Rage Against the Washing Machine

I have come to the conclusion that the more clothes one has the more one has to wash. Thinking back to my childhood and remembering my mum scrubbing my dad's detachable collars with Sunlight soap (he later detached himself from the family unit circa 1966 and for years I felt like detaching his head from his shoulders but that is another story for another time) and standing out in the back yard feeding stuff through the mangle the drips going into a bucket underneath. I also remember playing ships in the big Monarch Laundry box which sat at the top of the stairs along the landing the laundry box was for sheets and pillowcases the big stuff that went to the laundry once every 2 weeks but when empty it was my own little ship for sailing the seven seas of wry.

I remember the lid it had a big lion on it Monarch - king of the jungle. I also remember years later working with women who had worked in the laundries and their tales of the sights and smells of what they had to load out of those boxes into the huge boilers - not for the squeamish. Of course my memories are all about the ship and the wonderful starched, pressed and folded bedlinen that the box held on return and of course the little pressed on laundry tag in pink or blue with a number that made sure we didn't end up with anyone else's sheets on our beds.

Even though we had a wonderful garden full of fruit bushes and vegetables and a big long washing line, thinking back it would have been impossible for my mum to have washed sheets by hand and got them out on the line. We came up in the world when she got a Baby Burco Boiler - a galvanised contraption that did what it said on the tin and boiled up gallons of soapy water in which our clothes were put in and agitated by my agitated mother with a stick which became bleached white from years of being dipped into the bubbling cauldron. Whites first - no such thing in those days of having separate washes for whites and coloureds; the soapy water was used until it became a thick grey froth. This was the waste not want not generation that and the fact that my mum needed muscles like Charles Atlas to drag the water filled contraption to the back door to empty it - still it was a step up from boiling stuff on the gas cooker and washing in the now ever so trendy Belfast sink.

You know, I used to think we were poor until I realised that some folks didn't have indoor WC's or a bath in their houses. What suprised me more was when twenty years later I was visiting people in homes that still had no inside toilet, bath and in many cases no running hot water - just a gas geyser over an old brown sink - this started my long relationship with social housing when I began working in some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Belfast where the awful conditions that people lived in were often compounded by being burnt out of their previous homes and handing over "key money" to unscrupulous private landlords for substandard housing. It was wonderful to see old women who had struggled to raise their families in cold and harsh conditions moving in to new warm and comfortable homes but it was also sad to see so many of them dying often within months of the move many from chest and heart conditions from a lifetime of making do.

Anyway, after my dad and his detatchable collars flew our coop (I was 10 and never knew until years later that this collar stud had taken off with a much younger woman and had swiftly moved to drip dry and trousers without turnips - she certainly suckered him dry as she was pregnant at the time with her other lover's child and had needed a quick getaway from her husband an army cook with a red hot temper) things got better before they got worse; this was 1966 in NI and to be left, abandoned was not the norm and there was no distinction between the sinned against and the sinners in fatherless houses.

Still my Aunt she of the white hair and white powdered face and blood red lipstick (like a Geisha without the side activities) took pity and bought my mum a Hoover single tub with a mangle on top - we had arrived and this little magic box served us very well until we branched out to a Servis twin tub - yes it was second hand and yes the drum shuddered and it danced across the floor but it could do the sheets and pillowcases and spin dry them at 600 rpm that little rubber disc being all important in ensuring that the sheets didn't jump out like a KKK convention all over the kitchen floor. Progress? I am not sure as it was extra washing and drying and ironing and of course the ship was returned to the laundry and I sailed no more on the landing. Anyway, I was comfort eating by that time and my stern end was getting to big for the boat and I was all washed up.

Now back to my own beautiful launderette. :o)p

50 Ways to Love your Liver Spots

I have been thinking about getting older, not that I have a choice in the matter. Well pondering about the advantages and downside of advancing in years. The big advantage of getting older is of course it means you are still alive.

