UKMT Autumn 2023 - Things have got worse. - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT Autumn 2023 - Things have got worse.

Oh dear me: Aug 14, 2012; I have burned numerous saucepans, sometimes right through the metal

Wachter posted:

So instead of prostrating yourself before some unqualified WCA oval office to prove you're too ill to work, you'll have to prostrate yourself before some unqualified JC+ oval office to prove you're too ill to find work. Sounds like a totally radical reform and one that will definitely address the abject humiliation of having someone with no medical training trying to put your disability on a Twitch tier list

It's a radical income cut for people on longterm ESA/PIP to be put onto JSA. The possible later sanctions are just icing on the cake

# ? Nov 15, 2023 13:12

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# ? May 25, 2024 00:51

Josuke Higashikata: Mar 7, 2013

Bobby Deluxe posted:

Whenever I read things about 'everyone there is motivated by pure evil' I think of the guy who used to work at the local jobcentre branch. When I first moved here he was jokey, he would give advice, actually help jobsearch, and he was polite to you if you were polite to him.

Now I realise I'm saying that as a fairly well-spoken white person from a middle-class background, but that's not the point:

I tried to claim again a few years later, post-coalition and saw the same guy, and he looked loving exhausted. The life was just gone from his eyes. He dragged himself through questions, and at the point I tried to explain about my hands he just kind of defaulted into talking about training courses and speaking to a job coach because I had limited search criteria (which I now realise he was talking about sanctions). He looked like he'd been drained of everything human by the point I gave up trying to claim.

The way he denied the humanity of the situation was kind of like he'd developed a mental block against actually thinking about what he was doing, and was just running on autopilot so he wouldn't have to consider what he was doing. He went from being a people person with a bizarrely positive outlook to a human barrier to services.

I think a lot of people in poo poo jobs end up doing that just to survive. I saw it at the NHS where after a while the admin staff who were making decisions about care would say things like "oh you have to stop caring after a while, otherwise you go insane," like that's a good thing, and I think the fact that people stop caring is a sign that they HAVE gone insane.

Work makes you insane. "I have to stop empathising with people so I'm not homeless and starving" is a sign that a fundamental part of that person's humanity has been broken. It's kind of like Catch 22 but in reverse - a sane person would be horrified, but you have to somehow block the horror and make yourself insane to keep the job. Which means holding down that kind of job becomes proof of insanity.

My point, I guess is that working for the DWP breaks people. Doing that every day, forcing yourself to think like that is not healthy for a normal, empathetic person, but everyone's got to eat and someone has to work there.

That guy just sounded dead inside the second time I went, and every time I dealt with DWP staff over the phone while I was appealing my case the people were firm but sympathetic, but still just sounded like the same way people talk when they're grieving. The only time I heard a spark of pleasure ir humanity from any of them was when I got a call confirming where I wanted the backdated money I should have been getting during my appeal.

That can't be healthy, acting as a human barrier between the ghouls and their victims like that. And knowing you HAVE to do it or you become one of the victims yourself.

Everyone in charge at the DWP is a loving ghoul.

100% the case.
You get numbed to that poo poo, it's awful but having to be awful to vulnerable people becomes normal and when it's normal, it's normal. I wasn't there long enough to get that bad, and always wanted to be better than what they did for me, but I would probably have ended up in the same place of numb death

# ? Nov 15, 2023 13:19

forkboy84: Jun 13, 2012; Corgis love bread. And Puro

Necrothatcher posted:

Rishi has played the "but JOROBBBY CROBBINS" card.

One day they will stop using this line, but I imagine it'll at least a decade after the man himself is dead

# ? Nov 15, 2023 13:28

Tesla was right: Apr 3, 2009; Whats with all the robot sex avatars?

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

So - and I think I asked this or something similar on here years ago but don't remember the answer - what if in your covering letter for job applications you highlight all the things you would need time off for (whether it is medical or mental therapy, extra sleeping or resting whatever), maybe point out that as you rely on public transport and the bus times mean you can't get to work before 930am and would have to leave at 430pm to get the last bus home again, or all the other things that make actually do a standard 9-5 bloody well impossible, do the job centre ever see your application cover letters? Do recruiters have some kind of duty to report to DWP as to why they're not offering you interviews etc?

I have a friend whose employment situation is like that. He gets a revolving door of different jobcentre advisors, gets sent to training courses on interview skills (except he never gets to the interview stage) and how to write a CV (he's taught those courses before and every CV-writing workshop contradicts the last).

