To think people in decent jobs don't realise how hard it is to get a second crappy job..

[ssd]

I keep seeing comments on the tax credits threads about tc claimants needing to work more, like its that easy.

I can imagine if you have kept up your job since having kids due to either being able to afford childcare or having that and a mix of free family help, then you will be earning a decent enough wage and there might be overtime at your organisation, or at the very least you will be on set hours/days...so if you wanted overtime you'd know when you were available to work.

I can imagine thousands on tax credits arent in this position. I work part time and have been trying to get a full time job, or at least another part time job that would fit in with the job I have.

Its bloody impossible and trust me, I'm trying!!

Full time jobs are very rare, round here its all part time job requiring full time flexibility...so they offer you 20 hours a week and expect you to be free all week to fit around them, this makes it impossible to have 2 part time jobs

So for every poster saying "work more", please consider this isnt as easy as you'd imagine.

YANBU Many people are being treated like modern-day serfs and then sneered at by others who have no idea what it's really like out there.

Strawberryfield12 have you had your childminder call in sick last minute meaning you can't go to work and you have no family support and are left to negotiate with your employer, who has given you a zero hours contract, that you need to take the day off then they withdraw your hours for the next two weeks?? perfectly legal. Zero hours contract...

Have you been sacked from a job for telling your employer you have to change your shift again because your DC needs to see a specialist and the date cannot be changed to a weekend? it was a 3 strikes and you're out rule.

3 strikes can be just 3 days off sick!

Have you travelled on 6 buses every day, having to get up at 5am just to get your child into nursery for 7am (45 min then a 15 min bus journey because it is so early) and then rushing to get to work for job number one, skipping lunch to get to job number 2. Being forced to work unpaid 'overtime' (can't shut the cafe) because the staff member taking over from you is late meaning you are late picking up your DC (missed your bus) and have been slapped with a £15 fine for every 10 minutes you are late? then having to get another 2 buses home and you are lucky in you are in the house before 7:30pm?

This is the reality of being in low paid jobs, zero hour contract jobs, having more than one job. Its far from easy. I worked so fecking hard, so hard. I was hanging on by a thread and exhausted AND studying in my own time at the same time and I still haven't found a well paid job.

Its easy for you to say 'educate yourself' 'training!' 'work harder!'

Done that. I have the qualifications and the health problems to prove it.

I think you are just clutching on straws to dismiss an opinion different to your own. Its much easier to tell off people and say they talk bollocks if they dont agree to you instead of pausing for a moment to consider whether there's something to take in account in that other life experience.

No, you're not listening strawberryfield.

Lots of us have experience of both (being higher rate taxpayers after years of education, paying back student loans etc AND have had periods as parents when PT, lower grade or more flexible work was a necessity).

You, on the other hand, are in no position to deliver that condescending little lecture you gave upthread because you have absolutely no experience of what balancing FT work with a child or multiple children is like.

You certainly don't seem to have experience of juggling work as a single mother, work with needs of a disabled child or work, children and other infirm relatives with care needs.

You are talking bollocks because you are speaking from a position of ignorance.

You also need to consider that for a lot of parents (male or female), having children only to see them at weekends would be problematic or guilt-inducing and something they would seek to move away from quickly.

YANBU
Completely agree with Million up thread

Wow I missed all the excitement.

StrawberryFields Do you have any idea how much effort people in the "decent" jobs have put into to get that job? Usually it means long years and lots of money invested in education

Actually I just fell into the career. I was lucky it's decently paid. I was always good at writing software since I was taught it at school. So I ended up doing it for a living. I have a PhD but that's certainly not needed. Many postdocs earn peanuts and are on fixed term contract.

£44k a year, which if you happen to live in London hardly allows you for basic needs - tiny flat, food, transport - and for all their effort are penalized with high tax rate.
Agree with this though. £44k is very little given how expensive housing and commuting is. We need both of us working at this kind of salary to be not poor. I always like to remind people that one person on £44k with a family of 4 actually put you in the lower earning half of the population. And that's averaged out with the cheaper areas outside the southeast and london.

www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/25/uk-incomes-how-salary-compare

And no, there is no such thing as paid overtime in those jobs! And they cannot even dream about such thing as tax credits after all the "doing the right thing" stuff.
Overtime is expected. DH have to travel in the weekend if a meeting requires it. And he doens't get time in lieu in the weekday. I have a much luckier career path. Very 9-5 and occasionally I have to log on in the evenings when the girls are asleep. But very little overtime expected.