Is there such a thing as getting older? Or can we reasonably choose between say 20 and 45 what we do. For example, many of my peers lauded the advantages of having one's offspring "early" that is you are still young enough to enjoy yourself when the kids have left the nest - I often wonder if in fact that is an advantage as in their eyes you are still then young enough to be unpaid nanny for their progeny, instead of finding yourself by embarking on a world trip. Having your kids later might mean that they can look after you while they are still young and fit enough and don't have the disposable income to do the world trip thing as they are still paying uni fees.

As for the sex thing, does the ability to dispatch the durex, put away the pill, trash the thermometer and go equipped with built in contraception, that age brings the female of the species, lead to more? Well maybe, providing the hot flushes, headaches, mood swings and other menopausal mayhem don't dull the desire. But then again men-o-pause can be exactly that as himself may need an interlude in between performances before he can take the show to the provinces.

At what point does experience no longer count in the workplace? Forget the fact that you are over the hill in the IT sector at 30, in most sectors (apart from the sports and sex industries) you are considered an asset if you bring your knowledge capital and know how....but there is a creeping parenthesis that puts you into the older but no longer wiser bracket - a time where they are no longer seeking your opinion but leaving Saga brochures on your desk which has also been moved closer to the door.

Looking on the bright side, (with the aid of varifocals) with the right combination of health, wealth and happiness getting older can be getting better and regardless of the trials and tribulations of life its definately not a rehearsal and so what if it takes longer to do stuff, we can still be a class act

Mobile Foaming at the mouth

I have come to the conclusion that mobile phones are no more than social props for those who have difficulty coping in the real world. They have moved from being a useful tool to get in touch in cases of emergency – for example, when that matching kidney is being swiftly transported to the regional renal hospital or come home quickly Great Uncle Eustace is breathing his last and has asked for you, to a fill all down time with the pitter-pat of text and chat. You see them in the streets with that walky runny "I am so important" sidewinder swagger with phone jammed to the lug 'ole and oh so desperate.
Have people lost the ability to sort out the urgent from the important? Or is it a case of if no one needs you right now, then your usefulness and therefore career trajectory is on the slide? Better to be chattering into the void whilst negotiating the fast lane of the M6 at rush hour in heavy rain than to be concentrating on getting to that meeting safely. How many of us have had to dodge the sneak-a-peep textual intercoursers in the course of driving through town – or worse still, the traffic light texters, those who just need to get in that final gr8tng word of banal8t before realising the lights have been at green for the last 20 seconds.
I suppose it is safer when driving or operating machinery, but the sight of those buck edjits prancing round B&Q and other similar torture centres with their silver clad shell likes shining in the sun like piercings gone wrong irrit8s me– why when they get out of the car do they have to assume the position of a Borg drone; ear piece and mobile clipped to the belt like one of those tan leather strap on tool belts? Of course the uniform of the damned is only complete when finished off with the multi-pocket cargo pants, slogan socks and deck shoes.
Why do we need such intensity of being contactable and being able to contact others? Does this create a quasi sense of importance or does in feed into our anxiety areas? Its the same with the "news" (what ever that is) it's now on tap pumped and streamed to our systems with every nuance, twist and turn, spin and opinion, readily available to be ingested and acted upon. But are we really any better off with this information overload? How much time to we get to take on board stuff before we are bombarded with more stuff? It's like a race to bring us a disaster faster with the movie moguls racing to get the rights to bring the bad news to the big screen complete with special effects. Apparently, Sylvester Stallone is already pumping himself up to play the wrestler who allegedly murdered his wife and son before ending his own life using a weights machine to strangle himself – obviously not having to wrestle much with his conscience about the impact on the family and loved ones.
So I am left wondering if all these wonderful advances in technology have in fact got in the way of living – the just in time generation becoming the blink and its gone generation – but don't worry we have a digital record of the moment you missed

Fangs for the memories

Today I want to talk about phobias, not generally but mine. I am conscious of the fact that bloggus interruptus may occur as my phobia, well one of them may prevent me from going on with this - as in I may have to distract myself by whatever means I can which may include leaving the house.

