Job Trials and Training

I cannot believe that most UK companies now expect people to have so many specific skills in order to do a job. Many of these can only be kept current by being in a similar job yet academic study does not always provide the level of knowledge and skills expected by companies. Also not everyone can secure a place on a graduate recruitment scheme and many, like myself, are unhappy with call centre or temporary jobs through agencies.

It would be a lot more useful to be able to go to work and have a 50:50 work training split where I could learn further skills on the job but also able to put what I know to good use. This is instead of having to do stop gap jobs and pay for training.

Of course this would mean that private companies, for example in IT, would need to be flexible regarding employment and allow new recruits to learn on the job rather than expecting them to know everything already. It may also mean a lower starting salary or extra training hours for the employee.

BA baggage problems

After the passenger tax increase now comes the horrendous baggage charges. Yet we can carry several pieces of hand luggage and carry sports equipment in bags at no extra cost!

Why not tax the airplanes for fuel consumption - NOT the passengers.

Also issues about police state (inequality) and nanny state (overprotective over children). Irony is most trouble is caused by white teenagers yet these are the most protected people. Second irony - you cannot do anything (except report to the police or if in danger of losing life) if you are hassled by gangs of kids on the streets or (in some cases) burglers and thieves.

This country - the "dis-united kingdom" makes me laugh!
Equality for all - discrimination for none.

Correct charges - wrong methods

So people are moaning about the doubling of the airport tax. Well if the UK government had decided to apply the increase for flights booked from a specified date rather than make pre-booked passengers pay again at the airports then there would have been less chaos. Also, would it not be better to have levied charges on the airlines instead? Get it right next time Mr Blair!

I can understand being charged for text messages that I have sent. However, these companies are charging for receiving messages. Yet it is so easy for someone to put a false number in for a club or marketing site and lo and behold I get charged for receiving messages. So I had to type STOP ALL to prevent this from happening.

I also think banks overcharge for overdraft and credit limit violations (why get charged every day for on a charge made for going over by 1p) and the government and the whole employment industry is driving people to pay for all training. Then I am told I cannot get work because of no recent work experience. Yet if I volunteer I cannot live in the accursed country. Yuk!

Chasing people up

I think everyone finds this most frustrating. Repeatedly calling someone up because they either do not return your calls or have not done something done that they promised or even owe you money. Contacting people who are unresponsive wastes time and money and indicates that they don't care even if they are just too busy. Of course in some cases they may have changed numbers or have suffered emotional stress. Wouldn't it be great if people texted, called or emailed back a holding message such as away on holiday rather than ignoring the call?

A worse scenario is when a company lets you down because of poor customer service. For example, a certain parcel delivery company left a mobile number to call back and no one is responding. Also, their Website is out of date and uninformative and yet one of the biggest shopping companies is still using them. So I'm still waiting for my parcel.

Another example is the lack of feedback on job applications. Even saying why an application has been rejected would be useful instead of sending nothing or a generic rejection letter.

I hate being let down and I do not like letting others down. If I let myself down then I call at least do something about it. With other people all you can do is remind them and hope they has a sense of compassion, duty and honesty (even if it is to tell you that they cannot help you).

Popup Annoyance

Websites that spawn windows containing adverts and pushing other information in your face are the scourge of the internet. Another is the pop-over windows that obsure articles with an advert. These can normally be closed by the 'x' in the top right hand corner.

Other things that annoy me online include bogus emails such as fake competition entries and phishing sites that go to a false banking site or rely on the gullible to believe that they have won something. Also, badly designed sites with flashing and glaring graphics. These include gambing sites and those where the designer is trying to show off all their skills and some of the content is missing, out of date or not working properly.

There are also too many programming and scripting languages. Many of these will become obselete in the next 5 to 10 years when convergence happens or when AI takes over the coding process.

The cost of Travel

With the strong winds, celebrity big brother fiasco and BBC move hitting the news it was surprising to find out on the news that the average houshold spends 62 pounds on travel (followed by 58 on leisure). There is a huge opportunity in saving time and money if everyone could reduce their travel by just 10% (not to mention the environmental improvement).

Things that could be done include:

(1) Increase in telecommuting and home working including the use of video conferencing and selective computer networks that link some home computers to the business network.
(2) Virtual reality technology to the point where reality and fantasy merge but where the user has control of his or her surroundings (instead of a matrix scenario). This may reduce the demand on flights as well as trains and car use for leisure purposes.
(3) Vehicle pooling and bussing to the extent that people are picked up and driven in groups by area to area thus reducing traffic and road time picking up.
(4) Active promotion of cycling and walking for shorter distances (increases fitness and reduces stress).
(5) Teleportation of body or/and mind via the process of scan/download/transfer/upload in a process analogous to direct writing but where we can download human consciousness and upload at the other end (possibly to a cloned body).

Anyway 3 of these ideas could be used here and now without affecting working efficiency. What happened to the paperless office now that we could benefit from car-less roads?

Job experience conundrum

Why is it such a problem in today's society to get work?

I have applied for many jobs but get no interviews.

A couple of agencies have told me it is because of a lack of experience in the last year or two. However, this was largely due to personal problems and depression. So how to fill the gaps - courses, helping others, explaining how I have searched for jobs.

IT industry so unwilling to train candidates for entry level jobs.

This culture in the last 5 years seems to rely on the individual to continuously train yet this is not enough. For example, it costs money to get IT certification, do a degree course and then go the extra mile either by volunteering or somehow getting the experience before getting the job that gets the experience. This is a big issue considering the amount of jobs and people job switching. Degrees are wasted because no one recognises the fact that I have transferable skills and can also pick up the more demanding aspects of the job quickly.

Unemployment.

It appears that unemployment ensures a much harder route back to work. Companies just do not like to invite people to interviews who have been out of work or have only done short term work in recent months. There appears to be a culture of poaching people from one job to another and job moving. This is good if you are in a career already and want to move ahead but leaves the stop gap jobbers and unemployed left to network and work for nothing to find better work and seek out those lucky opportunities.

Building a presence.

A CV only gets you so far. A good Website, demo or portfolio (if relevent) helps but since 90% of careers seek experience and often a lot of it in the same role things are not looking good for gaining broad career experience. Grabbing the bull by the horns helps as long as debt does not become an issue. After doing call centre jobs, some admin and some industrial work it is not nice to have to do even more of this whilst trying to get a proper job that I will enjoy rather than one that may just get some money in.

OVERALL I FEEL LET DOWN BY THIS MONEY GRABBING CAPITALIST SOCIETY AND THE WAY IT IS RUN.