unfair

It's an odd thought, but I left school and started full-time work 28 years ago. It doesn't feel that long ago, in my mind anyway. Maybe spending, roughly, 18 years working with the same people at different companies, and the way each of those years blurred into one has coloured my memories?

I've only passed two job interviews in my life as well. The first was when I went to work for GB Fasteners back at the end of January 1996. I went for a part-time delivery driver job. I had no experience and only really knew Liverpool and surrounding areas by the bus routes, but I spent a pleasant half-hour chatting with Vince (the then-manager) about each other's recent holidays - and I got the job for some reason!!! The second time was when I wanted to be with Lin over in Dublin, and I went for an interview for a stores person at Tuck and Co. who were, back then, the main Makita power tool dealer in Ireland. That involved a lot more of my experience gained in the previous five years, and I was dreadfully under-prepared because I didn't expect it. But somehow I must have impressed them because they offered me a 12-month contract and I loved every minute of it.

The point I'm trying to come to is that, on the other side of the coin, the rest of my jobs have come through knowing someone in the know / a favour returned / etc, etc... And I wonder to myself, in those circumstances, have I been the best candidate for the position offered??? 

I think, to a degree, I have been. There's been nothing I've done that's completely overawed me or had me scratching my head in clueless bewilderment. I've had a great deal of trust and responsibility put onto me at certain times and I haven't abused that position. So regardless of the fact that my career choices may seem quite bland and unadventurous that's been okay for me. The security of a job, madly enough, has overrode its' financial rewards.

But I've seen people, in certain jobs, who have no right to them because they are mentally and emotionally unsuited for these positions. They have their jobs through the same system of knowing a person who knows so-and-so as what I did, but there the similarity ends. It takes a special kind of bullshit to convince the employer that this sort of person is essential to the smooth running of the organisation. And through selfishness and cunning, they achieve the aims of their scam, then convince themselves that they are worthy of promotion and more money. Some folk spend their entire working lives living out this reality.

I know of a firm that has various departments, and one department in particular builds itself up to be the best thing since sliced bread. But it squanders huge swathes of its budget on employing administration staff, the purpose of some of these positions is quite unknown, whilst using a small and hugely-overworked temporary workforce to cover the bolts-and-nuts day-to-day grind - these are the staff who interact with the customer more than anybody, and yet never, ever get any of the plaudits.

It's amazingly unfair, and I wonder where it all went wrong? Can you imagine a world where everyone had a job suited to their particular talents - where there was a love for doing what one did. They wouldn't care about their wages, because productivity and quality would be through the roof and everyone would have the best of everything.

Instead, we work in a system that rewards greed, shit-stirring and bloody-mindedness. If you're pissed off with your job, then I'd say I'm probably right.