I need experience to get experience.

It's not all about me. Hardly any of this blog is which is undoubtedly a relief.
This is about my son. 
It's about lots of sons and daughters in their early twenties

My son. Great academic record in school and a very good degree from a Russell Group university. Good grades, mature outlook, positive, eats everything in the house and just cannot remember to close the toilet seat.

Since graduating he cannot a get a job. He searches and applies most days, usually with bespoke CVs rather than the click and send of the job aggregator sites like 'Believe', 'Insipid', 'We've scraped all the jobs from other sites and present them as our own', 'Munster' and so on. I've not met anyone whose actually got a job from one of these sites - that's for another day. Anyway it's not entirely true as he has a breakfast waiting job at a local hotel. His problem is twofold.

1. 'You don't have any experience in this role you are applying for even though it's the lowest step on the ladder.' 
2. His parents are foolish enough not to live in London.

So here we go again. How do you get experience so that you have the experience? 

1. Oh he's tried. Tried to get internships in London (and prepared to pay the accommodation himself), worked for free for a local business who promptly exploited him then ignored him, bought a camera to develop his creative skills, creates animations for his YouTube channel, blogs, podcasts, creates short videos, sent speculative CVs, networked and so on. I mean the boy has a multitude of skills but no 'experience'. Catch 22 then. If no one will give him a first job then how can he get experience? Of course he's not alone. He has many friends who are in similar positions. He has a number who have multiple gig economy jobs shuttling from one to the other during the week and are exhausted all the time, several who just took any job and loathe them and, of course, the very few who have landed on their feet and are doing just soooo well and humble brag on Facebook all the time. Don't you hate it when your friends are successful? He is also up against dim acquaintances and serial People Who Let You Down. I have a very long list of those people. Let me give you an example. A old school contact living in London potentially offers a room for rent in a house. Is my son interested? Yes he says, if the room has fewer than 5 cockroaches and isn't actually a waterlogged crack house slum I'll take it and look for a job whilst I live there even if it is more waiting work. He asks for details and pictures. He nudges his acquaintance several times, no response and then 'Yes I'll send them.' He's still waiting two months later. It isn't going to happen now of course. But naturally no explanation or apology.

2. We don't live in London. We are not that far away but it's not commutable. This is fatal. It seems that employers in London, where much of the industry in which my son wants to work are based, are very, very wary of offering jobs to people who don't already have a London address. Why is this? I am assuming it's the horrendous problem of finding a flat and affording it (see anecdote above). I say assume as they won't actually tell you (or him, my son) anything even if they respond which pitifully few do. Pitifully few means zero. As in no one does respond.

He has had several interviews but the outcome has been 'sorry you don't have the experience' to which I want to shout in their faces SO WHY DID YOU INTERVIEW HIM THEN AND LET HIM GO TO THE EXPENSE OF TRAVELLING ALL THAT WAY, IT'S OBVIOUS FROM HIS CV HE DOES NOT HAVE THE EXPERIENCE IS THIS JUST ABOUT YOUR EGOS? But I'm biased (if you can believe that).

Now I'm at the wrong end of my career. I would not be surprised if I cannot get another reasonable job. I know there is age discrimination going on, just no way to prove it. But it breaks my heart to see my son try and try and try and fail. Goodness knows he has learnt all about resilience and staying positive. Churchill said 'Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts'. Well my son has learnt that and shows astonishing courage. But as we all know continual rejection is hard, very hard - eventually you can end up believing you have no value. And what really gets my goat is that trite saying 'you can be anything you want.' No you can't. All those in good jobs need to remember just how lucky they were to get them. And it is 99% luck so don't kid yourself and try and tell me 'the harder I work the luckier I get' or I'll get really splenetic. And they need to remember that when interviewing those just starting out, as they did once and got the break. 

My son desperately needs that lucky break. He wants to leave, he wants to make his way in the world as we all do at that age. If you are out there - give him that break.

It's not how many times you are knocked down that counts...

Yeah right...

