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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To take a job with the DWP even though I will lose friends

468 replies

Sunsnet · 05/04/2024 17:50

I currently work a minimum wage job in retail. It's long hours, exhausting and for really shitty money. Sometimes I earn less than minimum wage as I'm salaried and not entitled to overtime.

I've just been offered a job with the DWP. I'll earn 50% more, have a WAY better pension plus more benefits. I'll even be able to work fewer hours so I can spend more time with my family and STILL be better off than now. BUT, I have friends who think the DWP is immoral and by working for them I will be implicit in that immorality.

I agree that the way the DWP works at the moment is immoral, but surely we need good people to work there to ensure that people who need the help and are entitled to it actually get it. Or am I just clutching at straws to justify my position?

I have one friend in particular who says they will never speak to me again if I take the job. This friend is independently wealthy and never needs to work again, I am not. I do not own property, have a family to support, I'm a single parent and I have no qualifications so have no hope of a better job.

Would I really be that awful a person to sell out and take this job?

OP posts:
Pootle23 · 05/04/2024 21:17

If your “friend” is going to be so pathetic I really wouldn’t care.

Take the job and enjoy the benefits to your life you have mentioned.

NCForQuestions · 05/04/2024 21:17

AmethystSparkles · 05/04/2024 21:11

i think the DWP would be awful whether you took the job or not and you are right that it’s better that good people work there. However, a good person might struggle in an environment like that.

Have you worked in DWP? In every office and department?

It has 81,000 staff on the books.

It's a huge and diverse workforce in multiple teams and areas!

Forhecksake · 05/04/2024 21:18

The DWP has lots of different parts and some of them carry out wonderful services.

neverforgetsolange · 05/04/2024 21:18

I think your friends sound like absolute fannies. Typical trustos. Take the jobs for your family. Your realise that these frienda won't be your friends in a few years ? A decent, functioning society has a welfare system /Health system etc that you are going to work for . Look at countries with high standard og living like the Scandi countries . We should be aiming for that and we need people to work in welfare systems. We pay for it through taxes and NI contributions. Ditch the sad pals.

PeloMom · 05/04/2024 21:19

When your friend is the one paying your bills and expenses then may be she can have an opinion on where you work. Maybe.

gamerchick · 05/04/2024 21:19

Seriously dudes.

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 05/04/2024 21:20

This isn't really about your friend its about you. Ask yourself honestly could you go home and sleep soundly after having to impose a sanction on someone say for example a family with children. Their children are as precious to them as your children are to you and before anyone pipes up "Well if they don't follow the rules and jump through hoops they deserve to be sanctioned, keep in mind even convicted hardened criminals don't go without basic essentials. Granted i know someome has to do the job Its a certainty not a job I could do, but its not me that's been offered the job.

Hankunamatata · 05/04/2024 21:21

Your firends are not friends they are muppets.

Take the job

JustAGalWhoLovesBooks · 05/04/2024 21:21

What an idiot that 'friend' is. I work in a similar organisation that gets worse press than the DWP. Most of us had similar views of the company going in to it and now realise it's nothing to do with the workers, but those in much higher power. Your friend is clueless and a total arse to even put that on you. I love where I work now and it's changed my view on everything. The press are the worst in my eyes!! Take the job and congrats!

ginoclocksomewhere · 05/04/2024 21:21

I don't think I've ever seen a more unanimous thread!

Take the job, ditch the 'mates'.

PersephonePomegranate23 · 05/04/2024 21:23

PonyPatter44 · 05/04/2024 17:52

Change jobs, don't tell your friends. Enjoy the better money and pension.

I work for a public sector organisation that often gets a very bad press, and people tend to have a very stereotyped view of us. Most of us are perfectly normal, nice people, nothing like the stereotype.

That's got HMRC written all over it 😂

Take the job...someone else will snap it up if you don't! The job will get done either way, so you can either enjoy the benefits of it and also get on a pathway to career progression if you choose, or stay where you are to appease your, quite frankly, rather silly friends.

Needanewname42 · 05/04/2024 21:23

With friends like that who needs enemies?

Take the job - Congratulations 🎊

RaininSummer · 05/04/2024 21:25

Sorry OP but your friends sound like ignorant twats.

