So I am sitting in the office waiting to see another client.
A family of three comes in. A man in his late 40s, his wife wrapped up like a Christmas present and a 4 year old boy. The man apologises for his very poor English and says that he wants to buy his council flat and the council send him a document outlining very dangerous information.
I take the document, read it through and see what the man is referring to. His flat hasn't been checked for the asbestos, even though several other flats has been checked in the block and there were all fine. The man is still not happy with the information, tells me a touching story of having 4 children and how he needs to look after them.
I suggest him to call the surveyor and do all the checks if he is so worried. The man says that he does not want to pay the charge, as he is buying the flat under the right to buy scheme. His flat was estimated at 687,000 thousands pounds and as a council tenant of 8 years, he qualified for a 100,000 pounds discount. One hundred thousands pounds, yes, you got it right. Just for being a poor bastard from a 3rd world country. He got this discount and he can't pay the charge to get his flat inspected. So what is the alternative? You call local tenancy management organisation, the health and safety department, and get it checked for free.
Welcome to the United Kingdom. The most generous and tolerant country in the world.
Sunday 14 July 2013
Friday 29 June 2012
Welcome to the real world!
"How the hell did you get this job?" - that's the most common thought that crosses my mind every single day when I am at work.
The amount of incompetent people a normal human being has to work with is not just scary or entertaining, it's simply ludicrous. All those people who are adamant that they deserve way better jobs that they can get or will ever be able to get, will do everything they can to make your life miserable. Sometimes I just hope that they do it deliberately and out of jealousy, but then I realise that unfortunately they do not even understand how much trouble and misery they cause.
So say you are a customer assistant in a call centre. Say you work for a government and you help people to sort their benefits out. You work from 9-5 and you must serve up to 8 clients an hour. You can spend 5 to 10 minutes on a customer, but you must be extremely efficient, because everyone has its own targets and it would be nice to deliver. That's what a normal human being would think, but not my favourite beyond the hope creature.
For some strange reason, at one point, either because of their despair or just due to natural degradation, these people decide that it's their duty to do their job as if it's their first day and they have no understanding what they are doing at all.
In 6 cases out of 10, when you want to make a new benefit claim, you will end up with this type of conversations:
- Hello, I would like to make a new claim for Income Support (IS) on the basis of being a full-time carer for a severely disabled person. I am 60 y.o., my name is X and Y, and I am caring for my 13 y.o. daughter, who is in receipt of highest care DLA. - That's all you need to get IS.
- So you want to make a claim for IS?
- Yes, I do.
- So what is your name?
- X and Y.
- I will need to ask you a couple of questions, before I can process your claim. Is that fine?
-Yes.
- Have you been looking for work since you last claim?
- No, I am a single parent of a 13 y.o. child. Before that I was also getting IS, but on the ground of being a single parent. My claim was suspended and due to your administrative error it was closed. I do not want to waste further 3-4 months to investigate the case, I better make a new claim. - Anyone who is working in this sector will automatically understand that this lady is getting Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit. You only need one brain cell to get it.
- I understand. But I need to ask you all the questions that are in the form before I can process your claim. So why you have not been looking for work?
- Because I was a full-time carer!!!
- Is anyone in your household sick?
- I've already told you that I am caring for my severely disabled daughter and I live with her.
- I understand. But I just need to ask you the questions... What's the name of your daughter?
- W and Y.
- Are you caring for someone?
- WTF?!
- I just need to ask you questions.
- WTF?
- Are you in receipt of Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit? - As the name clearly suggests you can only get WTC if you are in paid work.
- Yes, I've already told you.
- So which one do you get?
- WTF???!!!
One would think that I am exaggerating and this conversation had never taken place. But it happened to me and it was in the 21st century, and it took me 40 minutes to make a claim for my client. It should have taken 10 minutes maximum, because all the information the customer assistant needed was given to her within the 1st minute. But she had to go through all the questions, because she was lacking that vital one brain cell that would have allowed her to figure it out herself!
Welcome to the real world, guys! This is how it works.
Your first step in the big world
Our world works in a very peculiar way. At first, you have to work your ass off at school to get decent marks that would allow you to get into a good university. Then you work even harder at the university, because you need a good degree and then the world would be your oyster and you will get that dashing job of your dreams.
