Dear Aspiring Journalist,
I thought I'd take the somewhat unusual step of penning this open letter to you all, firstly to get a couple of things off my chest, and secondly in order to avoid any further waste of both your and my valuable time.
Since starting this blog it's become quite apparent how we are viewed as 'fair game' in being worth a punt for assistance with those pesky essays, projects or dissertations even. I suspect like most right-minded citizens, I'm always keen to assist in any reasonable way with student's learning needs and of course we are often flattered by the attention of anyone showing the slightest interest in our endeavours.
It's been fairly easy to bat away the lazy, indolent or otherwise crass enquiries along the lines of "tell me what it's like being a probation officer" - read the bloody blog - but the more considered questions or requests for information I've responded to fully on the basis that the student will reciprocate and do me the courtesy of supplying either a draft or copy of the finished work.
Why I've even gone to the unique trouble of agreeing to a three hour interview on a Saturday afternoon for one aspiring hack, but no evidence of their endeavours has ever been forthcoming. For all I know they might have got the wrong end of the stick and it could be so much misleading rubbish. This annoys me intensely, to say nothing of having been a breach of the understanding entered into as a basis for agreeing to the interview. Naturally I would not expect to be able to exercise total control over the content of any work, just offer the ability to be able to avoid glaring inaccuracies or misunderstandings for our mutual benefit.
Anyway guys, rant over. But that's it I'm afraid for any more of you. You'll have to look elsewhere as in my line of work gaining the trust of clients means you have to deliver, or come up with a damn good and convincing reason why you haven't been able to.
Yours,
Jim Brown
Greetings! I just wanted to say that I did a school assignment on your blog and I loved it! Many. many credits to you sir.
ReplyDeleteJulie,
DeleteLol - thanks for that and I'm pleased it was of use.
Cheers,
Jim
@Julie Fowler - What was it about? what are your views about privatisation?
ReplyDeleteDon't mess with Jim!
ReplyDeleteIndeed, as one or two clients have learnt over the years!
DeleteThere is a proverb - Russian, I think - that says there is only one type of free lunch - the one in the mousetrap. So maybe you should charge, commercial journalists at least, for your time, as there is some value in the advice that you don't get owt for nowt.
ReplyDeleteUnless you are a criminal on Jim's caseload in which case you will get his time and attention provided for free by the state. I am increasingly thinking that we should look for ways of offenders paying for their probation officer out of their own efforts. Maybe not full cost recovery. Maybe something along the lines of university tuition fees. Get now pay later.
DeleteWell it could happen here because eventually most ideas seem to cross the Atlantic. In some US states probation provision is provided by commercial operations and offenders are indeed required to pay for all or part of their supervision. But guess what? Many can't (or won't) pay and end up in serious debt and in prison. The whole idea is now being seriously questioned.
DeleteSo not a good idea in my view and to be honest issues of money just cloud any situation which is often difficult enough without having to worry about getting a bill paid. You have no idea how chaotic most of our clients lives are and getting any money out of them would be nigh on impossible, let alone counter-productive.