And I'm lucky that I'm not a single parent. I don't know how they do it. I'm knackered if I have to commute 5 days a week. I try to work one day a week from home, and another day leaving the office midday to avoid traffic. And DH does all pick up and drop off unless he's travelling. And if he's travelling, I work from home entirely or I just can't get pick up/drop off done.

Oh common, we all know that it's not just single, childless males coming to the UK from Southern and Eastern Europe. There just as many women and families as well.

This is completely wrong, though. Nobody's clutching at straws by pointing that out, merely correcting you. It has significant implications for your Eastern European example, and you've not addressed them.

Well, Strawberry. I really hope you never have to deal with the reality of being a carer or having a child with additional needs. It makes working a whole different ball game.

You aren't yet actually working and juggling childcare. You really have no idea whatsoever of the practicalities.

Isn't it wonderful that some people have childcare on tap or willing family members to step in? I had no one to step in. If my children were ill I had to take unpaid leave. I could only take term time employment because there was no where that could take my ds in the holidays.

All the Eastern European women I know (quite a few) who have come to the UK aren't working. Their husbands are, but they are doing the childcare.

StrawberryTea I might not have yet experience for more than 10 days of balancing FT job with children, but I have worked FT all through the years of studying in the universities (not correspondence or remote studies), for example, because my parents couldn't afford two children studying away from home. I get often questioned on job interviews about the timing of my work experience and studies, recruiters expect to catch me out on making things up on my CV because of that. I have also worked in two jobs at the same time - one full time and other part time 65 hrs/week - while the university studies was on summer break (3 months). And many more of balancing several time and energy consuming things at the same time. Because of that, I don't expect going back to work with DC to be something way more demanding I have already managed in my life.

Bettyberry we are going to use nursery because we cannot depend with childcare on one single person calling to inform they got better things to do that day. Me and DH are both commuters, so we will have to have an emergency cover in place for if trains all go wrong. We don't have any family or close friends where we live.

So you have no experience of being a single parent?

I worked full time whilst I studied for my degree too. It was so easy just having myself to think about and look after. Children make that much more difficult.

StrawberryTea I might not have yet experience for more than 10 days of balancing FT job with children, but I have worked FT all through the years of studying in the universities (not correspondence or remote studies),

I have a feeling we are supposed to be impressed

YouTheCat I am very sorry about your child's disability and I totally agree that that is completely different story and it is a huge barrier. My initial post wasn't aimed at you or any other parent caring for a child with additional needs. The OP wasn't about it at least. I probably had posted a reply bit brush because the generic pointing at "people in decent jobs" got on my back, because I know lots of people who's decent jobs have come at cost and still require a lot to keep those jobs. I didn't intend to offend you personally and if I did I sincerely apologize. Here goes the hope that with the development of technologies will make possible and more common working from home or on more flexible bases.

Children is much more difficult. I worked PT while doing my PhD. And then full time while writing up my thesis. It's nothing compared to working FT with children. And I can warn you that the nursery years are the easiest. It's much harder once they start school. I now have to be at home by 5.30 to put dinner on the table by 6pm for DD1. She'll meltdown with tiredness if she's not in bed by 7pm. So the evening goes 6pm dinner, 6.30pm bath and story and sleep by 7pm.

When she's at nursery, she gets fed quite a big lunch, 2 large snacks and a late high tea. Nothing like that at school. She's starving and I already pack her a sandwich with snacks for afterschool. The logistics is just so much harder.

Well, Strawberry. I really hope you never have to deal with the reality of being a carer or having a child with additional needs. It makes working a whole different ball game.

You aren't yet actually working and juggling childcare. You really have no idea whatsoever of the practicalities

Well said YoutheCat.

(But you're wasting your time. Strawberryfield is convinced anyone struggling to find enough hours or appropriate work is just an uneducated oik )

No StrawberryTea I don't need you to be impressed, it will not change anything for me and, I doubt, that for you either. I was merely trying to explain that having a child and work at the same time isn't obligatory the "ultimate challenge". People can go through equally demanding periods in their lives without having children.

