The reality of life for many MANY people.
Discussion
djc206 said:
danllama said:
I think it's a good point, one of the best in this thread. Every time I'm out drinking with my boss I'll try to persuade him to change our working hours to a four day week. I think having a third day off really makes a huge difference to morale and attitude. He hasn't agreed yet. The sooner I'm my own boss the better.
Ha good luck with that. The Swedes are reducing their working days because they reckon long hours don't mean high productivity, you could try that approach?
The funny thing is we're not asking to do less hours. We're asking to fit the hours in to four days. If I want to do my work over four, 10 hour days (give or take) instead of five, 8 hour days, why shouldn't I be able to? It makes a mockery of any sense of liberty. Hey ho, we all know what we sign up for...danllama said:
Done it. We bombard him with research The funny thing is we're not asking to do less hours. We're asking to fit the hours in to four days. If I want to do my work over four, 10 hour days (give or take) instead of five, 8 hour days, why shouldn't I be able to? It makes a mockery of any sense of liberty. Hey ho, we all know what we sign up for...
Quite. You'll probably find you burn through money a lot quicker with 3 days off. I get 4 days off in a row and it's perfect for city breaks, not so perfect for credit card bills. The funny thing is we're not asking to do less hours. We're asking to fit the hours in to four days. If I want to do my work over four, 10 hour days (give or take) instead of five, 8 hour days, why shouldn't I be able to? It makes a mockery of any sense of liberty. Hey ho, we all know what we sign up for...djc206 said:
danllama said:
Done it. We bombard him with research The funny thing is we're not asking to do less hours. We're asking to fit the hours in to four days. If I want to do my work over four, 10 hour days (give or take) instead of five, 8 hour days, why shouldn't I be able to? It makes a mockery of any sense of liberty. Hey ho, we all know what we sign up for...
Quite. You'll probably find you burn through money a lot quicker with 3 days off. I get 4 days off in a row and it's perfect for city breaks, not so perfect for credit card bills. The funny thing is we're not asking to do less hours. We're asking to fit the hours in to four days. If I want to do my work over four, 10 hour days (give or take) instead of five, 8 hour days, why shouldn't I be able to? It makes a mockery of any sense of liberty. Hey ho, we all know what we sign up for...danllama said:
djc206 said:
danllama said:
Done it. We bombard him with research The funny thing is we're not asking to do less hours. We're asking to fit the hours in to four days. If I want to do my work over four, 10 hour days (give or take) instead of five, 8 hour days, why shouldn't I be able to? It makes a mockery of any sense of liberty. Hey ho, we all know what we sign up for...
Quite. You'll probably find you burn through money a lot quicker with 3 days off. I get 4 days off in a row and it's perfect for city breaks, not so perfect for credit card bills. The funny thing is we're not asking to do less hours. We're asking to fit the hours in to four days. If I want to do my work over four, 10 hour days (give or take) instead of five, 8 hour days, why shouldn't I be able to? It makes a mockery of any sense of liberty. Hey ho, we all know what we sign up for...matsoc said:
johnwilliams77 said:
308mate said:
Haha. To me that reads like "Good grief, I've just discovered poor people. How quaint they are, with their imperfect cars and second rate mobile phones. I wonder if it's permitted to keep or hunt them?"
Crazy.
Nothing crazy about it. Perfectly easy to live in a bubble. Live in nice area. Drive nice car to work. Work with other people well off. Weekends is trips away or golf and no need to mix with poor. Easy to avoid povertyCrazy.
Are you saying me that a well off man can believe that who serve his dinner, who park his car, who clean his house, etc. can afford to live like him?
There are different tranches of poor for a starters. Just seeing a person on the street in a tracksuit hastling others for money does not mean you have discovered this portion of society.
I think many of those on here who are ridiculing those that have not engaged with poor people are probably equally as uneducated towards other sectors of society.
People put on a facade, either to make them seem more or less affluent.