Most recently they scheduled a work capacity assessment without informing him, and used his absence to turn up as proof he was no longer disabled, so he had to get new sick notes from his doctor.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 13:29

forkboy84: Jun 13, 2012; Corgis love bread. And Puro

I really should just set up a company that does those endless loving pointless CV creation courses. Seems like a much bigger grift than anyone signing on. Anyone lend me a few tens of thousands of pounds?

# ? Nov 15, 2023 13:38

Ms Adequate: Oct 30, 2011; Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling

Keep typing up different posts but none of them are right. It's not like even if they somehow read them they'd be interested in why it's absurd to think enough pressure can make people well enough to work, they know this is nonsensical, the whole point is to punish us for being economically unproductive and every disabled person who is starved or frozen to death or made homeless or driven to another country if they're lucky enough to be able to flee or who kills themselves is not even an acceptable price to pay, it's a primary objective. Those of us who cling on are at least punished and tormented for the sin of being disabled.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:07

Angepain: Jul 13, 2012; what keeps happening to my clothes

I keep looking at the sentence "The changes, affecting hundreds of thousands of people from 2025, would save £4bn from the welfare budget." We will make the lives of huge numbers of vulnerable people worse, and hot dawg look at those SAVINGS! Not even a 'but' in there

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:14

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Angepain posted:

I keep looking at the sentence "The changes, affecting hundreds of thousands of people from 2025, would save £4bn from the welfare budget." We will make the lives of huge numbers of vulnerable people worse, and hot dawg look at those SAVINGS! Not even a 'but' in there

Isn't �4bn very adjacent to the �4bn in false covid support claims that they're not bothering to reclaim?

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:20

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Affecting people. Who's to say if they'll be affected in a good or bad way

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:21

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

They'll be affected in a good way by being encouraged to find work and therefore dignity and purpose in life, unlike labour Starmer antisemite Jeremy taxes 20mph

- goverment spokesperson

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:22

TACD: Oct 27, 2000

Bobby Deluxe posted:

Whenever I read things about 'everyone there is motivated by pure evil' I think of the guy who used to work at the local jobcentre branch. When I first moved here he was jokey, he would give advice, actually help jobsearch, and he was polite to you if you were polite to him.

Now I realise I'm saying that as a fairly well-spoken white person from a middle-class background, but that's not the point:

I tried to claim again a few years later, post-coalition and saw the same guy, and he looked loving exhausted. The life was just gone from his eyes. He dragged himself through questions, and at the point I tried to explain about my hands he just kind of defaulted into talking about training courses and speaking to a job coach because I had limited search criteria (which I now realise he was talking about sanctions). He looked like he'd been drained of everything human by the point I gave up trying to claim.

The way he denied the humanity of the situation was kind of like he'd developed a mental block against actually thinking about what he was doing, and was just running on autopilot so he wouldn't have to consider what he was doing. He went from being a people person with a bizarrely positive outlook to a human barrier to services.

I think a lot of people in poo poo jobs end up doing that just to survive. I saw it at the NHS where after a while the admin staff who were making decisions about care would say things like "oh you have to stop caring after a while, otherwise you go insane," like that's a good thing, and I think the fact that people stop caring is a sign that they HAVE gone insane.

Work makes you insane. "I have to stop empathising with people so I'm not homeless and starving" is a sign that a fundamental part of that person's humanity has been broken. It's kind of like Catch 22 but in reverse - a sane person would be horrified, but you have to somehow block the horror and make yourself insane to keep the job. Which means holding down that kind of job becomes proof of insanity.

My point, I guess is that working for the DWP breaks people. Doing that every day, forcing yourself to think like that is not healthy for a normal, empathetic person, but everyone's got to eat and someone has to work there.

That guy just sounded dead inside the second time I went, and every time I dealt with DWP staff over the phone while I was appealing my case the people were firm but sympathetic, but still just sounded like the same way people talk when they're grieving. The only time I heard a spark of pleasure ir humanity from any of them was when I got a call confirming where I wanted the backdated money I should have been getting during my appeal.

That can't be healthy, acting as a human barrier between the ghouls and their victims like that. And knowing you HAVE to do it or you become one of the victims yourself.

Everyone in charge at the DWP is a loving ghoul.

I was watching a thing recently about zoochosis, the thing where animals in small boring cages will just pace back and forth or exhibit other stereotyped behaviour because they�ve basically gone a bit mad from boredom and stress. I suspect that capitalism or at least the worst aspects of it like this causes something similar in people

If it doesn�t already exist someone should write an application so people needing benefits can automatically apply to jobs in bulk and satisfy that part of the DWP�a bloodlust. Writing the cover letters could be a legit ethical use for chatGPT

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:26

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

£4bn is gently caress all compared to the pensioner side of the welfare budget though, isn't it?