TheMarzipanDildo · 05/04/2024 21:26

Tell your mate that you’re a communist and you think them keeping their money to themselves and not handing it over to The People is highly unethical. Climb that moral mountain.

inabubble3 · 05/04/2024 21:28

Good luck OP. Take the job, get the experience. If it’s not for you move to another role in civil service. Friend can take it or leave it can’t they? How wonderful to not have to work but have opinions on other peoples work/ life choices etc

Beaverbridge · 05/04/2024 21:31

Take the job. No one has the right to dictate to you.

Girlssjustwanttohavefun · 05/04/2024 21:33

YireosDodeAver · 05/04/2024 21:02

Definitely take the job, do it honestly and well.

If you are asked to do anything that is actually unethical (depriving people of benefits they should be entitled to, lying about someone's capability, sanctioning people for things genuinely beyond their control) then keep written records and be a whistle-blower to get these things stopped. Or perhaps you will find that you aren't asked to do anything unethical in which case you are fine.

What do you think goes on there? It's following government policy, not en masse going rogue deciding to sanction people for things beyond their control. The staff just follow the rules they are given

Sweetheart7 · 05/04/2024 21:34

You have some strange friends OP. The friend that said she wouldn't speak with you if you take the job... you need to cut her off from today don't say a word just ghost her.

Scottishskifun · 05/04/2024 21:35

Definitely take the job!
Many people gain experience in a multitude of unpopular jobs and the civil service people move between departments.

Just get used to saying your a civil servant if people ask rather then going into detail.

My career isn't popular with some of DHs school friends I used to try and explain my Jon now I can't be arsed and either change the subject or respond with and....they usually stop quickly after that.

Ofcourseshecan · 05/04/2024 21:36

How is working for a public service immoral?

Do all your friends do frontline jobs for the NHS? Or give their services free of charge to underfunded women’s refuges? Or spend their free time cleaning animal shelters?

If so, tell them they are wonderful people. If not, tell them to stick their opinions where the sun don’t shine.

As for the rich friend who doesn’t have to work, I can’t believe this parasite has the cheek to object to anyone’s job!

SD1978 · 05/04/2024 21:36

Take the job, but you won't change the system, and if you think you'll personally be able to, you'll be miserable. Work with it the best you can, and give the better quality of life to your family

PrestonHood121 · 05/04/2024 21:40

Take it. Financial and job security are way more important than an opinion. Congrats on the job!

IvorTheEngineDriver · 05/04/2024 21:42

Take the job. Your friends sound insane BTW. Dump the lot of them is my advice.

user1471453601 · 05/04/2024 21:43

As someone who worked for DWp (in its many guises) for 40 years and who now collects a healthy pension from them, I'm torn about your question.

the pension was great when I retired (based on end of service salary) but not so good now, it's based on average service salary. But still better than some.

And the work appears to me to have got worse. If the work, in particular, is with JCP. Too many difficult targets (such as sanctioning x number of people per week) and the delays the system seems to create in payment, for sometimes desperate people who don't know how they will feed their family that week. Who do you think those desperate people kick off on?

when I worked for them, I received a computer output every week telling me what % of new claims were paid in the period 1 to 6 days, of their claim and those that were not paid within that limit. And the % of the 6days plus was so small that I could ask each supervisor in my office (the largest office outside london) which claimant was over six days and they would know why.

now I hear that people wait up to six weeks + for payment.

I wouldn't want to be the person who told a claimant it would be a while before their children were fed by them.

but sometimes needs must. So if you have to do.It to help your family, fine. If you have a decent job already, think twice.

Billsandfights · 05/04/2024 21:43

I used to work in the DWP assessing claims for ESA. I’m now a social worker. Two jobs that people have strong opinions about. I’ve not lost one friend over either of my jobs choices.

Your friends are weird and not actually friends at all if they wouldn’t speak to you for taking a better job.

Civil service jobs are almost always a job for life. There’s room to manoeuvre and work your way up as well. The benefits are not bad and the money isn’t terrible either.

The only thing I would say is your idea about change from the inside is way off the mark. it’s a nice idea but you as a worker won’t be able to exact much change at all except be polite and empathetic to the people you may need to speak to and treat them as human beings. Something the government has forgotten along the way while they’ve been making their “policies” that hurt the most vulnerable in society.

I would tell your “friends” to fuck off and enjoy your new job and the better life it will bring for you and your family.