A warning to all people looking for work.

Yesterday, I was happy to receive an e-mail.  Yes, I know that Gmail apparently crashed... and that wasn't why I was happy.

The e-mail was a job offer:

Good day Mr ......,

We are delighted to formally offer you an employment to work with us in our Company. We have picked out your resume from totaljobs.com.

The position is subjected to the following terms and conditions:
• Compensation: Will be paid in monthly installments of 1,500 pounds, subject to deductions for taxes and withholdings as required by law and the company policies.
• 8 % Commission.
• Benefits:
- Formal training via our personal supervisor training program
- Management growth opportunities
- Health care and retirement plan
- Solid technology support
- Paid vacation
- Paid Sick leave
• Non-Compete Agreement: non-compete agreement must be signed prior to start.
• Terminating the employment: employment is at-will basis. Both parties can terminate the relationship with a notice of 2 weeks at any time.

If you are in agreement with the above outline, please let me know. This offer is in effect for 1 week.

Please review this offer of employment, if you have any queries about these please do not hesitate to contact contact us at office.hr.simon@gmail.com.

I had to read it a couple of times.  There were no attachments, and no other details.

I was meeting a jobs adviser later that day and I forwarded the e-mail onto him, and when I saw him, he told me that it was a scam, and not only that, but it was quite common.  People are desperate for jobs these days, and so they'd probably be as elated as I was to receive an e-mail with a job offer.

So things to look out for.

No details with regards to the job itself.
No company details.
No company e-mail, which will be formal and will probably have a company logo.
Use of the word "resume".  In the UK we prefer "curriculum vitae" or "CV"
Use of the word "vacation".  We might have annual leave or holiday pay.

If this is apparently quite common, why aren't online job agencies making sure that the companies are legitimate???  I did forward this to totaljobs.com and will see what happens.  But I deliberately included the senders e-mail so that hopefully you're aware if you get something similar.

Happy and safe job-hunting.

Joe.

A Change of Direction.

I couldn't write this blog before Christmas.  Actually, I couldn't write at all before Christmas.

Last year (2013) wasn't a good year for me.  One emergency operation in March derailed me (not long after I'd celebrated my 40th birthday).  It took another one in August to put me back on track.  And then it happened.

    I was made redundant.

    I worked for an organisation for 12 years, over a quarter of my life. I worked for a disability organisation whose primary aim is to promote independent living, and I enjoyed my job.  Being diabled myself was a handy bonus because I could be all empathic and mean it.  Plus I loved working with people.  But like every place of work, the word "restructure" means job losses.  I'd been through two before and "survived" (if you can call it that).  And we're not all like Keannu Reeves, we can't always dodge bullets.  The third restructure hit me hard.  The Council had cut funding which meant that there were going to be severe changes in the organisation.  Which meant that my job, which I loved, was no more. 

    Losing a job is like being pushed out of a plane at 40,000 feet (however high that is).  You go into freefall.  You want to scream but you look around and you find that there are lots of planes up there and lots of people being pushed out of them.  And the horror on their faces matches yours: Oh god, what am I going to do now???

    When you're in employment, everybody says what a good thing a redundancy package is.  Its money and its tax free.  Well... yes.  But its not a job and that money will run out.  If you're smart, you'll try and save what have because when that rainy day comes (and we've had quite a few of them) you'll need it.  Being in work puts a person on the side of Right. You have a status and You're Making A Positive Contribution To Society.  The media and politicians all over are quite happy saying that they working for "the hard working people".  There is a whole stigma attached to "people who don't work".  It terrified me that I was not one of those people any more.  Did that mean that I was not one of those people that David Cameron was going to help?

    What people don't talk about is the emotional effect that losing your job can have.  It's like a tidal wave, lifting a person up, taking them away by force from everything that they were comfortable with and dropping them in the middle of nowhere.  And unless it happens to you, you don't know what it feels like.

    For me the most difficult thing I found was that I couldn't write.  We're not talking about CV's or application forms here.  Those I wrote.  In fact I made looking for work a full time job with added hours for evenings and weekends.  The new Birmingam Central Library became my second home.  I was making my sandwiches the night before as normal and taking a thermos of coffee in the morning.  The old Central Library used to be my second home but its becoming a fading memory, like my old job.

    When you start looking for work, you have to think, I'll do anything (within reason and within my capabilities.)  I can't walk a tightrope in my wheelchair.  I can't walk two parallel tightropes because I'm afraid of heights.  But I will Do Something.

    But I couldn't write.      Writing is a passion for me.  Actually, well its not.  Living in worlds inside my head are a passion as are getting them down on paper.  But I had to change that channel, because until I'd found a job I wasn't going to be comfortable with using my keyboard for anything other than writing application forms.  I wanted to write, but I couldn't find it in my heart to think about writing. 

    Every day presented a new challenge because the current climate tells of more people going into free fall.  And those are the people that I go up against to find work.  These aren't good times that we live in.  I found that there is a paradox with looking for work, because whilst employers say that they "are looking for people with skills in", what they're really saying is that "they want people who already have experience of doing ...".  And you can't get experience in an area without somebody giving you a job.

    But this story will hopefully end optimistically.  Because just before Christmas, just before Christmas... I was offered a job.  So the next I write, after this, will be my letter of acceptance.

    And then maybe 2014 will see my life and my writing move in a different direction.

    I hope that your lives have a positive start to the new year as well.

    Take care

    Joe.