Then you finish university and you still hear voices of your teachers and tutors who had been telling you for years how important it was to excel at your studies and develop as many skills as possible.
Here is the day of your dreams - the graduation day. You are full of aspirations and naive dreams, your mammy and daddy are quietly crying and just about to explode with pride. Every single human being, especially those from the beyond the hope club, is happy. We fucking made it! "Bravo!" - you are saying to yourself and lots of dead flowers are scattered around.
You are an adult now and you are making your first step into the big wild world. It could not have been better, because now you will get a job and earn a lot of money and be better than anyone else. You will prove to everyone that you are not just a mediocre chap, but you are so fucking special and deserve no less than being treated like a prince/ss.
You start applying for jobs. Suddenly you realise that it takes forever to write a CV. You spent three days writing a CV, you read 5 different books about how to create a perfect CV, and you are already exhausted but very happy, you are almost there. Just one final effort and you will get that job of your dreams. You are going to earn some serious cash and spend it the way you and only you want!
You send your CV to 20 different companies. You are so excited that you can hardly catch your breath. You think: "Oh my God, now they will see how special I am and they will all want to employ me!". But your phone remains silent. It's been more than 24 hours since you sent your CV, but still no response. You wander may be your phone is broken and it can't receive calls? You check your phone 15 times, but it appears to be working perfectly fine. A tiny cruel suspicion starts to grow deep inside you that may be you are not so special and may be what you have done so far in your life is not enough to get the job of your dreams, but you try to ignore it.
Twelve days of silence and you are losing your desire to live. It can't be true! It CAN'T be true! How come they don't want even to see me and offer me an interview? I've been studying so bloody hard for the past 20 years, I was engaged in every single school and university activity and I was a President of Football/Rugby/Tennis/"Lets-get-together-and-get-fucking-wasted"society and I am just cool - why they don't want me?!
And then one day you realise that may be your expectations are a little bit too high and you need to apply to slightly less posh jobs. Let's start from the scratch, you think. Junior position is not that bad, after all, because they will see my brilliance and promote me to a managerial position within months. Yes! Great plan, I am a fucking genius, let's do it!
Finally you got that job offer. Now you will be working in a call centre, you will be a secretary, you will be a junior administrator or a PA. You finally have some power and you finally can show all of them what you are made of. You started brilliantly and after the probation period you have been offered a permanent contract and now you will earn 22,000 pounds a year. When you were a student, you used to live on 8k a year and now you have all that money and it's all yours. Let the party begin!
Suddenly, after 4 months you realise that your job is not really that great. And quite frankly, you never liked it. To be totally honest, it was always a shit job and you clearly deserve so much more. You feel cheated and betrayed. No one has ever told you when you were at school and then at university, that when you become an adult you spend the majority of your time doing a really boring job! It's not just boring, you have a very strong feeling that you were born for something way better. WAY better. And it's clear to everyone, and if it's not, then they are just dumb idiots.
Because you are so great and your job is so totally unsuitable for your top-notch skills, you do not really try that hard anymore. You just do your job and hope that one day you will finally get a job that will develop your endless potential and you will finally make it! But in the meantime you will do your best to make everyone else's life just miserable.
Then you finish university and you still hear voices of your teachers and tutors who had been telling you for years how important it was to excel at your studies and develop as many skills as possible.
Here is the day of your dreams - the graduation day. You are full of aspirations and naive dreams, your mammy and daddy are quietly crying and just about to explode with pride. Every single human being, especially those from the beyond the hope club, is happy. We fucking made it! "Bravo!" - you are saying to yourself and lots of dead flowers are scattered around.
You are an adult now and you are making your first step into the big wild world. It could not have been better, because now you will get a job and earn a lot of money and be better than anyone else. You will prove to everyone that you are not just a mediocre chap, but you are so fucking special and deserve no less than being treated like a prince/ss.
You start applying for jobs. Suddenly you realise that it takes forever to write a CV. You spent three days writing a CV, you read 5 different books about how to create a perfect CV, and you are already exhausted but very happy, you are almost there. Just one final effort and you will get that job of your dreams. You are going to earn some serious cash and spend it the way you and only you want!