I will start with the minor irritations as opposed to the big kahuna - these I can deal with without coming out in a cold sweat or feeling that sensation of cotton wool in my chest.

Anyway, cigarette ends is one - I am not on any anti puffers podium nor do I mind people smoking its the end product I can't stand. I am unable to lift fag ends without wearing rubber gloves or wrapping news paper round my hands. Its the smell that gets me and makes me chunder. I think it may be something to do with my parental unit being from the war generation where non-filter fags were partially smoked extinguished and then re-lit later I never liked that smell.

Moving swiftly on, I am not struck on winged instruments, that is birds. I don't mind them wandering around as long as they don't flap and wander around me that is. Last time I went to the local park it was bucketing with rain and the swans and geese and ducks were hungry and I had brought a couple of loaves of bread and was standing chucking big bits into the water when they got me in a pincer movement, I was circled by a pulsating pavlova of white wings and shrill squawking as they competed with each other for my bags of bread. Well, I ran screaming back to the safety of my car with every man, woman, child and their dogs laughing at the sight of this crazed banshee creature sliding over the swan shit in the pouring rain.

Of course, I have been building up to the main event the jaws of my dilemma the molars of my mortification, and the root cause of my problem - FALSE TEETH there I said it. I am now focusing very intently on what I am typing as opposed to the mental images that are skipping across my conscious like little dental plates of tiller girls doing a steradent frothed can-can in my mind.

As a child I didn't like it when my elderly great aunt, she of the white hair, white powdery complexion topped off with blood red lips that made her look like a ghostly geisha, used to think it was funny to let her top set slip down and act out the giant from Jack and the beanstalk...fee..fi..fo..fum..

It got worse over the years and actually made me switch careers in my early days from nursing to social work nursing = potential to have to deal with false teeth, removing them, washing them and refitting them like a bloody bricklayer shuggling them to get them to fit in the gummy cavity wall lining.

I can't even watch The Simpsons when Granpa's falsers are on the move like into Santa's Little Helper's mouth I have to turn away. And if there is a You've Been Framed type programme on the giggle box I keep a cushion handy to cover my face.

I am not dental phobic and have no problem going to the dentist and injections, drills and pain don't bother me but they know to move all sightings of plates and bridges out of my line of sight.

Its not really even the teeth bit that gets me, its the pinky, shiny, plastic pretend gums, attached to them like a set of mouth based maracas with a smattering of chattering.

This is not meant to offend people who have dentures, despite me making light of it, its as real to me as say a fear of spiders is to another person.

Now off for some retail therapy..

Sometimes It's not good to be right

This is one of the times I would have preferred to have been wrong. In my blog of 10th April I noted my concerns that we were likely to experience increased racist attacks in Belfast.

Today, Northern Ireland and Belfast and South Belfast hangs it's head in shame at the persecution of Romanian families at the hands, feet, bricks, bottles and hatred of those who have no idea or care about these people who wanted a better standard of living than they had in Romania - many escaping poverty and deprivation beyond what we could ever imagine.

Of course, out of such hatred and heartlessness, we have been able to lift our heads a little and be heartened by the actions of those who worked to protect, support and shelter those poor frightened men, women and children and we are advised they have now temporary accommodation for reflection and safe space.

Of course the planners and perpetrators of these unconscionable crimes need to be brought to justice and dealt with by the courts - there should be no hiding place for racists in Northern Ireland.

However, we also need to look for those who are using "race war" and playing into fears about cultural identity and nationality/"Britishness" as a way of influencing vulnerable and impressionable young adult men to do their bidding. Is this simply an outlet for getting an adrenalin rush now it is no longer about interface violence and the "other side" is no longer the opponent? Is it gang culture? and more importantly how can it be stopped before racial violence and sectarian violence become synonymous?