That tracksuited oik, is probably doing ok. Nice phone, clothes, decent benefits coming in and has found how to play the ex-druggie card.
That lovely old couple walking down the street may be skipping meals because they simply annot afford.
But then there are whole swathes of the country most will not step into. suburbs of the northern cities where no-one does well for themselves. Just driving through these areas tells you nothing either. work(?) or live with them and you will see something completely different.
It is being taken for granted on here that yu can work your way out of poverty with the right attitude. But that is quite ridiculously belittling. I don't want to get onto the point of how you actually get a foothold to work your way up, but if your benefits pay more than if you started working, then how do you actually start? When just finishing school with a qualification is the goal, and not achieving A-C grades, or getting into a decent uni, what do you put on your CV, is there a point in even having one?
But mostly the attitude you have learned from your family and friends, or have observed from the interactions you have had in your life have taught you how to get a step up. Many will never have this insight. The simple knowledge of how to talk to someone in a formal worklike manner will escape them.
Been reading through the entire thread and many valid points. I do agree that many are simply beyond help and are just general wasters in society. Like many here, my early years were spent in a council estate and we remained there until my Mother obtained her Masters degree and had built a decent enough career which afforded us the ability to move away to a middle class area. over 90% of those I knew from that council estate have done nothing at all with their lives. Even now in their 30's and 40's they still live there. All are unemployed and have zero education. All have kids out of marriage to various partners. No doubt most of their kids will also end up being exactly the same. Benefit culture in the UK has been a total mess.
I work in the public sector and I deal with people like this on a daily basis. We see entire generations of a family all claiming DLA and various other benefits. Some have it set up where they are able to get around £1,000 per week in benefits. How does a person with no education, no work experience at all as we get many who have been unemployed for 20+ years and now being forced into workplace, no social skills and simply just at the pure bottom of society manage to get out of that mess? It simply can't be done. There is no hope at all for these people.
I work in the public sector and I deal with people like this on a daily basis. We see entire generations of a family all claiming DLA and various other benefits. Some have it set up where they are able to get around £1,000 per week in benefits. How does a person with no education, no work experience at all as we get many who have been unemployed for 20+ years and now being forced into workplace, no social skills and simply just at the pure bottom of society manage to get out of that mess? It simply can't be done. There is no hope at all for these people.
djc206 said:
matsoc said:
djc206 said:
"A tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful"
Life is for living not working, I can't think of anything more pointless that working 12 hours a day for 40 years to acquire stuff.
This is very true, nobody can buy happiness. But, at least for me, a one week escape to Maui in mid-autumn, a nice drive, a great Barolo Vintage and many other things you can actually buy, can ease the pain.Life is for living not working, I can't think of anything more pointless that working 12 hours a day for 40 years to acquire stuff.
djc206 said:
I've never known anyone really rich but of the moderately wealthy people I know none are any happier than the poor people I've known and know.
It is not always so easy to spot happiness but according to my experience poor people can be exactly like wealthy ones, good and awful. My neighbours haven't been on holiday for years, the bloke of the house leaves at 6am most mornings and doesn't return until 7pm most evenings. That's not a life. But it's ok because they have a £500k house, an Audi and a BMW.....
burritoNinja said:
Been reading through the entire thread and many valid points. I do agree that many are simply beyond help and are just general wasters in society. Like many here, my early years were spent in a council estate and we remained there until my Mother obtained her Masters degree and had built a decent enough career which afforded us the ability to move away to a middle class area. over 90% of those I knew from that council estate have done nothing at all with their lives. Even now in their 30's and 40's they still live there. All are unemployed and have zero education. All have kids out of marriage to various partners. No doubt most of their kids will also end up being exactly the same. Benefit culture in the UK has been a total mess.