You send your CV to 20 different companies. You are so excited that you can hardly catch your breath. You think: "Oh my God, now they will see how special I am and they will all want to employ me!". But your phone remains silent. It's been more than 24 hours since you sent your CV, but still no response. You wander may be your phone is broken and it can't receive calls? You check your phone 15 times, but it appears to be working perfectly fine. A tiny cruel suspicion starts to grow deep inside you that may be you are not so special and may be what you have done so far in your life is not enough to get the job of your dreams, but you try to ignore it.
Twelve days of silence and you are losing your desire to live. It can't be true! It CAN'T be true! How come they don't want even to see me and offer me an interview? I've been studying so bloody hard for the past 20 years, I was engaged in every single school and university activity and I was a President of Football/Rugby/Tennis/"Lets-get-together-and-get-fucking-wasted"society and I am just cool - why they don't want me?!
And then one day you realise that may be your expectations are a little bit too high and you need to apply to slightly less posh jobs. Let's start from the scratch, you think. Junior position is not that bad, after all, because they will see my brilliance and promote me to a managerial position within months. Yes! Great plan, I am a fucking genius, let's do it!
Finally you got that job offer. Now you will be working in a call centre, you will be a secretary, you will be a junior administrator or a PA. You finally have some power and you finally can show all of them what you are made of. You started brilliantly and after the probation period you have been offered a permanent contract and now you will earn 22,000 pounds a year. When you were a student, you used to live on 8k a year and now you have all that money and it's all yours. Let the party begin!
Suddenly, after 4 months you realise that your job is not really that great. And quite frankly, you never liked it. To be totally honest, it was always a shit job and you clearly deserve so much more. You feel cheated and betrayed. No one has ever told you when you were at school and then at university, that when you become an adult you spend the majority of your time doing a really boring job! It's not just boring, you have a very strong feeling that you were born for something way better. WAY better. And it's clear to everyone, and if it's not, then they are just dumb idiots.
Because you are so great and your job is so totally unsuitable for your top-notch skills, you do not really try that hard anymore. You just do your job and hope that one day you will finally get a job that will develop your endless potential and you will finally make it! But in the meantime you will do your best to make everyone else's life just miserable.
Friday 22 June 2012
Where it all starts...
Remember those days when you were at school and there were at least 4-5 kids who never got it?
No matter how hard or easy the task was, they would always end up asking ridiculous questions and even the most patient teachers would start to lose their temper? Those kids who never got higher marks than C and even if once in a blue moon they got an A they would be more shocked than anyone else?
Every single school will have dozens or even hundreds pupils like that. But they are always divided into sub-groups. There will always be the 'tough guys' one, usually guys or even girls who are really good at sports, but that's about it. Most of the time they are quite attractive and may be even handsome, but that's only because everything has to be in balance in nature thus here is the rule of thumb - the more handsome the guys is, the thicker he would be.
Another group, which is the most common and the most annoying one, is the so-called 'lazy club'. These are the people who never do their homework, they have no talents and have no chances to develop any skills at all in million years, because all they care about is to become happy and rich with minimum effort.
Finally, there is my favourite group, which is labelled the 'beyond any hope' one. They may sometimes do their homework, they may not be even ugly, but not pretty either. Just ordinary people, with ordinary desires and mediocre abilities. This is the biggest group and the most dangerous group of human species on the planet.
The worst thing about these people is that they will never admit or even understand that they are just ordinary people, from ordinary background, with mediocre skills and they will never make it to the Forbes Top 100. They will somehow finish college and get themselves into university and that's where all the problems start.
Usually, being completely delusional and under very wrong impression that they actually can make it, they will enrol for a good degree like law. Law is a very attractive option for these people, because it's promising, lucrative and they are going to fucking make it and be very rich and respectable.
You can easily spot these people. From day one they realise that this is their moment to shine and they are going to take it all. They will prepare for their tutorial 3 weeks in advance, they will try their hardest to finish their course works one month in advance and they will always ask questions after the lectures.
