Just run this by me one more time...

You start a thread called "kick me whilst I'm down".

And then when people do just that, you start huffing and puffing and foot stomping ?

Have I got this right so far ?

Every person in the world has a tolerance breaking point. All I’ve done is ate up all the usual undue criticism on here and spat back out. I did things my way. However I acknowledge that I’ve been really immature about this and I’ve deserved every response I’ve got in this thread. Certainly one to forget.

A straight answer would be: Yes.

Well write this down in the notebook under your pillow - "don't ask people to kick me when I'm down unless I want to be kicked when I'm down, because, chances are, they'll kick me when I'm down"

Now have cake.

Victoria Sponge I think is in order on this occasion I'd say.

To be fair to Damo it is possible to apply for Jobs and just hear naff all back, few years back I was unemployed, got sent to one of those back to work were you just apply for jobs all day, in 3 months I applied for around 150 jobs (applied for 42 in one day once), every C.V, application etc was checked by the staff there, every one I was qualified for or could do, in total I heard back from about 20, got 2 interviews but no job (eventually got a job about 2 months later) so it can be hard.

BUT

What is wrong for me is saying "well I don't need a job because I'm working on this project", if you want to work on something great, but fit it around either looking for a job or your job. If want to write a book, I could quit my job, go on JSA and just spend all my time writing as hopefully in the end I'd be making a living from it, but that's not how it should work, I should do it in my free time around my work, or if I want to do it all the time finance it myself, as for doing menial jobs, one of my 2 interviews was for a cleaner at burger king and I didn't even get that.

Good point.

The following is not a dig but a bit of advice, if you don't want to hear comments about taxes and benefits then don't write in your opening post that you are going to spend £60 on alcohol when the people on here know where your money has come from to buy it and you surely know how people feel about benefits/taxes situation in the country, its just asking for trouble. It didn't need to be included as it added nothing of value to the post and it read in such a ''I don't care what you think'' way, and just stuck out from everything else there like a huge target for people to aim at.

I'm going to start my post on here in a more generic way than some have. I've had disagreements with Damo in the past about his lifestyle choices, but it's his choice to live like he currently does.

In general terms, society should be productive, and those who choose to live in society and not be hermits, should contribute. This contribution does not need to be in the form of paid work, non-paid work or charitable work is equally as "valuable", but contribution should be made nonetheless. For those who choose not to contribute in a positive and meaningful way to something that will better society and will add to the net value of the country (either tangibly or intangibly) then frankly, as a consequence they should expect not to receive the gratitude, comfort or thanks from that society.

Of course those who are physically or mentally unable to make such a contribution should be exempted from the above, and society should provide an acceptable level of care for them.

Those who consider that they can "exist" in society without contributing to the general development of that society should not expect to receive any gratitude in return for their philosophy.

Now for the more specific bit. Damo, I hope that you can find work, not only will it provide you with a little more money to do with as you choose, but more importantly it will give you more self respect which it seems to me (maybe down to your condition) you lack. There is an intense feeling of self satisfaction in receiving some form of payment for providing a service to society, and I genuinely hope that this is something that comes your way sooner rather than later. Of course work will not find you, and it may be a long and arduous path to reach the position you aspire to, but each step along the way is inevitably one in a forwards direction.

Some valid points made here by all parties.the big problem is we have lost our manufacturing industry. I really feel sorry for young people leaving school, college etc. to put it bluntly we do not make anything anymore.
I left school in the sixties in south Leeds, every factory was hiring also the construction industry was booming in Leeds.
All our class got jobs before we left.in fact we all had several job offers.all those factories have been closed. Don't laugh but Leeds city transport had permanent vacancies for bus conductors so anybody between jobs could always fill in there for a spell.
Also British rail always had vacancies for various occupations.
Sorry about the meander down memory lane . On reflection our generation was lucky so I am always reluctant to criticize anybody not in employment.

You are of course correct, I left school in '74, picked up the Evening Post the same night which had several pages of vacancies advertised, rang three of them on the Friday, got interviews for all three (you didn't have to apply for an interview, you just asked), went to the first one and got the job - that was the first and last time I've ever had to look for a job !

However my two daughters are in the workforce now and whilst their job seeking was totally different to mine their experiences show that it is possible to present yourself to employers as a valuable employee, and get the job (one of them very well paid).

What?!!

Someone runs a restaurant, are you saying they should not be lazy and cook all the food themselves for 100's of guests, rather than employing a team of chefs?

Should they not be lazy and clean the whole restaurant themselves as well?

I would hardly call chef a 'menial' job either.

Listen, you started this thread, you. We didn't seek you out with an ''FAO Damo got a job yet?'' thread. You invited criticism in your title, but you could tell the undertone was you wanted attention and for people to feel sorry for you, about what a raw deal you have.

