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.

The 0 hours contract does seem to be the route of a lot of the evil mentioned in this thread though (not all of it).

I'm actually abroad in the EU and, being an immigrant, my UK degrees and post grad qualifications are of limited use. I do have 2 part time jobs - one as an English as a foreign language teacher (good per hour pay, lots of travel to and from classes and limited work through a further education institute, lucrative but very fickle/ unreliable private tutoring) and one in a care home.

Even though I'm part time at the care home I have a very specific written contract stating that I'm on 0.3 (30% of full time) hours (which is what I asked for to fit around childcare and my other job). They give me the same number of hours per month and pay me the same each month, and gives me my rota a month in advance. My preferences are taken into account though its not guaranteed - my teaching and language class times are protected though as they had them in writing before offering me the job. 100 times better than a 0 hours contract and rota given only a day or two in advance, as others on here have!

There are no tax credits here (though the entire tax system is different - DH and I are taxed as a couple so I pay a lot of tax even though I only earn about €12k a year because DH earns a good salary) but child benefits are much more generous than in the UK and universal.

Despite all that lots of people working full time are now dependant on tax credits - taking them away is deeply hypocritical given the declared ideals of the Tories.

Potatoface2 Wed 28-Oct-15 10:33:33
i worked nights... (still do)...when i was a single parent i used to leave my child overnight with my stepmother, collect him in the morning, either have him all day or drop him at nursery for a few hours, pick him up, do all the things mothers do....sleep whenever i could get half an hour ....then repeat..back then 1986 i didnt get any help.."

You seriously don't class regular overnight childcare from a relative as "help"? And it annoys you that other people get help?

YANBU.

It's not as simple as "work more" or "retrain".

and another thing, Potatoface2

i worked nights... (still do)...when i was a single parent i used to leave my child overnight with my stepmother, collect him in the morning, either have him all day or drop him at nursery for a few hours, pick him up, do all the things mothers do....sleep whenever i could get half an hour ....then repeat..back then 1986 i didnt get any help.."

Is this really a lifestyle you recommend? Would your child/ren not have had a better life if you hadn't been exhausted?

That's like saying I had to send my children down the mines so everyone should send their children down the mines. And I understand you had no choice, but that is not a good reason for recommending that other people should be put in this situation.

Agreed Bertputtocks and again also shows where entitled people say just upsticks and move falls down as you lose that whole childcare network.

ANother thing to remember when you are discussing your own experiences in the past - if they took place more than about 20% years ago the world has changed far too much for them to be relevant.
You are simply not taking into account the cost of housing relative to wages. This is also true of people sneering at the working poor when they themselves bought property 10 or so years ago: rents are terrifyingly high compared to wages these days.

YANBU

I have had decent jobs and I have had crappy jobs. Decent jobs are easier to get. Generally your applying for something you are qualified to do and experienced in, the competition is limited to similar people and you have a chance of making a case for why it should go to you.

Apply for a crappy job and you are up against bloody hundreds of people with almost nothing to distinguish you. I have lost out on jobs because someone else owned a pair of safety boots or was willing to start a day earlier.

Getting a crappy job can be a matter of dogged persistence over bloody months. Add in child care complications and I can easily believe people genuinely aren't able to get a second job.

And working more?

Me and DH have been lucky enough to be able to arrange our working lives for maximum income. It involves us both working 3 days, at opposite ends of the week, with childcare needed for one day only, for two pre schoolers.

If either of us got more work, childcare costs would bugger us. But I'm sure the Tory's would condemn us as lazy and entitled

And a further thing regarding some 'helpful' suggestions such as doing cleaning, ironing or dogwalking - the growth of outfits like TaskRabbit is going to kill these options off pretty soon. (If you don't know, TaskRabbit is an app that lets you hire people on an ad-hoc basis to do stuff you want done. Of course, financially, it's a race to the bottom as the idea is to sell people's labour as cheaply as possible, give them very little in the way of rights or protection... and take a cut of whatever they earn.)

apologies for thinking overtime still happened at work, shows how old I am!!

harsh you do know that Back to the Future day was last week

harshbuttrue1980 Wed 28-Oct-15 12:31:24
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.

So did many Italians harsh. And it was harsh so put the Catherine Cookson novels down

True, Helena. I know the Italian side of my family lived like that when they came over from Italy in 1898. I'd like to think things have improved since then but clearly not.

