Want a job? You'll have to get through boot camp first

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/10/unemployed-young-people-jump-hoops-work

John Wynne, 24 and unemployed, was so keen to get a job that he was prepared to jump through hoops – or at least up and down on a box – for the opportunity.

That is why he found himself on an industrial estate in Earlsfield, south-west London, at 10am, preparing to be put through his paces at what has been billed as Britain's first boot camp for unemployed young people.

A future reality tv show perhaps? Jugded by Cowell, Camoron and Clegg perhaps.

Unbelievable. As if being deprived of sustainable work wasn't enough, now the unemployed are forced to have the of the last vestiges of their dignity eliminated as well? The system never ceases to amaze me.

I suppose the logical extension of this will be a revival of Roman gladitorial contests, survive ten to the death contests and you win a job as a tea boy. How about 'the running man' style competition, or 'death race 2000' to pick a suitable apprentice mechanic?

Worrying enough, seeing the current state of our society we just might see what Sickens said. We already see sharp downfall of IQ in Europe, who knows given few decades and we'll see a society made up machines, not human beings. Fight for your right to breath and live...

I'm not sure what you're saying since it's impossible for average IQ to fall since IQ itself is an average of the intelligence of the population. The mean (and probably mode) is/are 100.

Anyway, why do you think that Europe is getting dumber? Their education system is much better than North America's. I'm genuinely curious.

Red Aegis wrote:I'm not sure what you're saying since it's impossible for average IQ to fall since IQ itself is an average of the intelligence of the population. The mean (and probably mode) is/are 100.

Anyway, why do you think that Europe is getting dumber? Their education system is much better than North America's. I'm genuinely curious.

What I meant is that its proven that in last decade or two, average European IQ has fallen. Despite what you said, I believe its our educational system that has gotten us here. Over the years we've accepted that some children might be more special and rather than trying to help them achieve their best we let them progress and leave them be as they are, because they are special, and no I am not referring to children who were born with mental disabilities but to perfectly healthy children.

Combining social welfare (or benefits as we call them here) from which people are able to sustain better quality of life than if they were go to work with our educational system will eventually create a nation of idiots.

The arguments for or against the Welfare State or Social Democratic State are for another thread.

As for how the European educational system is holding students back, I would like to hear a more full argument if you would be so kind.

Not to offend you, but you're not using the term IQ correctly. It means the average intelligence related across a whole population. The average intelligence is always 100 when compared to the whole spectrum. If you switched the term IQ with just plain intelligence then your statements would make sense. Currently they do not. Again, I'm not trying to get under your skin.

Red Aegis wrote:Not to offend you, but you're not using the term IQ correctly. It means the average intelligence related across a whole population. The average intelligence is always 100 when compared to the whole spectrum.

If you accept IQ as an accurate measure of innate intelligence (which I don't), the average can technically decline simply by an adjustment in breeding patterns over time. So, for example, if the segment of the population with below average IQs is reproducing at a much higher rate than those on the right side of the bell curve, the average IQ will steadily decline. However, what's actually occurring in Europe and throughout the world, is an overall progressive increase in IQ levels (of about 3 points per year)—which is why the tests have to be recalibrated every 10 years. The causes of this phenomenon are likely nutritional and cultural (see the Dickens-Flynn model for more on this). Simply put, if IQ is measuring anything at all, environmental factors have a profound effect. The debates as to precisely what percentage of our IQ is genetic or environmental, whether a general factor of intelligence (or g) even exists, and how much we should trust the methodology employed in that research, are still far from settled.

I think what WodzuUK was arguing was that people are generally more ignorant today, and I agree with that assessment. Having improved visuospatial ability, or what have you, isn't necessarily helpful with respect to understanding how society functions. It all depends on what the intelligence is being utilized for. Capitalism incentivizes interest in individualistic trivial matters, such as consumption, so it isn't surprising that false consciousness is as pervasive as it is.

Isakenaz wrote:Britain's first boot camp for unemployed young people.

We seemed to recently have adopted this strange idea. But of course with a less strict and more self encouraging and fun approach:

http://www.ich-bin-gut.de/

The Ich-bin-gut-Camp (I-am-good-camp) which strikingly sounds like boot-camp phoneticalwise, is a project initiated by the governmental employment agency and is directed towards young unemployed people searching for training positions and apprenticeship. The idea behind it is that unemployment reperesents an issue which is primarily caused by the unemployed individual itself. So if you happen to have no job, it's your fucking fault not society's. And now get your lazy ass out of bed, jump in the shower, dress properly, start liking yourself and you will most certainly find a job.

