a post that doesn't mention Todd Bentley but describes the joy of public sector employment in the UK

Seven weeks ago, I was offered and accepted a New Job, which was set to begin in early September. During the past seven weeks, I have made several attempts to ascertain why I'd received nothing whatsoever yet in writing, and to enquire when and where I'd start and how they'd like to pay me. All of my emails went unanswered, and each time I rang I was passed in quick succession between various departments, each one holding the other responsible for the dearth of information. This morning, one of their most junior administrators let slip the reason for all the delays and obfuscations: they haven't yet managed to secure any funding for my post, nor for those of about six others also recently appointed.

Now I understand that within the public sector, people's posts do often disappear and anticipated posts sometimes do fail to materialise. But what I can't get my head around is why they advertised, interviewed and offered work to so many people, without knowing how they were going to pay them...

an anecdote of great pathos and irony as Grace learns of how her alleged evangelical credentials almost precluded her from getting a job

GRACE is at an appointment with the head of HR at her Place of Future Employment, discussing terms and conditions and various contractual and day-to-day practicalities of her New Job.

HEAD OF HR: ... and we were wondering, Grace, whether it'd be helpful for you to know why we chose you for this position?

GRACE: Um, yes, that'd be encouraging.

HEAD OF HR: Well, it was all in your interpretation of Question 4... you took it to a depth that none of the other candidates had grasped... and with such originality, creativity and confidence. You obviously have quite a mind.

(GRACE opens her mouth to tell HEAD OF HR that she was actually merely applying a method of analysis developed by a certain form of theology, and decides instead graciously to accept the unwarranted compliment.)

GRACE: Thank you. That's kind.

HEAD OF HR: ... though I probably also should be honest and tell you that, of all the candidates shortlisted for interview, you were the one I thought probably least likely to have been chosen.

GRACE: Er, go on.

HEAD OF HR: I mean, your application was outstanding. Not the very best, but impressive, nevertheless, and by the criteria we'd devised, we'd never not have shortlisted you. It's just that, when the form asked for your personal and academic interests, you'd written, I thnk, "theology", "faith communities" and even the Bible... and I can only be honest in telling you that it really made a few of our team quite wary of you. Especially as you've just come from working at a very, ahem, no-I-shouldn't-say-that church.

GRACE: Oh...

HEAD OF HR: Yes, we sort of worried, or were perhaps concerned that you'd maybe use the job - or use the interview even - as an attempt to, maybe, share or impose your religion on us. Which honestly, wouldn't have been appropriate.

(GRACE is very tempted to launch into a bitter tirade about how and why all such Bible bashers hate her. She composes herself, and smiles gently.)

GRACE: That's not really my style.

HEAD OF HR: And in a country as free as ours, you wouldn't need to, would you? Nobody needs to take a job as a pretext for proseltysing. I mean, anyone can stand on street corners or knock on doors and preach.

(GRACE resolves not to tell HEAD OF HR that, many years back, the street corners and doorsteps was exactly what she used to do.)


I mean, my goodness. One minute I'm the devil's spawn to Christians, the next minute I'm some earnest Bible-thumping praise-the-Lord-er to the rest of the world. And to think that I feared discrimination on the grounds of being a bit mental, too. To have been employed on account one's evangelical credentials is obviously far, far worse. Oh dear. Thank God I've actually got a job. Otherwise my future prospects would by now be entirely dead.

hello new visitors

Ooooh, lovely to see new people here, mainly travelled via the ASBOjesus site, which I've been enjoying discovering.

What am I going to do to keep people here and reading and commenting and excited? What would anyone like?

I've been spending the day being shuttled from pillar to post in my Proper Trousers whilst trying to sort out arrangements and contracts and the like for my New Job. But I'm still so ardently grateful to have a New Job that I'm still amenable to a gentle bit of being slightly pissed around, and they do have a free and low-carbon-emitting minibus service which efficiently shuttles the 16 minute journey between Pillar and Post at 13 and 43 minutes past every hour until 1743. And on one of the journeys from Post back to Pillar I got an email on my mobile asking if I'd like to apply for a job at one of the partner organisations of Place of Former Employment. So definately, I'm very glad I've got a New Job.

