The Fairy Jobmother

I've previously said that in my experience very few clients ever set out with the positive intention of wanting to live a life without work. However they often find themselves in a self-fulfilling cycle of despair at ever being able to gain sustainable employment by virtue of a whole host of factors ranging from illiteracy to drug addiction. Having a criminal record and virtually no employment history just makes matters worse and at a time of rising unemployment and personal low self-esteem in the jargon means that they remain 'difficult to place.'

This is not a new phenomena and successive governments have tried to address the issue in various ways, the most useful in my view being the old job creation schemes introduced in the 70's and 80's. Indeed I benefited from one called STEP, the Short Term Employment Programme which by a convoluted route eventually resulted in my gaining a place at University as a mature student. Virtually no one is 'unemployable' in my view but again in the words of the new terminology, getting some people 'job ready' may take quite a bit of special effort.

The coalition government has decided to use rather more stick than carrot in an attempt to get as many people off state benefits and into employment as possible. Contracts have recently been awarded to a range of organisations who will deliver the new Work Programme and the Channel 4 tv series 'The Fairy Jobmother' follows Hayley Taylor a so-called job expert as she attempts to get small groups of long-term unemployed 'job ready' through a two week Job Club. 

I'd like to think that I'm a fairly easy-going sort of person, but I would find Hayley's particular approach to her work insufferable. I know many clients who would be tempted to smack her in the mouth in response to her particular style of patronisation. As if that wasn't bad enough, I can't help feeling that her particular brand of home-spun philosophy and 'mind games' could potentially be extremely damaging.

I've watched her in operation a few times during an earlier series and been shocked at the sheer ineptitude and insensitivity of her approach to often emotionally vulnerable people. She appears to delight in that old army training trick of first breaking people down and then when the tears flow, picking them all up. Despite most participants gaining employment, which is great, I think Hayley Taylor is dangerous and I take my hat off to the patience of the participants because I know I couldn't suffer her at any price. Oh, and she needs to lose those irritating neck scarves in my view.