It's not enough to deal with the behaviour that's the easy part; fixing hate filled hearts will take longer and won't come cheap.

Which Hazel

Shed no Tears for Hazel Blears
As she squirms and wriggles amid her fears
Her little mutiny brought no bounty
By picking her time for ministerial office rejection
To create maximum damage with no protection
She rocked the boat of Captain Brown
Now she proffers apologies to avoid deselection
While he remains at the helm until election

Ineligibly Emaciated

I believe that we have a humanitarian crisis looming in Belfast and across Northern Ireland.
We have some really sad stories here from some our fellow European citizens in Belfast who have found themselves unemployed and because their work has been short-term, temporary contracts or via recruitment agencies they don’t meet the benefit eligibility criteria not having been on the workers registration scheme for one year etc;

Of course the jobs situation is now dire and the temporary work has dried up and many we placed into employment have lost their jobs. Not all are in a position to go home and for some here is home now - this is particularly evident for some of our older single male Eastern European clients. One (and I acknowledge perhaps more extreme example) a man in his early fifties who had to flee Romania/Hungary in 1999 and at the time of EU (2004) enlargement was seeking asylum in the UK, has no job, no money at all and is very definitely falling into mental and physical ill health – he is emaciated and it heartbreaking to see him deteroriate physically and mentally; he is a Chemical Engineer and speaks 4 languages but only had temporary jobs and volunteering since bcoming to Belfast from London 2004.

Many economic migrants made their home here and also contributed as employees and volunteers.

We now have a new criteria the “ineligible destitute” and of course a political hot potato (which unfortunately is not part of a hot meal for them) which no government agency wants to deal with and no one voluntary agency is able to deal with and we need to be really sensitive about highlighting individual cases in the media as these folks are already vulnerable to racist attacks and increasing a profile could result in the wrong sort of attention.

We are signposting these vulnerable folk for help as we don’t have any funds in our small charity whatsoever to provide financial assistance (other than from our own pockets which is happening too).

How do you offer help to a fellow European citizen and fellow human being who is starving before you and becoming more and more emotionally unwell when this person despite working and volunteering because of "the rules" is not eligible for public assistance? How do you get someone somewhere to listen and make changes, who can see beyond numbers and boxes to the real human need? How do you continue to do your job when you can't offer any help to someone who is losing hope and may ultimately lose their life because they don't meet the eligibility criteria?

This is the reality of the recession for those at the bottom of the heap, no job, no home no money, no help and no hope. Perhaps if reality TV would like to film the real reality of those people who are forgotten and what it is like to try and exist on nothing and have your dignity and self worth eroded by having to steal serviettes in the food line to be able to blow your nose?


I am not scare-mongering I also know that on the ground there are with the unemployment situation and currently “contained” community tensions at interface areas, that there is an emerging concern that Black Asian and Eastern European people are (if not already) becoming the focus of anger from those who have lost their jobs as a result of the recession or who just need to blame someone “different” for their situation


I am so very sad, so very angry and I know others who do similar work share the same concerns - watch this space and Happy Easter

Fattitude

This blog starts with a prequalifying statement; I have never made any secret of the fact that I am overweight – it doesn’t weigh me down nor does it prevent me functioning as the Chief Executive of a charity that helps people who experience labour market disadvantage to maximise their potential to secure sustainable employment. It doesn’t prevent me functioning as a wife, mother and grandmother and it doesn’t get in the way of the other bits of being in a relationship with my significant other.

In fact whilst my weight does not define who I am, it does however for some create the need for some to prefix my name when describing me with the word “Big”. Now of course it could mean “big heart” “big giver to charity” “but I am astute enough to know that it’s my body size that gives me this additional tag.