Lumpenproletariat wrote:We seemed to recently have adopted this strange idea. But of course with a less strict and more self encouraging and fun approach:

http://www.ich-bin-gut.de/

The Ich-bin-gut-Camp (I-am-good-camp) which strikingly sounds like boot-camp phoneticalwise, is a project initiated by the governmental employment agency and is directed towards young unemployed people searching for training positions and apprenticeship. The idea behind it is that unemployment reperesents an issue which is primarily caused by the unemployed individual itself. So if you happen to have no job, it's your fucking fault not society's. And now get your lazy ass out of bed, jump in the shower, dress properly, start liking yourself and you will most certainly find a job.

It is humiliating to say the least. On par with those ridiculous "team building" and "academies" that corporations put up to choose the more apt slaves and corporate robots.

It gets worse. Recently my niece has gained a degree. She hopes for employment with ASDA, but in the mean time she is doing unpaid charitable work to gain experience in the workplace to make her application to ASDA more acceptable. Apart from the fact that she had returned to education as a mature student so had many years of past employment, she has a family which relies on their fathers wage to sustain.
I have learnt that this un-paid working practice for graduates is common, and has become an acceptable part of the employment culture. But if the value of the worker is measured by the value of their labour, then we are breeding an entire culture which has no value. I wonder what Marx would say to that?

Isakenaz wrote:It gets worse. Recently my niece has gained a degree. She hopes for employment with ASDA, but in the mean time she is doing unpaid charitable work to gain experience in the workplace to make her application to ASDA more acceptable. Apart from the fact that she had returned to education as a mature student so had many years of past employment, she has a family which relies on their fathers wage to sustain.
I have learnt that this un-paid working practice for graduates is common, and has become an acceptable part of the employment culture. But if the value of the worker is measured by the value of their labour, then we are breeding an entire culture which has no value. I wonder what Marx would say to that?

This is a bigger issue than most people think. All around in the western world, "senior" well payed workers are getting fired to give way to worse payed young works, or even those "free internship" kinds. A culture of "i need to be good enough, and have a nice CV so that a good company "accepts" me is going way too far already. This will have a big impact a few years from now, when people will see themselves as constantly changing jobs while having families to feed and bills to pay.

I was amazed, to put it mildly, that this idea of "free internship", or 'acceptable slavery'. is allowed. I had no idea of its existence until then, but no-one else seems to be worried about it or think it wrong.
In ancient Rome during the Empire, it was acceptable to place yourself in slavery to fulfill a debt. During colonisation of America it was acceptable to become little more than a slave working for a future plot of land. In recent years there have been various 'initiatives' to allow school leavers a taste of the workplace, most people here have fond memories of one or other of these
But to work for three years of a degree to end up doing unpaid work to prove your credentials...
Rminds me of a joke that was popular during my university years;
What is the most important question for a graduate to ask in the workplace?
"Do you want fries with that?"

Yep the neocons managed to sell the family silver and turn us into a service economy and why ill never know it couldn't have been just for a quick buck?.

According to market research company High Fliers, 73 university leavers now compete for each graduate-level job, rising to 150 in popular professions like finance. Such tough competition means employers can pick and choose, with many now asking for first-class degrees.

http://yahoo.careerbuilder.co.uk/Article/YAH-72-Job-Search-Young-gifted-and-unemployed-How-to-land-your-first-job/?lr=int_ukyahoo&siteid=int_ukyahoo_YAH-72

I wonder if that also includes those with degrees from the Universities of Karachi, Calcuta etc?

This job situation is horribly depressing. I've bought into the whole apprenticeship bollocks thinking it was easy cake, but I couldn't have been more wrong. I've been to three assessments/interviews; first one was crap, second lot didn't even reply to tell me they'd rejected me ("we'll get back to you by Friday"), and the third company didn't even know what job/area of work I'd applied for when I got there. Then the media has the cheek to call us lazy.

It suits the system to have a portion of the indigenous working class unemployed it allows them to bring foreigners over to drive down wages and divide the indigenous working class.

Also gives them an excuse for all the tax breaks they hand out to "create jobs". Well, I'm waiting. Where's my job?

Ah yes, capitalism. The poor need to be made to work by reducing their benefits, while the rich need to be encouraged with higher benefits.
The influx of immigrant labour is simply an excuse to enlarge profits. The immigrants are victims of international capitalism as much as the indigenous worker they replace, they just don't want to see it. Working-class solidarity is a wonderful thing, but how do you explain it to people who are here out of economic necessity? You can wave Marx, quote Lenin till your blue in the face, but socialism (or western-socialism) is part of our culture, and our culture is of no relevance to many immigrants arriving here.
I don't know the answers (I wish I did) but I think it's time to bring socialism into the 21st century and make it relevant to all people, not just a few.