I'm back, hello
A hiatus but, it was inevitable it seems, I'm back. 
And where is that exactly?
Well redundancy once again. 
There are some differences this time and I'll come on to that soon, just in case you were wondering.

Have you played the game 'if you had a hidden super power what would it be?' Mine is managing to join organisations that make me, sorry sorry my role, redundant. This is the 6th time, so you see I have quite a track record here, bet you can't beat that. And if you can I certainly don't want to know.

In my last organisation, where of course employees are the most valuable asset until they aren't, they used Action Learning Sets (ALS) to solve difficult problems. The biggest problem I saw was that all staff were permanently aggrieved about some thing at work and didn't actually get around to doing much as a consequence. Action Learning Sets. Nope I didn't really know what they were about either but, in essence it seems to be sitting around in strokey beard meetings trying to solve a problem collectively so that no one person could actually be blamed it it didn't provide a workable solution. 

Using a personal ALS I reasoned my time actually being paid to do a job was therefore limited. 
I deduced that when some one in authority asks 'what do that lot do and how much do they cost?' someone somewhere has just painted a target on my back. I noted this fact down in my little black notebook where I write down things that amuse me about work. I wasn't actually amused that I spotted I was highly likely to be made redundant only that, having seen it, I could now do everything possible to delay it. Reader (if I'm lucky) I'm 63. This was going to be much harder to resolve this time and by resolve I mean find someone else willing to pay me.

I have determined a redundancy theme for my experience. Or thematic as it was called in the last job.

• 1 redundancy was a consequence of the entire company being closed.
• 1 redundancy was the consequence of the company being taken over and the management team shipped out.
• 4 were as a consequence of being hired for a non-job.

I couldn't avoid the first two. But the others. Let me give sage advice to myself even though it's woefully late.

Non-jobs
Definition; a non job follows a restructuring in an organisation where a number of departments are rammed together following a desire by a very senior manager to be able to demonstrate continuous improvement during his/her next promotional interview. The restructure does not have to be logical, save money, mean better and more productive outcomes or thrill the staff. Indeed if the reverse is true all the better as no one cares because the person who thought it up in the first place was successful getting the promotion and doesn't have to sort out the mess.

The non-job role; having created this mess the organisation realises it has no one internally that will take on the role as they all know the story of the Titanic and no one wants to take the blame for hitting the iceberg. After all they can see the iceberg and they've only just set off. Recruitment therefore takes place from outside. Time passes, the new department fails, there is a contender for senior manager promotion (see above), the cycle repeats itself and there are casualties - me. And I've been the sucker from outside four times.

The role involves not really knowing why you are there, what is actually expected, how you know you've delivered a successful outcome and just what 30% of the team actually do. Even when you ask them you are not clear. They are not clear. The role includes considerable criticism from senior management for not doing any of the things you didn't know you had to do because they wouldn't tell you. They also criticise you for not telling your team, for the number of vowels in a month, for working too long, for not working long enough. And so it goes. 

Each of my four non-jobs shares the same characteristics and the same outcomes. 'Goodbye.' Except there was only ever one 'goodbye and thanks' and that was #1 above.

I will work again. At 63 it is going to be very difficult to get a job. However whatever I take on it will not be a non-job. I know every job has had to be created at some point but avoid the scenarios above - start in a long established role. Your survival chances are higher.

And what is different this time? I have a pension. Because of my age and because I worked in the public sector I HAD to take my pension as there was no financial advantage to deferment. No job seekers allowance, no signing on, no having to apply for 50 jobs a week. A modest income, but an income. 

So. It's not how many times you are knocked down that counts...

Back to applying for jobs (and the failure rate is 100% so far)

I give up - or do I?

You’re shown the bottomless canyon,

The other side to reach,

Your tools are ropes, planks, old oil cans and other aids,

To build a bridge to cross that breach.

A test of skill, creativity and imagination,

To complete the task new ideas you must tap,

Finding a way to reach safety and salvation,

Discovering innovative ways to bridge that gap.