But honestly, what am I writing about? What would keep people reading? All contributions welcome...

why a dozen or so of my posts have disappeared

Because I've just been offered a job. I hadn't written about the employer in question on the blog (well, I did, but it was only a little, little bit about their fantastic admin systems...) but I know that, over the past few weeks, I've written things that might risk my soon-to-be Place of Employment finding me online here. So, I just need some time to think and maybe do a bit of editing before I put the posts back up.

Huge and massive thank yous, though, to everyone who's been cheering me through these interviews. God seems nice again now, too. Thanks up there.

There was, of course, an extremely high standard demonstrated by all our interviewees

Maybe I should write a manual of less utterly cliched ways for interview panels to reject people.

I wish they'd just spare me the platitudes and tell me in the first sentence they don't want me.

more self-pitying whining...

I've just realised that I know one of the men on my next interview panel. His name had always sounded vaguely familiar - but then, as Jim Smith, it easily could have. But last night, one of my friends-from-way-back informed me that, several years back, Jim Smith offered me a job and I turned it down. Given that I am able to recall sending my CV to someone else in what was then Jim Smith's organisation, and given that I know I remember virtually nothing about this period of my life, I'm prepared to accept my friend is probably right.

But what my friend doesn't know, and what I totally cannot understand is what the job was, why I turned the job down, how I turned the job down and thus whether I have met, spoken to, conversed with, discussed the job with, emailed or written to Jim Smith.

D'oh.

on a lighter note...

I've been shortlisted again. Twice.

*Grace keeps her lips very sealed in case anyone who might be interviewing her reads this and guesses who she might be*

the verdict

Another candidate had a great deal more experience than you.

‘Would you mind explaining for us the gaps in your CV?’

The dreaded, dreaded interview question... and one in which I have come unstuck in at least half a dozen job interviews in recent years. Basically, I believe that honesty is (generally) the best policy and I would (probably) never lie... but that still doesn’t mean I want to be entirely open. For the following reasons

1. Whenever I’ve disclosed in a job interview that the 4 years of gaps in my CV have been through not being able to work or study because of having been a bit mental, I’ve been turned down for the job in question... every single time*. When I’ve not been asked, I’ve been offered around 40% of the jobs for which I’ve been interviewed.
2. I don’t want to use, adhere to, align myself with or define myself by the conventional, medicalised constructs, categories or diagnoses of mental health or illness**. And to talk about being unwell or in distress still sound all twee and drippy. So I don’t really have a clear frame of reference from which to talk.
3. It’s generally not something I’m hugely comfortable talking about, even to friendly and open-minded people***.
So, given that I don’t want to lie, don’t want to disclose and don’t want to fail every interview I attend... where does one go from here?

Applying to work for a Christian organisation provides several options. As follows

1. ‘Praise the Lord, I’ve been healed! Hallelujah!’ If the interview panel responds with a resounding and collective ‘A-Men! Praise the Lord’, you know you’ve got away with it, hallelujah. This relies, though, on the interview panel all holding to a dogmatic theology of a God who heals instantly, with a healing never to be questioned. And on them not hearing the tone of irony in your voice.
2. ‘I’m being healed through the grace of Christ.’ This may satisfy an interview panel with a more nuanced, integrated eschatology and may make you come across as all deep and spiritual. However, they may be aware that, theologically speaking, it’s a fairly meaningless statement. For the world into which Jesus was born, the concepts of salvation and healing were linguistically and conceptually indistinguishable from one another. Therefore, as we’re on a journey of salvation, we’re being gradually healed, because we’re all of us in need of both. So ultimately, to say ‘I’m being healed through the grace of Christ’ is simply to say ‘I’m a Christian’. And they’ll know that.

But it’s not a Christian organisation for which I’m about to be interviewed. This is, then, relatively new territory for me.

The Organisation For Which I’m About To Be Interviewed (OFWIATBI) is big enough to have its own confidential employee helpline. And so I rang them, putting 141 in front of the number to anonymise the call and declining to provide the helpline advisor with my name, prospective job title or geographical location. She reassured me that the helpdesk receive ‘several calls each year’ from people applying for their jobs worrying about how or whether to disclose ‘a history of mental health issues’ (her words not mine) to explain a ‘lack of past employment’ (again, her words). Her advice was, ‘Just tell them that you were ill. And go online and have a read of our Equal Opportunities Statement.’