I got a bit shouty at my parents the other night when they were joking about how they don't need their state pension because of their private pensions, but they both claim it anyway 'to pay for treats and save for holidays.'

It's not specifically them, but it is maddening when you have things like this where the budget is balanced to preserve treats for people who don't need it, at the expense of vulnerable people who very much do.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:29

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Microplastics posted:

They'll be affected in a good way by being encouraged to find work and therefore dignity and purpose in life, unlike labour Starmer antisemite Jeremy taxes 20mph

- goverment spokesperson

That sounds a bit like... Work Sets You Free.. (have I reached Godwin's Law yet?)

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:30

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

That sounds a bit like... Work Sets You Free.. (have I reached Godwin's Law yet?)

If I can just respond to that, no Krishnan let me speak if I can just respond to that. Woke. People are still mad about woke

- goverment spokesperson

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:32

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

More like government wokesperson am I right??

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:37

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Microplastics posted:

If I can just respond to that, no Krishnan let me speak if I can just respond to that. Woke. People are still mad about woke

- goverment spokesperson

Wachte macht frei!

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:41

Wachter: Mar 23, 2007; You and whose knees?

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Wachte macht frei!

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:51

Microplastics: Jul 6, 2007; It's what's for dinner.

But who wachtes the wachters?

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:54

Tijuana Bibliophile: Dec 30, 2008; Scratchmo

Bobby Deluxe posted:

£4bn is gently caress all compared to the pensioner side of the welfare budget though, isn't it?

I got a bit shouty at my parents the other night when they were joking about how they don't need their state pension because of their private pensions, but they both claim it anyway 'to pay for treats and save for holidays.'

It's not specifically them, but it is maddening when you have things like this where the budget is balanced to preserve treats for people who don't need it, at the expense of vulnerable people who very much do.

I get where you're coming from, but refusing government support shouldn't be viewed as a moral decision. Refusing to aid vulnerable people is a political choice, and the cruelty of it is the point--if there weren't enough of a budget deficit to lend legitimacy to cutting those payments, they'd spend a bit more on corruption, posturing and incompetence until it looked justified.

Also more universally claimed benefits are much more effective against poverty, and there's a lot more opposition when there's calls to means test or abolish them

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:54

serious gaylord: Sep 16, 2007; what.

Bunch of front bench labour rebels who are going to vote for the snp ceasefire apparently.

3 line whip to abstain.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 14:59

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Tijuana Bibliophile posted:

Also more universally claimed benefits are much more effective against poverty, and there's a lot more opposition when there's calls to means test or abolish them

I agree with you, it's just... Final salary pension, no mortgage, free travel, discounts everywhere and then regarding what for some people is a lifeline as a silly little freebie.

I can't quite put my finger on it (and am operating on vibes rather than exhaustive financial investigation) but I feel like this is one of the drivers of why wages don't rise in line with inflation. Final salary pensioners who don't want wages to rise because they'll be relatively poorer.

Everything in this damned country feels like it revolves around either private pensioners or landlords.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:04

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

fr fr

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:07

Wachter: Mar 23, 2007; You and whose knees?

UK class consciousness: the virgin woke disabled person vs the based chad homeowner

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:15

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Guavanaut posted:

fr fr

Sorry you couldn't live in Based Leicestershire instead

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:18

Tedsville: Aug 21, 2020; Huffing Mr Sheen to make the phone calls go away

Josuke Higashikata posted:

i used to work for the dwp, which is the second worst thing i have had to do in life (it was a choice between working or starving)
the first is having to tell someone that they needed to come in to do jobsearch between chemo sessions. evil shithole.

never again

gently caress that must have been rough. I hate this loving country.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:23

Betjeman: Jul 14, 2004; Biker, Biker, Biker GROOVE!

Bobby Deluxe posted:

I agree with you, it's just... Final salary pension, no mortgage, free travel, discounts everywhere and then regarding what for some people is a lifeline as a silly little freebie.

I can't quite put my finger on it (and am operating on vibes rather than exhaustive financial investigation) but I feel like this is one of the drivers of why wages don't rise in line with inflation. Final salary pensioners who don't want wages to rise because they'll be relatively poorer.

Everything in this damned country feels like it revolves around either private pensioners or landlords.

There are far more people who rely on their state pension and the private pension is the thing that gives them a little bit of extra. As soon as they become means tested there's another poverty dial for politicians to fiddle with.

