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On 17 May 1979 my son Roderick died. He was only 3 months old. He was what is referred to as a cot death. We were devastated. All other thoughts evaporated into irrelevance. Including my rates bill [rates = a U.K. tax levied on one's house] which had arrived a day or two before.
Despite the upset, I actually mailed my payment of the bill the day before its payment deadline at the end of the month. It must have arrived on the day, but not before the Local Authority had issued a court summons against me. When I received the summons I wrote and explained what had happened. I received a blunt reply saying that the deadline for payment was 'Date 1' and that my cheque had been received on 'Date 2'. Date 2 was 3 days after Date 2. Date 1 was a Friday. Date 2 was a Monday. They did not withdraw the summons.
I wrote a letter to the head of finance expressing my fury and bewilderment at such an attitude. He was conciliatory. He said that in the circumstances he would waive the cost of the summons. He excused his staff by describing them as "over-zealous". Not quite my description. At that time, most people had the option of paying their annual rates bill in two halves 6 months apart. However, when a summons was issued, the whole amount had to be paid in advance. Despite the withdrawal of the summons, I still had to pay the whole amount in advance. At the time we were recovering from the period of low income resulting from my transfer to self-employment 3 years earlier.
This example is extreme. But it is driven by the same attitude which officialdom always has towards the independent individual. It adopts the stance that if the individual fails to meet a statutory obligation, it is because the individual is being deliberately erstwhile or negligent. It is because the individual is committing a misdemeanour. It could never be because the individual is in trouble. It could never be because the individual has been overwhelmed by circumstances. It could never be because the individual is in need of a little timely human kindness. Imagine a world in which the Local Authority's first response to the individual in such a situation was to come round to see if he was in trouble and needed a little help, understanding or kindness.
Two decades ago, when I actually worked for an employer, my personal 'rights' and obligations with regard to state officialdom were dealt with by my employers. I rarely, if ever, had any direct encounters with government organisations. However they may or may not have regarded me as a working individual, I was never aware of it.
When I became self-employed I engaged an accountant. He handled my dealings with the Inland Revenue and the DSS. He insulated me from them. He died. His practice was taken over by a much larger practice. The bills rose. And rose. I could not afford them. Being a programmer, I had long since written a bespoke accounting suite for my own self-employed business. It was tuned exactly to how I worked. It produced accounts all the way to balance sheet, profit and loss and VAT reconciliation. All I needed an accountant for was to check and 'rubber stamp' my accounts.
I discovered that within this large practice of highly qualified partners, my accounts were given to a young junior to do alone. One year, the accounts they returned to me disagreed considerably with my computer output. During an ensuing visit to their plush offices, I saw that the junior was working them out all over again from the individual bills, invoices and cheque stubs using a pencil, paper and pocket calculator. I decided to go home and take their accounts apart by fine detail. By this time they had already been forwarded to the Inland Revenue and approved.
I discovered that they had calculated my gross profit at 19%. My business at the time comprised 5 revenue-earning elements. Each operated at a prescribed mark-up. The largest was 15%. It is an arithmetical impossibility for these to generate a combined gross profit of 19%. I sacked my accountants and told the Inland Revenue that I was from now on going to produce and submit my own account directly to them.
This they did not like at all. It soon became obvious that as a self-employed individual, I was, by default, automatically assumed to be the stereotypical wide-boy - a bit of a lad - a geezer - with a natural propensity for all manner of fiddling. They refused to re-open the already approved account submitted by my former accountants. I was lectured on how long it took to train as an accountant, and of his exclusive 'trusted' status. I nevertheless resolved that I was going to take charge of my own accounts.
This bears witness to the true nature of state officialdom. The Inland Revenue exists for the purpose of extracting taxes from a populous whom it assumes does not want to pay them, and who will by all means seek to avoid having to do so. The beguiling overtures of a 'Taxpayer's Charter' do not perturb the ethos of suspicion under which it systematically and relentlessly endeavours to expedite its prime directive.
Shortly after I realised that the recessive market could no longer sustain my business, I went for an interview at my local Jobcentre. During the interview, I was warned to declare any and all income. I was also told that having been formerly self-employed, I was naturally the most likely to be suspected (of precisely what, the interviewer did not say). Officialdom do not like self-employment. It would rather that every working person be he labourer, artisan or professional, work for a corporate master who can be trusted to pay the taxes of those he employs.
At the time of writing I have been unemployed for just over 10 years. During that time, I could not fail to notice - indeed feel - that officialdom has quite a different attitude to the unemployed than it does to the employed. One's sense of freedom is drastically reduced. One becomes less the respected adult and more the naughty child.