I work in the public sector and I deal with people like this on a daily basis. We see entire generations of a family all claiming DLA and various other benefits. Some have it set up where they are able to get around £1,000 per week in benefits. How does a person with no education, no work experience at all as we get many who have been unemployed for 20+ years and now being forced into workplace, no social skills and simply just at the pure bottom of society manage to get out of that mess? It simply can't be done. There is no hope at all for these people.
agreed.I work in the public sector and I deal with people like this on a daily basis. We see entire generations of a family all claiming DLA and various other benefits. Some have it set up where they are able to get around £1,000 per week in benefits. How does a person with no education, no work experience at all as we get many who have been unemployed for 20+ years and now being forced into workplace, no social skills and simply just at the pure bottom of society manage to get out of that mess? It simply can't be done. There is no hope at all for these people.
for me it all comes back to education. That is the chance we have for our society to give people a chance. Everyone passes through it, so if we can break the cycle here, we can change things...
...however does society really want it changing? It kind of feels like it doesn't.
burritoNinja said:
Been reading through the entire thread and many valid points. I do agree that many are simply beyond help and are just general wasters in society. Like many here, my early years were spent in a council estate and we remained there until my Mother obtained her Masters degree and had built a decent enough career which afforded us the ability to move away to a middle class area. over 90% of those I knew from that council estate have done nothing at all with their lives. Even now in their 30's and 40's they still live there. All are unemployed and have zero education. All have kids out of marriage to various partners. No doubt most of their kids will also end up being exactly the same. Benefit culture in the UK has been a total mess.
I work in the public sector and I deal with people like this on a daily basis. We see entire generations of a family all claiming DLA and various other benefits. Some have it set up where they are able to get around £1,000 per week in benefits. How does a person with no education, no work experience at all as we get many who have been unemployed for 20+ years and now being forced into workplace, no social skills and simply just at the pure bottom of society manage to get out of that mess? It simply can't be done. There is no hope at all for these people.
To be honest, I don't actually believe benefits are all that relevant in this regard but that a society is better to have a benefits system so that those who have ambition to move upwards at least have the best chance to do so. I see benefits as an absolutely essential tool for any form of equality and that the negatives just have to be seen as a natural wastage necessary to achieve the ultimate goal. Of course, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be targeted as best as possible but I don't see it as overly productive to focus on the downsides of what, along with the NHS and free education, make this country so much better than most others. I work in the public sector and I deal with people like this on a daily basis. We see entire generations of a family all claiming DLA and various other benefits. Some have it set up where they are able to get around £1,000 per week in benefits. How does a person with no education, no work experience at all as we get many who have been unemployed for 20+ years and now being forced into workplace, no social skills and simply just at the pure bottom of society manage to get out of that mess? It simply can't be done. There is no hope at all for these people.
All societies have always have those who are lazy or foolish along with those who are diligent and ambitious etc. As well as those who are blessed with being genuinely content where they are. It's human nature. Remove or increase benefits and human nature will still win through, just google Gin Palaces for an example. It's good that the State manages benefits rather than small offerings of alms from industry or religious enterprises.
You can lead a horse to water but after a couple of attempts I think that the finite resources must be directed as accurately as possible at targeting those like your mother to ensure they can move up and out. We talk about a moral decline in the U.K. But I don't think now is much different to before. There have always been people drunk and rutting in the back streets and there always will be. What has probably changed is the general shift of society from a once mostly conservative view to a more liberal one.
As such, it makes for an interesting argument that as most immigrants fall into the camp of wanting to better their lot and that of their children it would be more efficient use of resources to help them achieve their goals than others. Which is obviously at odds with general thinking. If we were a truly capitalist society then we would openly invest in the winners and cut the losers loose.
Efbe said:
It is being taken for granted on here that yu can work your way out of poverty with the right attitude. But that is quite ridiculously belittling. I don't want to get onto the point of how you actually get a foothold to work your way up, but if your benefits pay more than if you started working, then how do you actually start? When just finishing school with a qualification is the goal, and not achieving A-C grades, or getting into a decent uni, what do you put on your CV, is there a point in even having one?
But mostly the attitude you have learned from your family and friends, or have observed from the interactions you have had in your life have taught you how to get a step up. Many will never have this insight. The simple knowledge of how to talk to someone in a formal worklike manner will escape them.
