'Go Fish' or 'Let's go fishing'?
'Give a person a fish an you feed them for a day; teach them to fish and you feed them for life.'
This common principle used to guide many employment programs sounds good practice on the surface (sorry) but if you take it apart it truly is a nasty piece of right-wing propaganda.
It's reminiscent of that cow Thatcher's infamous 'There is no such thing as society. Only individual men and women.'
'Give a person a fish an you feed them for a day; teach them to fish and you feed them for life.'
This common principle used to guide many employment programs sounds good practice on the surface (sorry) but if you take it apart it truly is a nasty piece of right-wing propaganda.
It's reminiscent of that cow Thatcher's infamous 'There is no such thing as society. Only individual men and women.'
The implicit message is that once you have learnt to fish you will never, ever, be given a fish again.
As soon as you are 'self-sufficient' (another phrase that needs to be examined) you are on your own.
Where's the joy of fishing together, the sharing of fish, the giving and receiving of fish? Where's the chance to talk about the 'one that got away'?
Fishing is not about the rod, reel and line. It's about the choice of bait for the type of fish.It's about knowing the river, stream, lake or stretch of ocean beach. It's about guile and experience and swapping knowledge. It's about keeping a 'weather eye' open for changing conditions.
Small wonder that some people who understand this implicit abandonment will spend their time waxing their rod, working on line selection and exploring their bait options.
Some 'teach to fish' programs even have the 'learn to fish by date' stamped on them: 'a three week program..', 'a six week..' or 'up to ten weeks of learning....'.
Read three, six or ten weeks to either lonely self-sufficiency or abandonment, probably both.
Want some help? Here's a wrench.
If I get my tires changed - I don't drive and I hate cars - but if I were to want to get my tires changed, I wouldn't expect to be given a series of workshops.
'John Boyd Dunlop - the man', 'a short history of the rubber industry', 'torque theory', 'wrench use skills', 'how to know when your tires need changing', '
Some would doubtless be given supposedly engaging titles: 'Left feeling Flat? How to cope with a loss of pressure' or 'Inflation is good thing! How checking your tires saves you money.'
Or take coffee.
If you go into a coffee bar what do you expect to get?
This employment counselling business must be the only field, I can't think of another, where if you are looking for a coffee you get shown how to make it.
The longer it is since you last had coffee, the more desperate you seem to get a coffee, the more coffee making training and theory you'll get.
Over two years without a coffee? Join our three week course. Includes espresso machine maintenance, bean roasting theory, and a barista shadowing day.
But a coffee? Forget it.
Knowing that you want a 'grande-non-fat-extra-hot-no-foam-decaf-space-for-milk-double-cup' or something requires substantial awareness of what you like, what you want from a coffee. This is our job as employment counsellors, working out the 'fit'.
With the internet getting itself organized better, just two job sites and about a dozen clicks will produce a job advertisement, more about the company and a map.
Every person I am working with gets a fish/coffee/job ad. every morning.
Not just any job but an:
'on-a-bus-route-that-passes-where-I-live-the-size-of-organization-is-one-that-will-suit-me-a-respectful-workplace-a-good-variety-of-people-to-work-with-pay-that-is-in-my-range-and-a-chance-to-move-forward' possibility.
This is daily chuck under the chin; watch for the look of expectation as they arrive to see what is their 'fish' today. The reaction to this gift of a hand selected 'fish' is a great for judging mood. Talking about the possibilities, terrors, fears and hopes involved is an excellent way of refining how to help.
Congratulations and Goodbye Forever
We call ourselves 'employment' counsellors but actually we are unemployment counsellors.
Not only do we usually wait until people are lost, lonely broke and depressed but our contract with them again has an implicit hidden meaning.
The moment you find work I am lost to you.
Even if you happen to have a shift that allows you to come and see me there is probably a rule concerning time limits and their involvement with your program.
So should the job not work out they are most likely to be 'sent' to another program and have to start again.
Tell someone you are working with that you are still in contact with those you worked with over 3 years ago and say that your relationship with them is for as long as they want it and see the set of the shoulders change.
Why aren't more programs open in the evening and on weekends? Why don't we add this feature to our program proposals?
Given that work is a relationship like any other, the relationship with someone who is looking for work has to have both the strength and longevity to propel them past the fears which accompany this search.
People will have had bad break ups, messy divorces, abusive partnerships, one night stands; in work terms being fired, being 'downsized', a bully in the workplace and casual day labour.
No relationship is healthy if it begins with one party focussing solely on what the other wants. Yet this is what many people looking for work are told. Being what the employer wants is the way to get into a new working relationship.
Conversely a healthy relationship comes from both parties being clear (self-knowledge) about what they want and what they have to offer. Our modelling of this 'fit' is to be mirrored in someone who is looking for work and their 'fit' - the job that's right for them.
Good news - you're a loser
Do you post seemingly good news stories such as 'Canada's unemployment rate hits 33-year low, pushing Canadian dollar to new high?' or talk about finding work being easy in a 'hot' economy?
In the late 1960s the governments of westernized democracies began to get worried. Draft dodgers burning the American flag in cities around the US, riots on the streets of Paris, the LSE in London occupied by its students.
'With an increasingly educated workforce and unemployment rising should we be worried about a revolution?' they asked.
The social scientists they consulted quickly came back with good news.
Unemployment is a divisive, isolating and depressing condition.
Give people shelter and just enough to eat (sound familiar...?) and you have nothing to worry about.
Put unemployment in its political context, and normalize its depressing effects, indeed its relied upon divisive effects, and watch for the look of '...so it's not just me...' come over people's faces.
