(Dis)Illusions of Grandeur
I am out of work, but have an insurance for this – which means I get paid when I don’t have a job. This is all simple enough. But the thing that strikes me is the amount of illusions I had as a kid towards how these things should work – and how well the system seemed to work.I have this insurance through my union – and you should think that these people would do anything in their power to have me out and working as soon as entirely possible. And what have they done so far? Nothing – a bit fat zero. If I had been working with manual labour – I would right now be in line for certifications to drive a truck (you know – the lifter-thingys), be getting the ‘light’ IT-courses – hell, maybe even a PC-user license as they so elegantly put it.But – I’m too well educated – they got nothing. I don’t fit boxes – the courses they have are all aimed at people that have little or no education. And I’m no isolated case – the people I’ve met with a similar profile all say the same – they are dissappointed and disillusioned about the system. My case worker seems ill at-ease when I go to her office and ask her, what is possible to further my competencies – she has trouble figuring out how to find my CV in the required public CV-bank…
These people know how to fill out questionaires – they can spot from a hundred miles, if I crossed a deadline. But they have no clue what to do with people that already have an education. I asked to be put on a course in Java or something similar – I could see from the look in her eye that a) she didn’t know what it was and b) that I wasn’t going to get it. I then explained her what Java is – and she went: “Well… uhm… that sounds a bit expensive – but what I can do is put you on a course where you get to know how to write applications?” The worst part was that she thought it was a brilliant course and a really good solution for me…
If she had actually listened to me – she would know that I have a lot of experience work-wise – and I have very few certificates and diplomas – and the problem is getting your competencies across if you have no certificates. If an employer has 10-15 applicants to choose from – I bet he’d take the one with certificates and not me. Most employers know that certificates show nothing, but one thing – the company that sponsored this believed in the man enough to shell out the coin for this certification.
I can easily look to be a charlatan. “Oh, I did this, this and that in my career” – they ask “Well, what do you have to show for it?” and my answer would be… “Well, I can give you this phone-number…” and it’s all down-hill from there. I have no ‘proof’ that I’m good at what I do – next you’ll say that I’m stupid for not getting those diplomas… well, yes I am. That’s pretty much the bottom-line. I have been far too quick to go “Oh, that’s okay – we’ll worry about that after we have this stuff implemented.”
I know one thing – if I’m to get a new job – I know where not to look.