I fully agree with you. I never thought it could be easy or always possible to work a way out of poverty. Moreover I personally achieved very little in financial terms: yes, I now have a good job in a good company but my lifestyle has been possible so far thanks to properties I inherited. And I was starting from a privileged point, I grew up in a cultured environment. Even if, to be fair, I am probably more experienced in how to spend money rather than how to make them.But mostly the attitude you have learned from your family and friends, or have observed from the interactions you have had in your life have taught you how to get a step up. Many will never have this insight. The simple knowledge of how to talk to someone in a formal worklike manner will escape them.
danllama said:
I think it's a good point, one of the best in this thread. Every time I'm out drinking with my boss I'll try to persuade him to change our working hours to a four day week. I think having a third day off really makes a huge difference to morale and attitude. He hasn't agreed yet. The sooner I'm my own boss the better.
Are you crazy? I'm my own boss and I've never worked more in life! Certainly far more than any 35 hour per week office job!NinjaPower said:
danllama said:
I think it's a good point, one of the best in this thread. Every time I'm out drinking with my boss I'll try to persuade him to change our working hours to a four day week. I think having a third day off really makes a huge difference to morale and attitude. He hasn't agreed yet. The sooner I'm my own boss the better.
Are you crazy? I'm my own boss and I've never worked more in life! Certainly far more than any 35 hour per week office job!
It was only a few posts ago you were telling us all how to "work smarter".. You seem to have some way to go yourself!Its very easy to spot the 2 different mindsets among contractors. The first kind never take a day off and have all the "stuff", the second kind have 3 months off a year to travel, do their hobbies etc. In my experience its the first kind who panic when contracts are cut short/rates are cut or whatever.
Regarding living in a bubble, I think its possible to a certain extent but surely people must be turning a blind eye if they truly believe the world is as the Daily Mail tells them? Or they live an extremely sheltered life of not doing very much.
Regarding living in a bubble, I think its possible to a certain extent but surely people must be turning a blind eye if they truly believe the world is as the Daily Mail tells them? Or they live an extremely sheltered life of not doing very much.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I think those kind of figures are a bit anomalous. They tend to be linked to DM hate propaganda and feature either an immigrant with 10 kids or a fat bird shaped like a wheelie bin, with ten kids and living with a little bloke shaped like a matchstick and how they need to move to a million pound house etc. The vast majority of people are on far less and have it really shot. But that's not to say there aren't issues. Camden council for example is fully aware of the vast number of fake divorces that private landlords report to them where the wife claims to be battered etc so she gets a new property with some of the kids and then she and her happily married husband decide which of the two discounted properties to rent out or AirB&B for some free money. Or the system that allows landlords to charge rent on a below average flat based on the average rent of the street.
There are lots of things that could be done to trim around the edges and make fairer but the numbers are absolutely dwarfed by the spend on our elderly and that's hard to fix as the money to fix it lies in the hands of the elderly!
I like this thread. So true, and most of these people (the hidden ones) I believe are the ones that swung the EU ref in an unexpected direction. I have a few friend slike this and they literally live day to day with no savings or real ambitions to improve. Odd but a reality for a huge amount of people.
Unless OP lives in Belgravia and has a driver then I do find it hard to see how its taken him this long to notice the rest of the UK population.
Perhaps this is one of the unfortunate (or fortunate depending on your view) parts of social media, such as Facebook, you're constantly reminded of just how people you worked with, went to school with, or whatever live, and while many will be like you, there's plenty who consider a Beefeater an acceptable place to take your family of a weekend, 4 generations that all look under 50.
Perhaps this is one of the unfortunate (or fortunate depending on your view) parts of social media, such as Facebook, you're constantly reminded of just how people you worked with, went to school with, or whatever live, and while many will be like you, there's plenty who consider a Beefeater an acceptable place to take your family of a weekend, 4 generations that all look under 50.
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