To be a little bit miffed at my friend

[redderthanred]

he mutually left a job ( got fired) early in the spring.

And has not been able to find a new job in his field.

He is now going on about how hes paid enough into this country and so is going to claim benfits. but that he wont be like the other' lazy, benefit scroungers'

IABU to want to thump him. Or not be his friend any more.

I so want to give him a lecture about how most people on some kind of benefit are not ' lazy benefit scroungers' but have ended up in that position due to life changing, often unforseen circumstances.

And then explain the benefits trap to him.

So its ok for you to be on benefits but not him?

im sorry - where did you get that from?

Its his narrow minded,fueled by the media attitude thats made me quite cross.
That is ok for him to claim benefits, but that anyone else that does is a ( to use his words) ' lazy benefit scrounger'

oh - and i work.

not that that makes any difference at all.

Lots of people can square the idea of everyone else being "lazy scroungers" while they are of course perfectly entitled to benefits which they have "paid into".

You can try pointing out to him that he's probably not a single unique person in amongst that sea of scroungers. But he may not be able to understand that!

Or ask him to give you details on how he's going to be different - like the efforts he's making to get a new job, or take something that's not his ideal so as to get back into any paid work. Make him think what he means about him being "not like them"

OP, I got what you meant. Basically this bloke was fired/ forcefully resigned from his job and has had trouble finding similar employment. He now thinks, sod it, I've paid my taxes now I'll just live off benefits. I'll just take back what I've put in.

I can understand your annoyance at him OP, but my betting is that this is bravado. He has no choice but to claim as he can't find employment and pride is making him declare it as his life choice, not admit he needs them as much as others on benefits need them too.

Your OP was not very clear.

I think "shrug" if thats his attitude why are you mates with him? You explaining the benefits trap to him wont make a difference I dont think.

i dont really know why im mates with him. His generally narrow minded opion on everything tends to annoy me.

he said it would be silly not to claim something that he was entitled too. Of course he is right, but he cant see that that is the case for proably 95% of the other ' lazy fuckers who think the country owes them the world'

sigh its just so depressing that a young, suposably intelligent person can still think that way.

No point explaining anythng to him. He wont want to know.

His attitude will have the natural consequence of making him a less appealing friend.

(Your op was perfectly clear btw)

Your OP is very clear, and yanbu - but I don't think you'll get far with making him see sense until he finds a new job and looks back on his experience with the wisdom and comfort of hindsight.

He probably is frightened and upset at the position he has found himself in, and is, as someone said, toughing it out by disassociating himself from what he sees as a humiliating situation.

Unless he is generally an arrogant twat, and that's why he got fired?

Tell him he is a hypocrite.

Of course he wont want to know.
Its just annoying.
People get all preachy, and shouty angry about things like this without understanding.

But then, when something happens, and it happens to them, of course, they are totally different from the rest of the ' lazy fuckers'

Someone has already said that perhaps he could drop to a lower position, but he quickly rubbished that idea as he went to uni and so is better than that apparently.

Jeeze, what about people that take any job, just so they have money coming in....

bangs head on desk

hes not arrogant at all.
Just lived a very very sheltered life i think.

With little to no understanding of the world arround him.

pah - i just just ignore him in the future, i cant be doing with it anymore.

The problem with young people who have had a university education (and I was one myself so I'm not trying to be nasty) is that they have often got absolutely no clue about real life. So he spouts off about opinions that he's read in the paper about benefits scroungers, and doesn't class himself with them because he's got a degree and could have a really important proper job and everything, not like "people like that". But hasn't worked through any of this in reality, because he probably doesn't know that many people who are on benefits, so has no real-world experience to contradict the papers. The only other people he probably knows who are on benefits will be ex-students like himself, who he'd include in his nice cosy little group of not-scroungers.

I don't know what you can say or do to make him understand, but if he's young there is at least a hope that life will teach him somewhere along the way.

Explain that the longer he's on benefits out of work the harder it will be to find a job!! I'm speaking from experience after getting sacked because I was off I'll. Its not easy sitting in an interview explaining the gap in employment history.

hes 32. Old enough to know better.
Old enough to know whats written in the media is not always true.
Surely old enough to know that sometimes, such as what has happened to him, things happen. And that that is exacally what benefits are for.

That most people on benefits dont want to be on them either.But they find them selves stuck in the situation.

That if he does eventually find a job, he might not earn enough anyway - having had to just get any job, as oppossed to the job he wants, and end up still claiming come housing benefit or whatever.

But hes not like the rest of the 'lazy fuckers'

It just really pisses me off.

he has already been out of work for about 8 months now.