TheocWulf wrote:It suits the system to have a portion of the indigenous working class unemployed it allows them to bring foreigners over to drive down wages and divide the indigenous working class.

Again somebody feels the need to give me negative rep but can't be bothered to give an opinion on why my statement is negative.

Celtiberian wrote:Unbelievable. As if being deprived of sustainable work wasn't enough, now the unemployed are forced to have the of the last vestiges of their dignity eliminated as well? The system never ceases to amaze me.

How is physical exercise a degrading thing? I'd love to get paid to work out. In fact, one thing I like about socialism is the heavy emphasis on exercise and public health in many socialistic countries. The ability to improve the collective hive is an essential thing for socialism to me. Whether economically, or physically. A strong nation, is built by strong people. Hardy men, and women, workers of the world! It's a beautiful thing to see strong, quick-witted men and women.

WodzuUK wrote:What I meant is that its proven that in last decade or two, average European IQ has fallen. Despite what you said, I believe its our educational system that has gotten us here. Over the years we've accepted that some children might be more special and rather than trying to help them achieve their best we let them progress and leave them be as they are, because they are special, and no I am not referring to children who were born with mental disabilities but to perfectly healthy children.

Combining social welfare (or benefits as we call them here) from which people are able to sustain better quality of life than if they were go to work with our educational system will eventually create a nation of idiots.

I agree whole heartedly.

Lumpenproletariat wrote:We seemed to recently have adopted this strange idea. But of course with a less strict and more self encouraging and fun approach:

The Ich-bin-gut-Camp (I-am-good-camp) which strikingly sounds like boot-camp phoneticalwise, is a project initiated by the governmental employment agency and is directed towards young unemployed people searching for training positions and apprenticeship. The idea behind it is that unemployment reperesents an issue which is primarily caused by the unemployed individual itself. So if you happen to have no job, it's your fucking fault not society's. And now get your lazy ass out of bed, jump in the shower, dress properly, start liking yourself and you will most certainly find a job.

Again, I couldn't agree more. I hear all the time about this 10% unemployment rate. Well how many people do we know that are complete morons when it comes to social skills or professional skills? My guess is it's probably a bit higher than 1 in 10. I'm tired of hearing people complain about unemployment when in all reality, the reason is probably the fact they lack desirable skills and that's they can't find a job. Proof of this would be that the college educated always struggle less for unemployment. Why people have a fear of college in the USA I have NO idea. Maybe it's just Idaho. I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.

NotAMarxist wrote:Again, I couldn't agree more. I hear all the time about this 10% unemployment rate. Well how many people do we know that are complete morons when it comes to social skills or professional skills? My guess is it's probably a bit higher than 1 in 10. I'm tired of hearing people complain about unemployment when in all reality, the reason is probably the fact they lack desirable skills and that's they can't find a job. Proof of this would be that the college educated always struggle less for unemployment. Why people have a fear of college in the USA I have NO idea. Maybe it's just Idaho. I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.

You clearly haven't been in the dismal situation called the US job market then.
I've quite recently found myself a new job, but guess how many places I tried before that.. At least 120 establishments, and out of those I got I believe five responses? Many weren't hiring, others have applications but never replied, and out of the ones which did reply most of them already had other people applying I suppose.
The job market is very competitive, and since many aren't even stable unless you have a specialized skill or trade you're in for a rough time during the time you're searching. There's a large number of people looking for the same exact jobs mind you all, and basically all you can do when you get turned down is rinse and repeat the whole process on every possible establishment you can find.
And that is completely disregarding wages, hours, and benefits by the way.
As for reasons against college: Some of us have families to support, Also it costs a lot, and considering some classes may not be possible because of your work hours(which was the case for a girl I knew) not much can be done.
Take your pick. I am working a long hours at a full time job I have no time for studies.
And even then, hmm.. I think the last time I checked I qualify for a 2G grant for a community college. The problem is that its simply too expensive, and disregarding that the educational system is a fucking disgrace.

And you wonder why... Amazing.

Jesus am I the only working class person here?

NotAMarxist wrote:I'm tired of hearing people complain about unemployment when in all reality, the reason is probably the fact they lack desirable skills and that's they can't find a job.

If by "desirable skills" you mean being able to do the job in half the time and/or for half the wages, yes. That's where immigration and shipping jobs off to China becomes a problem.