Yet More Great British Moaning

I don't want anyone thinking that I blame immigration for all our problems, so I've continued my moaning in this post [having judged my last one long & tedious enough, so left off where I did].

No, a lot of our problems are home grown. I'm referring to the indigenous, bone-idle layabouts that WON'T go to work, then moan about immigrants taking all 'their' jobs. I was astonished to learn [this is old news now] that young, fit, 'on the dole' people were offered temporary work at well above the minimum wage. Once they found out that it involved getting up before 10.00am & it would be manual labour [boxing cauliflowers on farms], they stated - on tv - that they'd sooner 'sign on'.

There's something sadly wrong with the benefits system if someone able-bodied is offered a manual job & they're allowed to turn it down without loss of benefit. In my opinion, they should have been told 'on yer bike'.

During my on-off employment at Aristoc [I was a 'casual'], my 'bestest friend in the whole wide world' & I decided to see if we were entitled to go 'on the dole' for a couple of months, we'd not bothered before, but were persuaded by some other temps that had been working with us on this particular occasion [1995].

Off we went to the Social Security office. We got booklets to fill in & were given appointments.

'Are we sure we want to do this?'
'Yes, look we might not even gerrowt, so stop worrying'
'But we're NOT actively seeking employment'
'What're you on about now?'
'Look, it says here that we've got to be looking for work & we're not'
'We'll bluff'
''But we can't tell lies without looking guilty'
'Be brave'.

We were incredibly brave. We found out that we were indeed entitled to full benefits & had been during our usual 2-3 months off each year for most of the previous 8 years.

We, ahem - fibbed & 'signed on'.
It was the most agonising & tortuous 3 months [then] of our lives. I had to 'sign on' one Friday, my friend the following Friday, so in effect we went every week to support each other [what wimps!]. We hated it. They inconsiderately kept trying to find us jobs & we had to answer questions about where we'd been LOOKING for work.

YIKES! They want me to go to the 'Job Club', starting in 3 weeks, was my visibly shaken friends' response to one of these torture sessions.
'That's it, I'm packing this in, I can't sleep for worrying'
I agreed with her, we weren't cut out for it [fibbing]. Fortunately Aristoc phoned us the following week to tell us that we were once again 'vital but casual' members of their reprocessing staff'.

So why don't others feel the same sense of shame as we did? I don't mean people genuinely between jobs, or the ones, through no fault of their own, who have been made redundant [been there, done that, still didn't sign on, decided to have a 'gap year']. We felt that we were taking money that we shouldn't as we could afford not to but we were ENTITLED! It was also very obvious at the Social Security office that as we were newbies, they seemed more determined to 'get us back to work'. Whereas the habitual benefit collector just 'signed on' ...