are so hard for you at the moment Hecuba.

I KNOW my career is over I get more evidence daily, every time I check my email or when the postie passes.

Hecuba sorry to hear about your dad. you must have been very strong to study, work & look after him.

i thought my career was over a decade ago - it wasnt.

carer - ho ho to your quip but if you are going to tell me i lack common ssense can you please explain why your reasoning?

Tilly you must be intelligent to have got where you are but your comments here are absolute proof that brains and common sense are too different things.

Hey maybe right wingers dont like common sense because its got the word "common" in the title.

That's over simplistic tilly. I worked hard at school. I worked hard at Uni (In class 9-5 Mon-Fri, worked part time to make ends meet and nursed my dying Dad still getting a good degree), I then worked hard for years.

I am now 34 and on the scrapheap with no prospect of a future. What do I get for all my work on job applications? NOTHING, not even a thanks but no thanks. For each application you have to work a bit harder because each no reply chips a bit of self belief away. Nothing left now, any idea how hard that makes it to state why you should get that job?

woolly one of the reasons your DD cant get a Saturday job is because a lot of them are being filled by workfare.

no woolly. (sorry terrible speller) noone understood why i was asking what they meant

working hard wont stop you being made redundent. it wont stop you dying. but if you have 2 people, Person A always works harder than Person B, all other things being, equal Person A will always do better.

i dont just mean harder at their job, harder at qualifications etc. i am not saying shit doesnt happen - just thats not all there is.

stupid...

Oh fuck it. I'm going now. This is just stpuid.

Tilly, your post at 13: 42
can you tell me more about this please: "There's no point pretending to people that hard work is enough, because it isn't. Some people will work really hard to end up in exactly the same place they would have ended up if they hadn't worked so hard. "

i dont get it.

But now you've changed your mind?

It's cold up here in winter. When you are evicted for non payment of rent you are on your own.. Not even a hostel.

hecuba - you will not die in a cardboard box of exposure.

We certainly don't tilly unless you call dying of exposure in a cardboard box a future.

woolly but he still benefitted from his hard work. when he was fit & when not.

hecuba - None of us have a future any more

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

woolly errr my dad always worked hard then ended up completely paralysed. so no.

You have clearly expressed a belief that all it takes is 'hard work' and everything will come to you..

I've always valued education, but looking where it got me I'm not sure any more. It is irrelevant if either dd is capable of going to university because we will never be able to send them. None of us have a future any more. Dh and I have lost their chance of a future in our 30s but dds have lost their chance of a future before it has really begun. Yet at the same time the inportance of education has been so drummed into me that I still encourage dd1 at school.. The only problem is it's harder to answer 'why mum?'

wooly - Why are you continuing to equate joblessness with a lack of aspiration?

i am not. i specifically said that previously.

You are really scraping the barrel, Tilly. What the hell is the 'prevailing MN philosophy?' The lack of jobs is REAL, people struggling is REAL, not a philosophical stance.

I have a 15 yo DD and I encourage her to work hard. She is very aspirational and is doing well at school - predicted straight As in all her GCSEs. She has tried and failed to get a Saturday job. She has advertised her services for babysitting to no avail. I see the majority of her friends striving and working hard to achieve exam success.

Why are you continuing to equate joblessness with a lack of aspiration?

I really hope that my child isn't 'wasting her time' trying, but I AM a realist and the unemployment figures for young people are truly dreadul.