For every percentage point unemployment falls those still not working feel that much worse. '..heck they are even importing workers from Mexico, but I can't find work. I must be a total loser.'
So think twice before before posting good news stories about employment figures and the 'hot' economy. They may be meant well but are as about encouraging as a Kate Moss poster at a fat farm.
For every 'good news' story, everyone not working needs more chucks under the chin, more smiles, more attention.
As soon as you are 'self-sufficient' (another phrase that needs to be examined) you are on your own.
Where's the joy of fishing together, the sharing of fish, the giving and receiving of fish? Where's the chance to talk about the 'one that got away'?
Fishing is not about the rod, reel and line. It's about the choice of bait for the type of fish.It's about knowing the river, stream, lake or stretch of ocean beach. It's about guile and experience and swapping knowledge. It's about keeping a 'weather eye' open for changing conditions.
Small wonder that some people who understand this implicit abandonment will spend their time waxing their rod, working on line selection and exploring their bait options.
Some 'teach to fish' programs even have the 'learn to fish by date' stamped on them: 'a three week program..', 'a six week..' or 'up to ten weeks of learning....'.
Read three, six or ten weeks to either lonely self-sufficiency or abandonment, probably both.
Want some help? Here's a wrench.
If I get my tires changed - I don't drive and I hate cars - but if I were to want to get my tires changed, I wouldn't expect to be given a series of workshops.
'John Boyd Dunlop - the man', 'a short history of the rubber industry', 'torque theory', 'wrench use skills', 'how to know when your tires need changing', '
Some would doubtless be given supposedly engaging titles: 'Left feeling Flat? How to cope with a loss of pressure' or 'Inflation is good thing! How checking your tires saves you money.'
Or take coffee.
If you go into a coffee bar what do you expect to get?
This employment counselling business must be the only field, I can't think of another, where if you are looking for a coffee you get shown how to make it.
The longer it is since you last had coffee, the more desperate you seem to get a coffee, the more coffee making training and theory you'll get.
Over two years without a coffee? Join our three week course. Includes espresso machine maintenance, bean roasting theory, and a barista shadowing day.
But a coffee? Forget it.
Knowing that you want a 'grande-non-fat-extra-hot-no-foam-decaf-space-for-milk-double-cup' or something requires substantial awareness of what you like, what you want from a coffee. This is our job as employment counsellors, working out the 'fit'.
With the internet getting itself organized better, just two job sites and about a dozen clicks will produce a job advertisement, more about the company and a map.
Every person I am working with gets a fish/coffee/job ad. every morning.
Not just any job but an:
'on-a-bus-route-that-passes-where-I-live-the-size-of-organization-is-one-that-will-suit-me-a-respectful-workplace-a-good-variety-of-people-to-work-with-pay-that-is-in-my-range-and-a-chance-to-move-forward' possibility.
This is daily chuck under the chin; watch for the look of expectation as they arrive to see what is their 'fish' today. The reaction to this gift of a hand selected 'fish' is a great for judging mood. Talking about the possibilities, terrors, fears and hopes involved is an excellent way of refining how to help.
Congratulations and Goodbye Forever
We call ourselves 'employment' counsellors but actually we are unemployment counsellors.
Not only do we usually wait until people are lost, lonely broke and depressed but our contract with them again has an implicit hidden meaning.
The moment you find work I am lost to you.
Even if you happen to have a shift that allows you to come and see me there is probably a rule concerning time limits and their involvement with your program.
So should the job not work out they are most likely to be 'sent' to another program and have to start again.
Tell someone you are working with that you are still in contact with those you worked with over 3 years ago and say that your relationship with them is for as long as they want it and see the set of the shoulders change.
Why aren't more programs open in the evening and on weekends? Why don't we add this feature to our program proposals?
Given that work is a relationship like any other, the relationship with someone who is looking for work has to have both the strength and longevity to propel them past the fears which accompany this search.
People will have had bad break ups, messy divorces, abusive partnerships, one night stands; in work terms being fired, being 'downsized', a bully in the workplace and casual day labour.
No relationship is healthy if it begins with one party focussing solely on what the other wants. Yet this is what many people looking for work are told. Being what the employer wants is the way to get into a new working relationship.
Conversely a healthy relationship comes from both parties being clear (self-knowledge) about what they want and what they have to offer. Our modelling of this 'fit' is to be mirrored in someone who is looking for work and their 'fit' - the job that's right for them.
Good news - you're a loser
Do you post seemingly good news stories such as 'Canada's unemployment rate hits 33-year low, pushing Canadian dollar to new high?' or talk about finding work being easy in a 'hot' economy?
In the late 1960s the governments of westernized democracies began to get worried. Draft dodgers burning the American flag in cities around the US, riots on the streets of Paris, the LSE in London occupied by its students.
'With an increasingly educated workforce and unemployment rising should we be worried about a revolution?' they asked.
The social scientists they consulted quickly came back with good news.
Unemployment is a divisive, isolating and depressing condition.
Give people shelter and just enough to eat (sound familiar...?) and you have nothing to worry about.
Put unemployment in its political context, and normalize its depressing effects, indeed its relied upon divisive effects, and watch for the look of '...so it's not just me...' come over people's faces.
For every percentage point unemployment falls those still not working feel that much worse. '..heck they are even importing workers from Mexico, but I can't find work. I must be a total loser.'
So think twice before before posting good news stories about employment figures and the 'hot' economy. They may be meant well but are as about encouraging as a Kate Moss poster at a fat farm.
For every 'good news' story, everyone not working needs more chucks under the chin, more smiles, more attention.
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