Truth is I am big enough to stand my own corner and have long held the view that those who matter don’t mind and those who mind don’t matter. I absolutely cringe at those size acceptance websites and News Groups particularly those BBW sites and the men aka chubby chasers. I have been fat most of my childhood and all of my adult life and I never felt the need to stand in line like a link of sausages waiting to be picked by some chunky chipolata connoisseur – puts a whole new connotation on pan handler. I also never had the need to go in search of a man who would punch his weight with my rolls of fat; in fact my abundant beauty and my intelligence and wit proved to be an intoxicating mixture and had I been of the mind, I could have had both the men and the hot dinners.

I read today about the Facebook Group set up to ridicule a family that all happen to be overweight and the youngest of whom had the misfortune to expose herself to the nation on that meritorious platform known as the X Factor. Unfortunately for her she had neither the voice or the x factor – but what she did have the plus size factor and since appearing on that programme her and her family have been subjected to horrendous cyber bullying.

Contrast this with the Facebook group in support of the children’s television presenter who was deemed by some as being unfit to present to children as she only had one arm. For me it’s a bit like the deserving and undeserving poor – in the eyes of some if you are fat you offend the sensibilities of the great British public and therefore deserve your unjust desserts.

Tempers Frigid

Of course we forgot to put the clocks forward but it didn’t matter very much as I decided to lie in bed all morning rather than go downstairs and face the kitchen with 3 dishwasher loads distributed across its length and breadth from last night’s family dinner or the huge goggle-eyed lump sitting in front of the television watching the Australian Grand Prix. I can’t see the attraction even if Jenson is on the button.

I decided to have a long leisurely bath but given that our current bath must have been designed with pygmies in mind there was nothing long about it – not much width wise either before shedding some ballast I was almost resorting to rubbing myself down with a tub of I can’t believe it’s not butter before getting in to prevent the need for lifting gear to be brought in. When I lean forward the water rushes forward like the Severn Bore and lifting one’s arse cheek tends to require a releasing shuggle which creates a noise akin to a sink plunger. Anyway, I had a bath without interruption and SO came up and did the decent thing and washed my hair; well at least he held the shower head while I did the work.

Having a soak allows for putting the world to rights and perhaps because the clocks went forward my mind went into overdrive and I began to ponder on why I always feel so wound up about not doing enough with my free time. Friday evening I am usually so cream crackered after a week’s work that I don’t feel like doing much other than flopping on the sofa and trying to stay awake (which doesn’t always work). Saturday morning I take my sister for a counselling session (which I encouraged her to attend and hence taking her) When I get back it’s the weekly laundry – I don’t know how my mum managed it with only the kitchen sink and an outdoor mangle when I was a child and I have memories of her scrubbing the detachable collars of my dad’s shirts with Lifebuoy washing soap to remove the line of grime which was a mixture of Brylcreem and sweat and also using a washing board no wonder her hands were rough and calloused.

Saturday afternoon I generally take my daughter and granddaughter shopping or SO and I hit the shops to spend money we haven’t got on things we don’t need. We talk about going out for food or the cinema but we usually end up remote and distant – SO commandeers the remote and I keep my distance in the kitchen watching Forensic Detectives or (the shame) one of the telly selly channels. Sundays tend to be “our day” and we generally find stuff to do together either in the house or garden or out and about.

I do wonder if the time vampires have got me as I never seem to achieve all the things I think of doing in my spare time and I know I have a lot more to spare than other people. I suppose I feel rather guilty that I don’t pack enough in to the evenings and weekends. I have been thinking that I could have let the World Wide Web take over my life and have stopped living it as a result. Do I need to restrict my online activity and get a life?

In the Lap top of the oh my gods

After spending the morning worrying about my cash flow woes and a meeting tomorrow with our Bank Manager - I tend to see it as a visit to the blood bank as the blood tends to drain from my fizzog when I start to think about how I am going to present the justification arguments for a £102K overdraft with not much in the way of security, I stopped for lunch and on return happened upon this email in my in box:

"Hi Susan,

I have tracked down the laptops and they are being couriered over this week – I will let you know when they arrive"

My faith in my ability to ask for and receive has been duly restored and I am now wondering if there is a banking god or godess who could send the ability to convince the commercial manager of my ability to do what I say on the collecting tin as opposed to filling it with donations as in my business we suffer from Donor Kebab - that syndrome that skewers us from being charity flavour of the month.