Remember your frustration when you are at your last lecture, it's been a really long day and all you can think about is your comfortable bed and food, and it's only 2 minutes left till the end, there will be this one guy or girl who would raise her hand seconds before the end and ask a really long stupid question? Remember how the second s/he opened her/his mouth you can physically feel how your blood started to boil and all you wanted to do was to poison this motherfucker and watch her/him slowly die in excruciating pain?
And every single boring lecture, the story repeats. There will always be the-most-annoying-people-who-want-to-make-it and they will always ask questions, which a normal human being would never ask because he simply wouldn't care. Because he would have at least 5 brain cells to figure out the answer himself.
But here is the answer why 'beyond the hope' people are the most dangerous ones. Because no matter how hard they try, how many questions they ask and how many weeks before the deadline they finish their tasks, they never get 1st class degrees. They always end up with mediocre grades, but they would not give up on their idea that they are so fucking special and unique because everyone around them is simply too bold to appreciate it.
But the saddest part of this story is this. When they finally leave school, finish university and step into the big wild world, they do not change. When they finally grow up, they do not become suddenly very smart and wise and realistic. They are still the same kids who fucking never get it, only now they have grown up bodies.
And when they enter the legal world, that's where the disaster begins and that's why we keep having financial crises, systems keep collapsing and more and more people are made miserable every day.
Let the true story begin...
No matter how hard or easy the task was, they would always end up asking ridiculous questions and even the most patient teachers would start to lose their temper? Those kids who never got higher marks than C and even if once in a blue moon they got an A they would be more shocked than anyone else?
Every single school will have dozens or even hundreds pupils like that. But they are always divided into sub-groups. There will always be the 'tough guys' one, usually guys or even girls who are really good at sports, but that's about it. Most of the time they are quite attractive and may be even handsome, but that's only because everything has to be in balance in nature thus here is the rule of thumb - the more handsome the guys is, the thicker he would be.
Another group, which is the most common and the most annoying one, is the so-called 'lazy club'. These are the people who never do their homework, they have no talents and have no chances to develop any skills at all in million years, because all they care about is to become happy and rich with minimum effort.
Finally, there is my favourite group, which is labelled the 'beyond any hope' one. They may sometimes do their homework, they may not be even ugly, but not pretty either. Just ordinary people, with ordinary desires and mediocre abilities. This is the biggest group and the most dangerous group of human species on the planet.
The worst thing about these people is that they will never admit or even understand that they are just ordinary people, from ordinary background, with mediocre skills and they will never make it to the Forbes Top 100. They will somehow finish college and get themselves into university and that's where all the problems start.
Usually, being completely delusional and under very wrong impression that they actually can make it, they will enrol for a good degree like law. Law is a very attractive option for these people, because it's promising, lucrative and they are going to fucking make it and be very rich and respectable.
You can easily spot these people. From day one they realise that this is their moment to shine and they are going to take it all. They will prepare for their tutorial 3 weeks in advance, they will try their hardest to finish their course works one month in advance and they will always ask questions after the lectures.
Remember your frustration when you are at your last lecture, it's been a really long day and all you can think about is your comfortable bed and food, and it's only 2 minutes left till the end, there will be this one guy or girl who would raise her hand seconds before the end and ask a really long stupid question? Remember how the second s/he opened her/his mouth you can physically feel how your blood started to boil and all you wanted to do was to poison this motherfucker and watch her/him slowly die in excruciating pain?
And every single boring lecture, the story repeats. There will always be the-most-annoying-people-who-want-to-make-it and they will always ask questions, which a normal human being would never ask because he simply wouldn't care. Because he would have at least 5 brain cells to figure out the answer himself.
But here is the answer why 'beyond the hope' people are the most dangerous ones. Because no matter how hard they try, how many questions they ask and how many weeks before the deadline they finish their tasks, they never get 1st class degrees. They always end up with mediocre grades, but they would not give up on their idea that they are so fucking special and unique because everyone around them is simply too bold to appreciate it.
But the saddest part of this story is this. When they finally leave school, finish university and step into the big wild world, they do not change. When they finally grow up, they do not become suddenly very smart and wise and realistic. They are still the same kids who fucking never get it, only now they have grown up bodies.
And when they enter the legal world, that's where the disaster begins and that's why we keep having financial crises, systems keep collapsing and more and more people are made miserable every day.
Let the true story begin...
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