When I 'sign on' at my local Jobcentre each fortnight, I have to wait in a queue until one of the front-line operatives is free. The lower-ranked operatives are pleasant and reasonable. They often just allow me to 'sign' and them leave. The more senior ones are stricter. They always require me to show some form of documentary evidence that I have been seeking work during the past fortnight. However, they are usually satisfied with what I present.
My personal 'client advisor' is a rebel within the system. He genuinely tries to help. He appreciates the difficulties of ageism and length of unemployment. I don't seem to see him any more. I think he has been deemed to have failed with me and the other 'long termers' he has been trying to help.
However, the real professionals are different. Occasionally, the person in charge of the Jobcentre comes onto the front-line. The seat opposite her place on the front line is referred to as the 'electric chair'. She is uncompromisingly strict. We refer to her as the Führer. Her initial approach is one of overt suspicion and correction. This is well illustrated by the following encounter.
My 'signing time' is 10:30. I always arrive at the Jobcentre at 10:20. The queue is often slow. One day, I arrived at the 'electric chair' at 10:55. The Führer's patronising first question was, "Were you really waiting in that queue for half an hour?" Her tone implied that I was late and that she was scolding me for being so. It also carried the veiled threat that if I had gone over the half-hour of grace, she would have refused to 'sign' me pending an official inquisition to determine whether or not my excuse for so being were acceptable. I do not know how long I was in the queue. What I do know is that the time I spent reading the job cards + the time I spent in the queue amounted to 35 minutes. I resolved in future to note and write down the time I join the queue.
This attitude makes it plane that though I, as an unemployed person, am in name a 'client' or 'customer' of the Employment Service, I am automatically and in reality viewed by authority as a churl. I must be kept in line. Watched. Disciplined.
Throughout the past 36 years since I left college, my skills have lain entirely within the realm of computer software development. Notwithstanding, it is now mandatory, for me, as for all unemployed, to look through all the job cards posted on all the boards in the main concourse of the Jobcentre before joining the 'signing' queue. Presumably this is to see if they contain any jobs which match my skills. Were I to refuse to do so, the Führer would refuse to 'sign' me, as would any other operative whenever she were present on the front line. The jobs cards on display are arranged on boards according to job categories, which are:
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The first 9 categories are by job type without any generic indicator as to where they are located. The next 2 categories are geographic without any generic indicator as to what type of jobs they contain. The last category are presumably jobs they have not yet got around to categorising. As a classification system, it is an inconsistent mess. Common sense suggests to me that all jobs should be placed in categories according to job type. The geographic dimension should be indicated by some other means like colour coding the cards to correspond to colours on a wall mounted locator map. Each 'customer' would then only need to scan his relevant category, and, if necessary, glance at the locator map to see where it was.
In any case, I think it plainly obvious that my curriculum vitae does not - and never will - equip me for any of the job categories on offer. The only category which may remotely capture a suitable job is 'Miscellaneous'. This category is invariably filled with unskilled jobs, most of which are part-time. None is ever likely to lend itself to my skills and experience.
From time to time, when my case comes up for review, I have been told that anyone who is unable to find a job within their normal trade after having been unemployed for a certain length of time is required to take any job on offer at any level of skill and pay. This 'length of time' varies between a fortnight and six months, depending on who talking. Personal experience, however, uncompromisingly confirms that downshifting (as it is called) simply does not work.
Having looked through the job cards, as required, I join the 'signing' queue. I move up the queue. I try to anticipate whether I will be called by one of the ordinary front line operatives (relief), or whether I will end up in the 'electric chair' (panic). Oh no! It's the 'electric chair'.
She asks to see my evidence of job search. "Ya vol Frau Führer!" I tremble to myself as I hand my report to her. She scrutinises it. I see the cogs turning in her brain. "Has he searched every day?" she seems to ask, as her laser eyes scorch the paper in the dates column of my report. She combs through the cut-out job ads I stapled to the back. Silent minutes pass like hours. Suddenly she initials and dates the report and hands it back without a word. She 'signs' me. Then, with instinctive professional politeness, she wishes me luck with my pending applications for the 'graduate' jobs for which, being 58 years old, I have no hope of being considered.
I am thus forced, fortnight after fortnight, to follow the blind rules which never even attempt to address the real problems. I am eternally bound to this futile chore, which serves no purpose but to dissipate my energy and feed my stress.
Their beguiling literature assures me that these organs of government are my caring servants. Their actions leave me in no doubt that I am an erstwhile subject of these exigent lords.