I thanked her, and rang the Careers Service at my old university. They asked me to email them my CV so that they could see for themselves the glaring holes. The advisor rang back to say ‘look Grace, you’ve probably got to be upfront, or else they’ll assume you’ve been in prison and aren’t telling them, especially as it’s a post they can’t CRB check you for. I accept your point that you believe your chances for this job might be better if you had been in prison than in hospital... but, now how to put this, wouldn’t you rather be regarded as mad than bad, really Grace...?’

Next, I rang the JobcentrePlus. After telling me that they could not handle my enquiry without my National Insurance number and not-quite-listening to my questions, the patronising arsehole of an advisor butted in with ‘but honestly, could you even cope with the job? But you know dear, you’ve got a lovely voice, and you know they new call centre they’re setting up behind Asda, maybe that’d be more realistic....’ I thanked her, made my excuses and hung up.

Finally, I rang the EHRC****. As much as I don’t do labelling or diagnosis, their helpline advisor was utterly textbook ADHD. Our conversation went something as follows

HIM: Well, given that you spent so long off work, you could probably claim DLA on the grounds of the stigma you must be suffering will severely disadvantage you in any future workplace*****.
ME: OK, but in terms of my question. In terms of the interview...
HIM: Yes, but you’ll need to be thinking now about what Reasonable Adjustments you might need to carry out the job.
ME: But the only adjustment I’m seeking is to be treated fairly at the interview. The job itself, I’m not asking for anything else for.
HIM: Yes, but suppose you had diabetes...
ME: Er, sorry?
HIM: Yeah, like, suppose you had diabetes and needed breaks throughout the working day to inject yourself and you’re colleagues were objecting.
ME: But I don’t have diabetes.
HIM: I’m just trying to get you to think, about what it might be like in the job.
ME: But all I’m asking is for advice for the interview, about...
HIM: What, they’ve offered you an interview?

I still feel, then, no further forward. I rang a friend, who said ‘buy yourself some new nail polish and remember to keep smiling.’ Possibly the clearest advice I’m going to get...


* The Mental Health Foundation survey of 2001 found that 63% of employers would categorically refuse to consider employing a person with gaps in their CV caused by ‘mental health problems’... though how the survey defined/conceptualised the phrase ‘mental health problems’ (a phrase I hate) is unclear. A Mind survey from around this time (I can’t find the reference) found that people who’ve been in prison experience less hassle in obtaining work than those who’ve been in mental hospitals. The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) of 2005 tries to say this shouldn’t happen. However, a 2007 study from Durham University managed to statistically demonstrate that the DDA has done nothing to combat discrimination against job applicants. The problem being, that you need to disclose that you’ve mad (or have ‘a past history of mental health condition/s’ ) in order to claim DDA protection, which doesn’t even in itself work.
** Think Szasz, Laing, Engels, Ilych
***This does not apply after 2.4 units or more of alcohol. Give me a glass of crisp, dry chardonnay and I'll tell you anything. But I would never drink before a job interview.
****The Equalities and Human Rights Commission.
*****As far I ever I am aware, this is not true. Being afraid of workplace discrimination is not a valid category under which anyone can claim state benefits. A somewhat incontinent friend once tried, and was instructed by the DWP tribunal to wear more deodorant.

https://www.careersfordisaffectedevangelicals.org.uk

Thanks for all the responses to my previous post. However, a determined commitment to a New Religious Direction (self-created Religious Movement or otherwise) will only happen if I leave my current job. And given that I’ve got a wedding impending and a cat to feed, leaving my current job will only happen if I find another one.

I think I may therefore want or need a new job...

I don’t enjoy job-hunting, perhaps because I'm fairly dismal at it. I utterly lack whatever cognitive/social skill it is (perception? intuition? social niceties?) to ever discern what the person reading the application wants to hear. I can (and usually do) fall into any or all of the following traps

1. Ending up sounding pathetically and frantically desperate for their job. I've landed myself in some farcically unsuitable and extremely short-lived employment situations this way. I would provide some anecdotes but I don't want to Out myself on this blog, yet.
2. Trying to be clever but instead coming accross as a pretentious/arrogant prat/twat. My classic was the treatise I produced (some time ago, I hasten to add) by way of application to a local GP practice advertising for a receptionist in which I spend half a page pontificating on the need for a thorough reorganisation of the local primary care trust in order to maximise the effeciency of the GP receptionist. I heard from a friend who worked there as a nurse that the practice meeting "wetted themselves laughing" at my application. At least they didn't invite me for an interview so they could all wet themselves in front of me. At least.
3. Providing them with Too Much Information. I was once told, at an interview, "of all the 27 applicants for this job, you were the only one who filled in the what-are-your-greatest-weaknesses-question with any honesty at all". I didn't get the job, suffice to say.