And so it was with the university I worked for,
The task to get promotion,

Applying for jobs that seemed to fit,

But it seems I had a misplaced notion,

That transferable skills and applied knowledge might be valued more,

But it seems you can only have the job
If you've done the exact same one before.

I tried every way I could think of to get myself promoted,

CVs rewritten, advice taken, soundings and feedback taken,

I really became quite devoted,

To finding a way to move on up but in the end all was aborted,

I couldn’t find a way through the bureaucracy and fixed mind sets

My ambitions completely thwarted.

So sometimes you can’t cross the canyon, find a way across the abyss,

There just isn't a way to solve some problems,

Part of life is learning when to recognise this.

I don’t like to give up and walk away but I have no choice but to leave Higher Education,

I don’t think of it as a failure,

I call it ‘intelligent capitulation.’

It's a piece of cake

I won’t eat KitKats, Dairy Milk and Mars Bars I eschew,

Eclairs, cream puffs and profiteroles I’ll hand straight back to you,

I want to keep myself quite fit, I’m really not a fake,

Oh no someone’s handed me my favourite kind of cake.

I work so hard at staying slim it really is a chore,

I’ve even joined a gym and keep going back for more,

I guess the weight problem is down to sedentary jobs,

Oh no someone’s handed me a plate of chocolate Hob Nobs.

It appears the older you get the calorie maths goes quite wrong,

I seem to be eating much, much less but the weight just has not gone,

I run for miles, work on the abs and walk instead of drive,

Oh no it’s Red Nose day, large numbers of pastries have just arrived.

Air drier

There was a time, not so long ago, when a chap could come home from working at t'mill, ploughing the fields, defending the country from hoards of hostile foreigners, policing the riots and throw your dirty clothes into the washing machine, throw in a bucket of Daz, set at 'Whites boil', leave it for three hours and stuff the lot into the tumble dryer set at 'The moisture content of a stone left out in the Sahara for a month'. 

Then just 30 seconds each item with the steam iron set at '. . . . .'  and there you go ready for a night out on the town, as sophisticated as George Clooney or Fred Astaire.

But now I'm setting the washing machine at 30C, separating the completed washing into delicates, talking gently to them and smoothing them out over a collapsible dryer of the type my Mum used to use many years ago and setting the tumble dryer to different temperatures for the balance. And ironing, ironing has become an exercise in categorisation, one blob, two blobs, three blobs with steam and do on. I have to wait between categories for the iron to cool down between blobs. Yes I know I could do the cooler ones first and progressively move up the temperature range but you still have to wait for the optimum temperature. I bet we all have one item of a delicate nature where the iron was at the wrong temperature and there is a small patch of fused fabric that is forever shiny. And it's always where you can see it isn't it, never out of sight?

I suppose it's all that Lycra, modern fabrics that 'wick away' all the yukky stuff that came with polyester shirts and nylon sheets. And a good thing too. I remember the equivalent of Niagara pouring down my back on hot days when wearing polyester shirts as part of the uniform at one of the places I worked. The shirt would be stuck to your back by the end of the day and have to be peeled off when you got home. What a tremendous feeling it was to put your sweaty back against the car seat for the drive home. The world must have been a smellier place even then.

So the price of progress is more time spent washing, ironing, sorting and checking the care of every piece of fabric that comes into the house. Until that is, the item of clothing is so old you no longer really care and just stick it in the normal wash cycle just to see what happens. I have several older Austin Reed wool jumpers whose washing instructions say they need to be washed in the pure water of the Andes mountains high in the foothills by indigenous people using a unique lava stone found only in that locale then laid out flat in indirect sunlight coming only from the East. Nah, goes in the normal wash with the other stuff, 5 blobs steam iron.

How I started World War 3

I had no intention of starting a war. Well who does? I was just developing a strong interest in girls. Armaggedon would be a major obstacle.