E: Also they can drain off the excess for the vast majority with means tested care

Betjeman fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Nov 15, 2023

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:24

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Bobby Deluxe posted:

I agree with you, it's just... Final salary pension, no mortgage, free travel, discounts everywhere and then regarding what for some people is a lifeline as a silly little freebie.

I can't quite put my finger on it (and am operating on vibes rather than exhaustive financial investigation) but I feel like this is one of the drivers of why wages don't rise in line with inflation. Final salary pensioners who don't want wages to rise because they'll be relatively poorer.

Everything in this damned country feels like it revolves around either private pensioners landlords.

It is, if nothing else, unspeakably infuriating to have to listen to people who just don't get what life is like for people at the bottom.

There's little else that makes me viscerally hate people as much as that.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:33

Tijuana Bibliophile: Dec 30, 2008; Scratchmo

Bobby Deluxe posted:

I agree with you, it's just... Final salary pension, no mortgage, free travel, discounts everywhere and then regarding what for some people is a lifeline as a silly little freebie.

I can't quite put my finger on it (and am operating on vibes rather than exhaustive financial investigation) but I feel like this is one of the drivers of why wages don't rise in line with inflation. Final salary pensioners who don't want wages to rise because they'll be relatively poorer.

Everything in this damned country feels like it revolves around either private pensioners or landlords.

Sure, but I think it's the FY that's the issue, not the GM.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:35

Tijuana Bibliophile: Dec 30, 2008; Scratchmo

OwlFancier posted:

It is, if nothing else, unspeakably infuriating to have to listen to people who just don't get what life is like for people at the bottom.

There's little else that makes me viscerally hate people as much as that.

Counter: people who think that they know what that's like, and that all the poors should benefit from their wisdom

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:37

Julio Cruz: May 19, 2006

means testing anything is just an excuse for the government to say �actually no you�re not poor enough for this� and take it away

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:55

forkboy84: Jun 13, 2012; Corgis love bread. And Puro

serious gaylord posted:

Bunch of front bench labour rebels who are going to vote for the snp ceasefire apparently.

3 line whip to abstain.

As always with Labour MPs, I will believe it when it happens & not a second before. They'll be spoken to, people will promise them the good that a Labour government can do here & globally, others will threaten them, with never having a cushy ministerial role again, maybe with deselection, whatever. Like, who on the front bench is actually a principled politician? Maybe there's some minor Shadow Minister for Litter Picking & the Shadow Minister for The Digital Mind Inside The Mind who'll rebel, but nobody with a name that will be worth more than a passing mention in the news. Not as if Imran Hussain quitting a week ago made any waves.

Sorry, I know that being doom & gloom doesn't help but I'm not sure getting our hopes up really helps either.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 15:56

Jaeluni Asjil: Apr 18, 2018; Sorry I thought you were a landlord when I gave you your old avatar!

Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Nov 15, 2023

# ? Nov 15, 2023 16:09

NotJustANumber99: Feb 15, 2012; somehow that last av was even worse than your posting

Hmmm. I remain unconvinced by the thread's consensus on means testing being verboten. A bit of an unfair example maybe but what about during COVID when all those companies were given whatever grants and poo poo which half of then didn't need or did not in fact exist at all? Some kind of means testing seems like it might have been good there.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 16:21

josh04: Oct 19, 2008; "THE FLASH IS THE REASON
TO RACE TO THE THEATRES"
_{This title contains sponsored content.}

Emailed my new (both senses) Labour MP anyhow.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 16:21

Mega Comrade: Apr 22, 2004; Listen buddy, we all got problems!

forkboy84 posted:

One day they will stop using this line, but I imagine it'll at least a decade after the man himself is dead

How long did they use the briefcase with the note for?

# ? Nov 15, 2023 16:32

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

they used it in the last by-election

# ? Nov 15, 2023 16:37

keep punching joe: Jan 22, 2006; Die Satan!

I have spent
the last pound
that was in the treasury
and that you were probably hoping
to give
to your friends

Forgive me, it was so shiny
and freshly minted.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 16:42

Tesseraction: Apr 5, 2009

also I've got the latest big cold and it's a real fucker, I'm cocooned up in bed to try and boil this bastard out

# ? Nov 15, 2023 16:49

Red Oktober: May 24, 2006; wiggly eyes!

Byrne's note, remorse bared,
Empty coffers, echoes woe,
Apology ink.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 16:51

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# ? May 25, 2024 00:51

Bobby Deluxe: May 9, 2004

Corbyn, his mural liked.

# ? Nov 15, 2023 17:01

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