I have, therefore, booked myself an appointment with the local Graduate Careers Service. But I'm honestly no longer sure what it is I want.

In which Grace decides to form a New Religious Movement

After a lovely few days with family and friends and without all the hassles and politics and religious authority-play of work, I have suddenly realised: it doesn't need to be this painful. I need a New Religious (or Spiritual or Faith) Possibility... soon. But what?

Grace's Possible New Religious Possibilities

Agnosticism/Secularism
Sorry, no. God’s there and I like chatting to him/her/it. Not an option.

Sufism
Of all non-Christian ways of engaging with God, this I like. But I don’t think one can convincingly buy into one form of Islam without embracing the entire Ummah. And I couldn’t do religion that didn’t do Jesus. The whole concept of the incarnation is what I love.

Various forms of progressive Judaism
I like the ethics and the academic rigour of it. However, I’ve rarely felt excessively welcome in groups of religious Jews. Or maybe it’s just me. But either way, I don’t think I could ever do religion that didn’t involve Jesus. There’s Messianic Judaism, of course. But I don’t quite see the point of that for those who weren’t Jewish to begin with.

More “liberal” forms of Christianity
Oh please. Sorry, but I just don’t get it. I’ve read Bultmann, Cupitt and the like and yes, they’re very educated and intelligent people, but I’ve never seen the point of demythologisations, nor of insisting that modernity and rationalism inform faith. I’m fine with the Bible telling me that the world was created in six days and that Mary was a virgin and equally I’m fine with Darwin telling me both are impossible. I don’t need to contend with the alleged conflicts between science and religion because, after several years of scientific training and a few episodes of psychosis, I struggle to believe either in science or the objectivity of reality, text, reason or experience. For me, God is all there is.

Converting to Roman Catholicism
Could do. In recent years I’ve been surprised to find that I like a lot of the theology. But they’d need to be a significantly nicer to their women before I could really want to be a Catholic. So probably not this year, then.

Cutting edge, radical, hardcore New Paradigm Church-like
As in, like Vineyard, Hillsongs, NFI, G12-type churches. Maybe. They’re good fun. Sorry to be superficial, though, because I know these things shouldn’t matter, but the volume of the music tends to annoy me: God’s not deaf. Or maybe I’m just too old. But I also get edgy in groups that are so laid-back and informal that they lack clear structures of leadership or mechanisms for accountability.

Quaking
The whole concept of Quakerism intrigues me. I don't think I understand it entirely, but I love the idea of a God who resides within everyone. All inclusive, like.

Bog-standard Church of England-ness
Could do worse. I think it’s all something I understand and can relate to relatively comfortably. But I’m increasingly realising that faith has to involve community. I know they earnestly do try, but I think I’m still a bit young for the jam-making and the jumble sales of your stereotypical Anglican social scene. But I know there’s more to it then that.

Post-evangelicalism emerging Churchyness type “movements”
This interests me. I like the focus on community, eclecticism and inclusion. Sometimes I doubt that they’re ever as new or innovative as they claim, but probably few of us are. There’s not much of such things in my home town, but maybe I could start something new? Hmmm now there’s a thought…

a job what i want

... what was advertised today.

Points in its favour
1. It's at an LEP [local evangelical partnership - an amalgamation of several churches each from a different denomination] and therefore in theory making a virtue of being all broad-minded and tolerant.
2. One of my best friends ever goes to the church attached. This may or may not be an advantage in getting me an interview (and of course, it shouldn't be), but it certainly indicates that they're nice people.
3. It's just round the corner from Fiance's so I would be working within a community. And I wouldn't be generating carbon emissions getting there (*grace is currently seeking all possible theological justification for pre-marital cohabitation*). And I'd be doing my bit for social inclusiveness by taking the shortcut through the grounds of the local mental hospital to and from work.
4. The pay is rather good. For the voluntary sector, anyway.

Points against
1. They want someone with management experience (*grace does not possess this*).
2. They want someone with two years of management experience (*grace does not possess this, either*).
3. Ideally, they would prefer someone with five years management experience (*you can see what's coming*)