support for the british worker

RDM said:
I work in IT for a large call centre based financial services company. Pretty much all our staff are via agencies. My wife works in IT for a pretty large soap manufacturer and almost all the staff in her (European IT centre) office are from agencies. Permanent and Temp staff. It saves the company the expense and hassle of advertising jobs.
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So its my fault then? I've lost track of how many agencies I've liaised with. If my experience and qualifications are actually irrelevant for their client, why do they call me up in the first place? I don't understand this logic. A blue chip company can't afford a proper HR department?
 
sr4470 said:
So its my fault then? I've lost track of how many agencies I've liaised with. If my experience and qualifications are actually irrelevant for their client, why do they call me up in the first place? I don't understand this logic. A blue chip company can't afford a proper HR department?
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no its just that all they want is cheap labour
 
Perhaps if the British working class started actually working hard rather than whining and expecting every comfort they can imagine to be provided to them despite a poverty of ambition, there wouldn't be anything to moan about.
 
you mean like a 1 hour break in a 12 hour shift? or shovelling 2 tonnes of sand in the rain? i feel so lucky. what exactly do you consider hard work? if you make that statement while working in a cushy office environment then i think you need to stfu.
 
LabR@t said:
i doubt a lot on here have done a hard days graft in their lives
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Depends what you'd consider a hard days graft I guess. There will be lots on here who work in jobs which are not physically exerting yet earn considerable money for it. Why would they wish to do a 'hard days graft' and why would they see a 'hard days graft' as some sort of positive experience?
 
sr4470 said:
So its my fault then? I've lost track of how many agencies I've liaised with. If my experience and qualifications are actually irrelevant for their client, why do they call me up in the first place? I don't understand this logic. A blue chip company can't afford a proper HR department?
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I am only going from my own experience. I am not saying anyone is at fault. Pretty much all the major companies around here use agencies to recruit. Talking to HR (and currently I am talking to them quite a bit :)) it makes their job easier as they don't have to do the initial screening, the agency sends along a bunch of CVs and they can choose from that who they want to interview. For Call Centre staff they normally get agency temps in and then take them on full time if they are any good. Or again use an agency to get a bunch of recruits for when they have a large expansion.
 
Andrew1978 said:
you mean like a 1 hour break in a 12 hour shift? or shovelling 2 tonnes of sand in the rain? i feel so lucky. what exactly do you consider hard work? if you make that statement while working in a cushy office environment then i think you need to stfu.
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No, I don't do shifts or get breaks, or shovel sand. I have worked my **** off to setup my own business, off the back of massive personal sacrifice to get a good grounding in my chosen field and over a decade of extremely hard work. There is more than one kind of hard work - I don't work in a cushy office, I work from home ;).

I take nothing away from people who do physical work, someone's got to and it's not going to be me. What does grate is the whining and expectation that any kind of work / toil should be gauranteed for life and should provide for a luxurious lifestyle.

My life in my cushy office is based on real risk (as exemplified by the fact that I haven't had a paid day's work so far this year), why is it that people who do physical work think that risk does not apply to them. The job for life has gone, upward mobility exists, if you want change, make change happen.
 
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There is no risk in the low paid menial jobs because if those jobs dont exist then society has somehow fell apart. Bringing in foreigners who could potentially be earning more money here than at home despite being paid less than the native workers and telling us that we should work harder for the same pay because of the threat of these workers just doesn't seem right.

Skidder said:
Have you worked 24 hours straight? have you worked seven days a week for three months to deliver a project on time, etc. etc.?

No, thought not.
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For some of us doing that would be physically impossible, never mind illegal.
 
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Skidder said:
Have you worked 24 hours straight? have you worked seven days a week for three months to deliver a project on time, etc. etc.?

No, thought not.
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theres a big difference between an hours manual labour and an hour standing about trying to sell things and an hour sitting at a desk.

like if you were a builder it would be physically impossible to work for 24 hours because your body wouldnt be able to take it but that builder could be getting paid a lot less than you and still get the sack so some polish guy can do the same job for a few months and then bugger of home..


anyway its only a matter of time before the highly skilled foreigners start coming over and taking your highly paid jobs from you because they will work for cheaper.

im curious how many people would still order from ocuk if all the order pickers got sacked and replaced with hardworking foreigners willing to work for less?
 
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arknor said:
theres a big difference between an hours manual labour and an hour standing about trying to sell things and an hour sitting at a desk.

like if you were a builder it would be physically impossible to work for 24 hours because your body wouldnt be able to take it but that builder could be getting paid a lot less than you and still get the sack so some polish guy can do the same job for a few months and then bugger of home.
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I think the point you've missed is that a builder doing a days work may be "hard graft" but then so is doing a 24 hour day or a 3 month full of working time.

Quite frankly i've done both, a traditional "hard days graft" seven days a week and working 7 days a week in an office. I'd actually say the office is harder and I have more respect for those people than those engaged in manual labour.
 
Data entry is far harder to mentally stay focused. Do that 7 days a week, at roughly average of 10-11 hours a day for a month. Then do 7 days of manual labour for a month and the manual labour will be far far far far far far (do you get the point) easier.

Pay is irrelevant to it. Data entry sucks majorly and needs to be higher paid. I'd much rather do manual work as its easier all round.
 
I've done it, did it for 7 months it was the easiest job i've ever had.

Dont forget that i was sat down all day, i was warm, i had a drink on my desk and some sweets, i had a 5 minute break every 2 hours and a 30 minute dinner break we also had a radio.
compare that to some of the hitler esque regimes some of these smaller factories run.
 
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Never said it was hard, said it was hard to stay mentally focused, i.e. it's boring as hell. Are you saying manual labour is hard?
 
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