Got the Job

UPDATE

Ok readers, should of updated this post a long time ago but needless to say I didn’t take the job. When I realised that the main purpose was to help people be killed I turned it down. I’m a conscientious objector so had to turn it down. My excuse for even going for it fed up with being homeless, unemployed and felt under pressure to look for work. It is what it is readers.

It’s a strange old world and even stranger how life suddenly takes an upward turn. But firstly an apology I haven’t posted on here for a while and whilst I’m a master at excuses I can’t even think of one that would cover my lack of posting. So without any excuses I’ll ask you all to forgive me.

Now on to the good news update I have a job and am also waiting to hear back from a second job interview which I had first. It may be that I’m in a position I have not been for years that I have choices about where I work. More than that I have choices, real choices about my career path.

This is a very strange situation for me because usually I only get pseudo choices. Pseudo choices are two options (it’s never more than two) which nobody would ever want to take if they had a choice. Housing Officer’s love giving pseudo choices, as do social workers and other types of professionals who feel they care for vulnerable people. I’m not bashing social workers, Housing Officers etc because they do very stressful jobs with very little resources but on the whole they don’t understand what makes a valid choice. They also tend to get upset if you say “that’s not a choice” when they offer you a pseudo choice.

The best way to explain a pseudo choice is to give an example. You have the choice between sausage casserole and a nice bacon sandwich. You look at me and say I’m a vegetarian Muslim I can’t eat those dishes. I now start to get upset because in my mind I’ve given you a choice and you’ve been ungrateful and not accepted it, you want an option that’s not available. I now start thinking that you lack the capacity to understand the complexity of the situation and the restrictions and pressures I am under, I’ve given you a choice but now your putting up barriers demanding things that I just can’t offer you.

Tensions rise on one level I understand that you can’t eat what I’m offering but I can see your hungry and I’ve worked hard preparing the food plus I’ve nothing else I could offer you. In the back of my mind I half remember you telling me your a vegetarian Muslim but with all the other people I have to help I’ve forgotten because you don’t really look like a vegetarian Muslim. What does a vegetarian Muslim look like anyway? sounds like I’m making excuses to myself for myself.

Your getting frustrated because I promised you a nice meal and you’d told me what you can and can’t eat, you may even struggle to control the volume of your voice as the struggle against the hunger pains and your ethics. The situation is now approaching critical. Your insisting on food and did have another option that has now passed because I’d promised you a meal and you turned down the second option.

I’m conscious of the she of other people I’ve got to feed who don’t have such demanding dietary requirements and you’ve raised your voice and don’t appear to have any intention of leaving. I decide to phone the police knowing that they will believe me if I say your abusing me and your too upset to speak properly. You can fill in the end of this story yourselves.

What I’ve just described actually happens everyday in homeless housing departments and crisis mental health services. Desperate people begging authority figures for what they feel they need to survive. Hate to say it I’ve been on the receiving end of pseudo choices way too many times. But no more I’ve got a future opening up before me now.

Yes it’s been a very hard road, full of tears frustration and at times ful on downright abuse but somehow, by God’s grace I’ve found the strength and courage not to give up.

I’m still homeless and was in the night shelter but I’m sofa surfing again now and will have a wage packet soon. Tomorrow I’m taking a systematic approach to flat hunting, I’ll get a note book and wrote down what I’ve applied for, which flats have been taken and I will be home by Christmas. Landlords rent to employed people over folk on benefits everytime. I have my budget and I have a future all because I never gave up and a massive amount of help from above.