We had to join the CCF, the Combined Cadet Force. There was no alternative between 13 and 17 years old. That’s what my All Boy public school, where I went after passing the 11+ and on a county scholarship, insisted and that’s what you did. The only choice was the Army or the RAF. Actually memory fails me. There was another choice. If you insisted on growing your hair long (and long in those days meant it was just touching your shirt collar and falling over the tips of your ears), could be tucked behind your ears (if you really tried), blew your hand off trying to make an IED in your Dad’s shed and had also been interviewed by the Police for smoking weed on school premises then you were excused parade and could go and do extracurricular studies. Extracurricular studies meant keeping out of the way of the Head Teacher by staying in a dank basement on Friday afternoons when the rest of us pretended to be soldiers. The Head, who took great pride in the CCF, took no pride at all in this particular person. And that’s all it was, a male who he despised with all his soul. This male represented all that was abhorrent about pupils that came to his school on a scholarship. By not paying the outrageous fees and coming in on the public purse they were fundamentally some way below the salt. If they had been Right Honourables there might have been some pleading based on mitigating circumstances, e.g. they were possibly bonkers due to in inbreeding,  but as it were they were, well, just common. Meritocracy was not a philosophy the Head naturally endorsed.

I joined the RAF. I wanted to fly and it seemed likely that I could do exactly that in the RAF. There were rumours that you would fly in helicopters in the Army but I wanted the real stuff. With wings, jets and fighter pilots. I also desperately wanted to fire big guns, especially machine guns, but was less sure that the RAF would allow that. It was all high level stuff with the fly boys, fire and forget from 30,000 feet, not up close and personal with the army. Admittedly the Army guys started firing SLR rifles almost from day one. And learnt how to fix bayonets.  Amazingly we had our own armoury at the school. It was stocked with a fair amount of ammunition, .303s allegedly from the 1^st WW, Martini action rifles, several Sten guns and Bren guns which we used to carry around the streets. Oh those public school boys – automatic weapons perfectly safe in their hands and allowed to carry bladed articles attached to rifles at 14. It took a year before I fired the bigger gun. But what a gun that was.

I was good at the military thing. I couldn’t catch a rugby ball to save my life, cricket was a mystery and misery but when it came to the armed forces, well it was a whole new world. I could shine my hobnail boots up a treat, blanco and webbing, Brasso and belts were no problem. Marching? I could march. The manager of the school Tuck Shop was ex-military and also ex right leg. He, as Sergeant Major, would drill us on the school parade ground whilst pivoting on his one leg and I became so adept at marching I became the Right Marker for years. The Right Marker is the lynch pin in the whole marching in straight lines bit. The others might be falling over, turning the wrong way, swinging both arms in the same direction at the same time but there I was keeping it all together. Often by myself.

But back to WW3.

Each year we were all required to go on an annual camp with the military arm we were with. This particular year we were to go to Germany, to an RAF forward base. A base, we were briefed, that was on the front line with the Commies. So close to the Commies would we be that we would see the whites of their Commie eyes when not perpetually drunk on Vodka distilled from turnips, peer into their empty shops and empty lives and see their ugly women who all, allegedly, had beards and false teeth yet who would try and have their way with us. This description wasn't viewed by us a deterrent to ‘having their way’. At 15 we weren't picky, just desperate. We weren't told exactly what the Commies did, except they were inherently evil, did not have public schools, probably cheated at rugger, and did not play cricket. This proved to be a little of a misrepresentation of the truth as we ended up at RAF Laarbruch on the Dutch/German border. This represented quite a challenge as we were also told, in confidence, that it was an RAF nuclear base. Now we know that nuclear meant a biggish bang should the wheels come off if the political processes failed and the tanks started rolling. Certainly bigger than the flash grenades we used in training to simulate incoming shell fire. But probably not big enough to stop us coming home after the 10 days on the camp as we were actually some way from the front line and didn't they know that, even at 15, we were bred with the stiff upper lips of the officer class? We knew nothing of the defcom status. We’d not been told about the Cuban crisis. We knew nothing of Vulcan bombers and B52s sitting on runways, engines idling, waiting to go and never come back. We just knew that we were to have 10 days in Germany on an RAF base staying in normal dormitories instead of under canvas as in previous years. We also knew the food was great and no one cared how old we were in the camp bars. What could go wrong?