Solid, yes I used the Handy cleaning app this summer and it was much more efficient than traditional temporary cleaners as you just click and pay and someone turns up (not that they always did turn up) rather than having to interview and put out newspaper ads etc so I used them for some DIY too which was about one fifth cost of what I usually pay another company and done just as well.

The only solutions really come from the market. When employers find it hard to get staff they will improve conditions. We've seen it time and again over the decades. I remember the early 80s recession, a whole generation of graduates and many never got a graduate job, the 15% of us who were lucky enough to get to university in those days the hundreds of job apps we had to make, then come the next boom it got a job 3 years later much more easily and again a couple of years later despite being 5 months pregnant. Then we had the awful 90s crash. Then the more recent crash into which my graduate children emerged to fight for jobs. It is currently getting better again but we have not had in the last 20 years such a long period as now of pay deflation.

The growth has been both in full time jobs but also in the self employed and indeed many of them on zero hours contracts which yes suit a lot of people but not all. My son, the postman only got his job part time but was moved to full time. That is in the SE. I expect it's hard to get full time postman jobs in more deprived areas.

You The Cat I really dont get the obsession with looking back at the past with rose coloured glasses.

I also think there is definately a class issue with the "on call" abuse. If a partner was saying to his partner "i need you to be available for these hours over these days for my whims so you wont be able to go out and earn" its financial abuse. I see an employer doing it as no different.

And jobs higher up the socio economic scale pay workers for being "on call" so i see it as a class issue.

The only solutions really come from the market

If you are talking about the reality of the last thirty years I suppose you are right, Deo, but if we depend on the market for solutions, the market will happily see us all starve to death if it doesn't need us.

I had FOUR jobs while ate Uni (this is turning into a Python sketch) - Spar on a Sat, Summer evening racing in the summer evenings, cleaning my mates 4 hours a week and babysitting regularly

I also had a 2 hour commute (4 hours round) for my post grad year

I also had NO KIDS so it was doable

I am now a single parent to 3 kids - I work PT because I work in the public sector and I can't increase my hours or my pay or work elsewhere (due to nature of the job)

I also have 2 kids under CAHM's and one who has regular peads appointments - so full time would be tricky anyway

It isn't easy at all to hold down ONE job let alone 2 - YANBU OP x

as an aside, I hate it when people my parents and aunts and uncles say well we managed without / struggled so I don't see why people rely on tax credit etc,

so because THEY didnt get help, they WANT their kids (and grandkids) to struggle just cos they did

my mum and dad bought a 3 bed detached house in the 80s for 12k

That sounds about the size of it Destiny.

I do get what strawberrytealeaf is saying.
It is about making the right choices at the right time. I had fairly pot parents gee up k. A council estate but my parents were always thinking highly about what they encouraged their children to do and I'm very grateful for their encouragement and guidance.

But I've had to work bloody hard to be where I am today, spent huge amounts (now thankfully being paid back) but also still spending on postgraduate exams, courses and what not. I've spent hours studying to pass the necessary exams. I've spent hours of my time in wetlabs to be a better surgeon.

I literally have invested a lot of time in my career and I feel I'm being rewarded now I have a very good pay in my opinion with lots of opportunity for lucrative locums/overtime. I've also made sacrifices too like delaying getting married and delaying motherhood.

I know it will be worth it in the end though not just from a financial point of view but I feel accomplishment too.

Sorry so many typos poor parents and grew up on a council estate

I do get what strawberrytealeaf is saying.
It is about making the right choices at the right time.

Ahem!

And it is possible to have kids as most of my friends (me starting too now) have 2 children and manage though part time to fit around their training programme though part time

But I've had to work bloody hard to be where I am today, spent huge amounts (now thankfully being paid back) but also still spending on postgraduate exams, courses and what not. I've spent hours studying to pass the necessary exams. I've spent hours of my time in wetlabs to be a better surgeon.

So did lots of people who nevertheless ended up PT, or carers, or trailing spouses, or single parents.

PLEASE don't attribute such head-in-the-cloud naive ramblings to me.

Ok keep your pants on someone made a comment to that affect with a similar name to yours
If people spent less time on MN maybe they would have so much to moan about

If people spent less time on MN maybe they would have so much to moan about

You see if you'd said that when I spent more of the week caring for my disabled child than working, it would have upset me, which is how I know you're a nasty wee article.