Then you make a pointless remark about blowing taxpayers money on booze, and when people are unsuprisingley less than sympathetic you have the sheer nerve to call people on here 'self righteous pr*cks.'

The tone of the above post was almost like you were on a high horse.

I can't speak for anyone else on here, but i don't give a sh*t about your little pie in the sky 'projects', you're living in cloud cuckoo land as far as i'm concerned. You've been making lilttle vague remarks like that for years now. I remember towards the end of the 09 season when you were talking about ''things you had on the go'', which were ''going to take off'' as they were ''backed by the right people''.

Something along those lines. Just vague statements, it's all nothingness.

Get a job, then devote spare time to these projects.

That sounds like a good time to be growing up and looking for a jobl!

It doesn't help that modern society seems to breed shallow, moronic idiots, which is, unfortunatly my generation.

I've got a Job



Sorry couldn't resist

Please don't tar all of Damo's generation with the same brush. Both my daughters have been brought up with the philosophy that 'if you want owt in this world then you'll 'ave to work for it'. They both currently have jobs while studding.

My eldest has dyslexia and through school needed additional help with some of her basic skills. She left high school with three A levels (2 A's and a C) and is currently at Manchester Uni. She achieved this through sheer determination and hard work.

You can do anything with hard work and determination... anything!

It was made clear to both of mine that from the age of 16 there would be no easy ride on our income, the pocket money stopped at that point and they had to start earning - they both got part time jobs through college & uni and neither have been out of work since, some of their jobs have been what others might call "menial" but thats the way it goes, they both have a great work ethic now and I am still their unpaid taxi driver

I am leaning more towards the Jaffa.

Very nice.

Sometimes, I think there's a little bit of scouser in Damo - he's got the whole victim mentality thing going on.

Having retired at the age of 69 and working continuously since I was 16, I have no sympathy for this lazy g*t. It's time for him to get off his ar*e, get down to the job centre and start contributing to society instead of sponging.

sounds interesting, and probably illegal

Saw the Damo in AMF / 1st bowl tonight. Didn't look too happy either.

Just after you met me for a beer after my job interview.....ironic!

True story.

On the decline of manufacturing, or at least related to it, there is another big problem with our labour market - namely that we seem to have a knack for churning out young people without skills relevant to the jobs that do exist. There is sometimes a perception that if you have 2 million people unemployed, filling 400,000 jobs should be easy. But it often isn't. Twice recently I've advertised quite well paying jobs for work we really needed doing and been unable to appoint any of the applicants. In one case we had a re-think and employed at a lower grade with a view to training the candidate up (she's doing very well, as it goes) but the other was an 18 month contract (at least initially) and we couldn't have got the expertise in place in time.

Another example, I had my phone line moved at home a couple of months ago, and had a chat with the Hungarian guy who came to do it about how he came to be working for a sub-contractor of BT. It seems that, rather than him coming over here looking for work, the company had actively gone to Hungary and various other countries to recruit because there simply weren't any qualified telecoms engineers available in this country. I don't imagine for a minute that they wouldn't rather have employed people who were already here, but I guess when every third person has a degree in leaisure and tourism or media/film studies, you can't expect to find anyone with any actual useful skills can you?

So here we are with well over 2 million people unemployed, about 400k vacant jobs, and a frequent inability to match any of the 2 million to the 400k. Epic economy FAIL. I don't actually know how to solve this, but finding some funding for more vocational training (including reversing the lunacy that turned every technical training college in the country into a "University"icon_wink.gif and apprenticeships might be a start. I can't imagine that withdrawing EMA is helping social mobility very much either.

There's a natural tendency to mock those who's oft-repeated response is "It was all different in my day" but in this case it was - and it was better.

When I was 17 and leaving school you expected, not hoped, expected to be employed by a company who would take you from school and train you to do the job.

They would also pay to send you to a college, usually on a day release and/or night school for between three and five years and at the end of it you would have a qualification and a trade - by the time you were 21 you would be a useful contributor to the economy.

That applied to almost EVERY school leaver whether or not you chose a manual profession or an office job, there were almost no jobs that did not involve some sort of on-job training and external studying for the first 3 to 5 years of your working life, it also helped that many professions actually tied you to the company for that same period by means of apprenticeship or indenture contracts so that you all were confident that there actually was a future for you - many trades also had professional bodies who would supervise the whole thing, approve your training courses and qualifications, and if your employer went bust they would find another employer to take you on (or at least they did in the construction trade).

I went into electrical contracting as a surveyor so have experience of how an electrical apprenticeship worked, five years of working four days a week and studying one day plus two nights is what produced 21 year old qualified electricians in my day - I understand that you can do it in a few weeks these days at privately owned colleges that may or may not issue recognised certificates at the end of it - you simply will never convince me that those trade qualifications come even close to the Apprenticeship Release forms and JIB Electricians card that our apprentices would recieve in their 21st year - not anything like close.