We arrived and were shown to the dormitories. It went wrong immediately. As we unpacked a squaddie came into the room and started swearing at us. He was spectacularly drunk but also exceptionally well versed in expletive depletives. He wanted to fight us collectively or individually it didn’t matter to him. We, as a group, turned as one to look at Ian. Ian was built like a Challenger tank. Ian was growing a full beard at 11. Ian was the Incredible Hulk though a lot less green. Ian hit the squaddie once and floored him. After that we had no more trouble with any of the squaddies. But we stayed very close to Ian for the 10 days, he being our personal deterrent against aggression from our own side – sort of school boy friendly fire. The time away gave me an opportunity to try my German. Let loose in the local town one night we, of course, went drinking. We needed the toilets urgently between venues. In my best German I asked a passer-by for the location of the nearest toilet and he indicated a building nearby. It indeed had a toilet. It was also the local brothel and that provided a frisson of excitement for several minutes – but we all left after being allowed to use the loos. At least I think we all left at the same time. I can’t say I counted everyone out.

The camp was great. No marching, more food than we could eat and, as hungry teenagers we could eat for Queen and country, no restriction on drinking, plenty of sightseeing and we got to fire machine guns. Well to be precise light machine guns on a firing range at silhouettes of men that looked suspiciously like the cartoon drawings of the perfidious Hun in our ‘Victor’ and ‘Hurricane’ comics. Even then, in what wasn't actually deepest Germany, it struck me as somewhat ironic. However in just a few days we’d got drunk several times, been out and about on trips around the base, been to a brothel and fired guns. This seemed to be many Christmas’s all at once.

The base hosted many Bloodhound missiles or so it seemed. These enabled the RAF to engage enemy aircraft at some considerable range and destroy them. The Bloodhounds were held in secure compounds within the main base and just sat on their launchers, sort of brooding. They, as I recall, all seemed to point in the same way towards East Germany like giant thick index fingers presenting the military equivalent of giving the bird to the enemy.

As a climax to the 10 days we were to be given a tour of the Bloodhound site. We were sworn to secrecy by the officer giving the briefing. We would be followed and every conversation bugged. If we divulged what we saw we would disappear, for ever, to a remote, inhospitable location where no one ever went for the rest of our pathetic lives. I think it was Aberystwyth. We were told about the range, accuracy and need for the missiles. How they were manned night and day and when they would be fired and by whom. It was a double key decision as I recall – you needed two to fire the missiles. Or could one person fire two missiles?  I can’t remember. It was all very exciting. Possibly more exciting than the brothel, though as that was our first brothel that had been quite exciting and permitted serious bragging rights. All we wanted to do was see the Control room. All the political stuff went over our heads. We wanted bangs and rockets, a giant fireworks night, light the blue touch paper and stand well back. From Russia.

Outside the large radar dishes revolved unceasingly. An officer directed us through substantial metal doors, down a ramp into the control room set underground not far from the missile nest. Dark, lit only by the large, circular green screens of the radar panels and red lights on the walls, the room hummed with the sound of electrical components. The radars looked like very large dinner plates with a white line sweeping around the diameter of the screen every few seconds. White blobs appeared on the screen with letters and numbers assigned to them. The blobs moved slowly across the screen like small luminous woodlice as the radar sweep continued.  The officer with us directed me to sit at a radar screen. I gleefully obliged and turned to look at the screen. This radar, the officer explained, scanned the horizon for unidentified aircraft. All friendly aircraft had an ident number, the number we could see on the screen next to the white woodlice. This included civilian and military aircraft. Anything that wasn't a friendly would not have an ident number next to it. It would be an evil woodlouse. So far so good. Arranged around the screen were toggle switches, dials, knobs (and not just the cadets) and other flashing lights. You know the sort you see in the background in early James Bond films or, possibly, Stingray. Well, stuff whirred, flashed and generally made all sorts of satisfactory noises. And there, on the console, were a number of BIG RED switches with covers and the words ‘FIRE CONTROL’ on them. And I knew that didn't mean they controlled a log fire in a nearby grate. The officer went on to tell us about the deterrent effect of the Bloodhounds, their range, explosive capacity, homing ability and the fact that they all had ‘Take that you Commie Bastard’ painted on the side of them. This was clearly pre ‘Gotcha’ days, when invective was an early developmental stage. The officer got me to demonstrate how you could alter the range of the radar, from say 200 miles out, to 100 miles out, to 50 miles out to 'might as well go outside and look up at the sky as there it is. Was. Bang.'