I love the irony of this statement

I think you are just clutching on straws to dismiss an opinion different to your own. Its much easier to tell off people and say they talk bollocks if they dont agree to you instead of pausing for a moment to consider whether there's something to take in account in that other life experience.

This is exactly what the OP is talking about, people crapping on about how you need to make the right life choices and how people should just work harder and get better jobs with absolutely no idea of the lives of other people

The point about carers and additional needs was made pages ago Strawberryfield.

Are you only prepared to concede the point if posters share personal details of their families with you?

People with disabilities and their carers are part of the populace, society, people in general, you know.

Strawberry, my point is your circumstances are different from other people's. They are very different from mine. Once you are stuck in a part time role it is very difficult to get out of that when you factor in things like affording childcare, being a single parent or being able to afford to study. And then there's the fact that some people don't have the capacity to study.

There are many, many factors that can making working full time unmanageable for someone else.

And thank you for the apology. I don't mean to be harsh just trying to make a point.

Many Eastern European men down where I live are living in HMO's WITH their wives and children, with one family per room and sharing bathroom and kitchen with other families. Some families also live in annexes. They save as much as they can, and eventually will get enough to hopefully be able to afford to live alone. Many British people used to live like this too.

This is in stark contrast to Brits who think that, as soon as they have dropped a sprog, they are entitled to the state topping up their salary, as well as in some cases giving them a house with a bedroom for each child and, of course, a garden of their own.

Our nation is going totally soft - no sense of personal responsibility. If the government stopped benefits, many people would just flounder because they don't have any resilience or grit and aren't used to the basic idea of providing for their families themselves. Why can't we as a nation see that we're fortunate to get generous government help instead of moaning because we can't get every little thing we want given to us on a silver plate.

harsh

Depends where you live, in my village the vast majority of dinner ladies, domestic cleaners and ironing providers are british

Strawberry fields - I too worked two jobs at uni to support myself and I can tell you that doing that when all you have to cosnsider is yourself and if you are late home it doesn't matter is easy compared to juggling work, 3 children, parents evenings, various medical appts, child having 4 weeks off school after an emergency operation, husband that sometimes has to work away over night, and fitting in swimming lessons, birthday parties and making healthy meals for the whole family. It's much more mentally exhausting.
During one summer I would get up at 5am get a bus to work for 6am, work til 2pm then walk for half an hour, grab a sandwich from somewhere then work 4-9pm then walk home to save bus fare, had a microwave meal then collapse into bed. I was exhausted but I only had myself to think about.

No StrawberryTea I don't need you to be impressed, it will not change anything for me and, I doubt, that for you either. I was merely trying to explain that having a child and work at the same time isn't obligatory the "ultimate challenge". People can go through equally demanding periods in their lives without having children.

I can see that your english isn't perfect, so i'll keep this simple.

We ALL had lives, studies and careers before children. None of the achievements and experiences you are listing are so unusual.

Everyone on this thread can comment on working life BEFORE children.

Some of us can also comment on working life AFTER children.

A proportion of us also have children with SN, have managed as single parents, have elderly relatives needing care etc.

Which one of those groups do you fit in to?

Strawberry fields - I too worked two jobs at uni to support myself and I can tell you that doing that when all you have to cosnsider is yourself and if you are late home it doesn't matter is easy compared to juggling work, 3 children, parents evenings, various medical appts, child having 4 weeks off school after an emergency operation, husband that sometimes has to work away over night, and fitting in swimming lessons, birthday parties and making healthy meals for the whole family. It's much more mentally exhausting.

Exactly.

StrawberryTea the point might have been made earlier, the thing is that I am one person trying to read/reply a number of people posting replies to my post at the same time while I have a little girl to care for. Well, sometimes to make a point we have to share some of our personal experiences. I did and others have done. But I do understand that whatever I will say you will try to turn it against me.

But I do understand that whatever I will say you will try to turn it against me.

Get a grip.

You've come onto a thread about tax credits and posted in a superior tone and very judgementally about PT/FT work to an audience largely consisting of working parents (some of them actually better qualified than you, most of them with better English than you) despite not yet being one yourself.

People are pointing out to you the inaccuracies and difficulties in what you have said.

But rather than concede you were in any way wrong, you keep resorting to silly reactions like "You will turn it against me" and "You're clutching at straws because I'm right".

Stop the self-pitying nonsense and accept that other people's experiences are more relevant than yours.