I toggled and turned knobs as told and then…

…he suddenly stiffened, looked at the screen and said ‘What’s that?’

I looked and, at the very extremity of the screen, was a woodlouse with no name. Therefore it was evil.

‘Lock on to that, that shouldn't be there.’

I pressed the ‘lock on’ button and the radar indicated a possible bogey. Not that sort of bogey, though we were still school boys so who knows (nose). Some sniggering prevailed.

The bogey was heading towards the centre of the radar and moving quite a bit faster than the other aircraft with ident numbers.

‘Change the radar scale’ he commanded.

I did so, the bogey was still coming in our direction like the school bully who had identified the nerdiest person in the room.

‘This is not good, arm the missiles.’

‘What? I mean WHAT Sir?'

‘Do it, arm the missiles.’

I flicked the ‘Arm’ missile switches. A sea of indicator buttons turned red, gauges flickered. Everyone was very quiet. Very, very quiet now.

‘Change the radar scale again.’

The white blob was considerably closer now. I didn’t like the look of this. Things weren't going well.

‘We need to fire the missiles, unlock the fire buttons.’ I must have hesitated. ‘Well do it son.’

And I did so. I’d armed a number of Bloodhound missiles, unlocked the big red ‘FIRE’ button and didn't think to ask shouldn't someone somewhere need to ask permission before we shot down an enemy? Especially as I was only 15, clearly should have spent more time in the brothel if this was all the time left to me and wasn't this going to mess up my A levels?

‘No time left. Fire 1 and 2.’

And I did, I pressed the BIG RED fire buttons for missiles 1 and 2. Surprisingly easy to launch several tons of high explosive at an enemy at over Mach 1 with the express intention of killing them.

The room shook with the detonation and roar of the rockets firing and lifting off and then, on the radar screen two traces made their way very quickly from the centre of the screen towards the incoming aircraft and then converged. All three disappeared off the radar.

I was speechless in horror. I’d just shot down a Russian aircraft. At this moment NATO has just gone to status ‘Good grief what was that, that’s ruined our golf game this afternoon, best crack on then, make some tea will you.’

I looked around at the rest of the group. They looked at me with a ‘He did it Sir, it was him, he started the nuclear conflagration’ sort of look. No schoolboy honour here, I was well and truly grassed up.

The officer remained silent for a few moments. He looked around at the group his face grave and troubled.

Then he said ‘Best bloody simulator in the RAF this. Time for lunch I think.’

And that is how I started WW3.

A young man with a crazy dream

Oft, when on my office chair I lie,

In vacant or in pensive mood,

It flashes upon my inward eye

Some perfect organisation could be construed.

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

Maybe it’s hidden in the nearby hills.

A company where you are not sent an email

Just three metres away, from one’s assistant

Where office politics are seen to fail,

And communication is accurate and consistent.

Where company strategy is not left to chance

But is clear, logical and known in advance.

A company that values all its staff

Where it is pleasing to come to work

Where toil is hard but you can have a laugh

A customer focus, from MD to clerk.

I gaze and gazed but with little thought

Such a dream could come to ought.

A crazy dream and yet bright It shines

A hope that somewhere this organisation exists,

After all the dross perhaps it could be mine

A man can dream, hope persists

Progression not on time served but on my skill

My career aspirations I finally fulfil.

My 30 day plan is over - that's it folks, move along please.