But I can smile a bit in deficit :o

The Grim Repair

We have in the past months been given a running commentary in the press and media on the forthcoming demise of a young woman, wife and mother who was thrust into the spotlight via unreality television and who was laughed at, vilified and since her diagnosis of cancer has become another subject of a nation's gathering to its bosom - not quite the people’s princess but in the same ilk This blog is not about her nor is it about her decision to do deals on her dying while continuing to live out her last in the public eye - that is her choice however, heart wrenching or gut wrenching depending on one's view of her and her entrepreneur spirit world.

It did however get me thinking about a number of things relating to death and dying and reminded me of an ongoing feature in the local paper which asks people in the public eye if they would prefer a quick death or time to prepare; not much of a choice is it?. It didn't interest me enough to be able to recall the statistics but I am now wondering if that question was asked to the nearest and dearest of the dearly departed what would be their choice? Ok they don't have a choice but if there was a choice. The long goodbye versus the short sharp shock. The tree felled in one chop or taken down branch by branch; having been the nearest and dearest in both forms of deforestation, neither is a choice and both cause distress and, I think, leave a different after shock. I am also wondering when the point of losing a person occurs – when that person finally sheds his or her mortal coil or when that person as a result of their illness/disease changes more than the ageing process brings.

Back to that young woman in the midst of her own dying, doing it her own way with a reading public catching its breath as she struggles for hers. As I write this I am asking myself why should dying people have to be out of sight, perhaps she has it right and a celebration of her death should be as much a celebration of her life.

The this came to mind:

Death Be Not Proud

by John Donne (1571-1632)

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.

From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,

Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,

And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,

And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Alexander's Gastric Band

I wish I'd looked after my feet (apologies to Pam Ayres) I remember watching a bit of that Skinny and Pirhana programme where some poor former sloane who had gone to seed (quite literally as the grass was growing in the insoles of her Romikas) and had failed to move with the times - more market garden dahling than Covent Garden.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the poor gel's trotters where exactly that with heels like two wodges of parmareggio that had been used as door-stops for a considerable period of time. Skinny and Pirhana sorted her out and turned her into a glowing elfin footed lady that lunches a clone ranger with a range rover.

I passed the Skinny one in the foyer of my building one day last year, all I could think was that charity should begin at home dear and what is chic about collarbones like pepper and salt pots?

Getting to the point, I have wondered if I should go in for one of those stomach-stapling efforts a drastic band. Am I desperate enough to shift weight? Well I am sometimes but most of the time most of me is ok. Never being skinny is not never being happy in my case, however given the choice I would prefer to shift some ballast.

I just don't know if I have the interest in joining Alexander's Gastric Band. Of course, I could make money as a regurgitator like that Ginger lad on the end of the pier type variety shows who let on to swallow goldfish (slices of carrot) and other items like coins and washers and then promptly expelled them from wherever they had landed.

I will start at the bottom - not my bottom but my feet I am going to look after my feet - good feet will take you anywhere I have spent £32 on foot products and my feet are going to rock I might even get a pedicure. I am lucky to have good feet, its just that over the winter I have neglected them. Posh (if ever that was a contradiction in terms) Spice, has feet that defy classification with bunions as pronounced as a fiddler's elbow; how she gets them into her jimmies I do not know maybe head first miaow

Here's one I prepared earlier

Sometimes I wonder if writing funding applications should be banned and instead you just buy a lottery ticket and if it comes up your project gets funded - it cuts out the sweat equity, saves money on funders having to pay for assessing officers and assessment panels of the great and the good who know as much about the real world as my arse does about snipe shooting.

At least there would be no more anxiously waiting to see if what you have sat up late and worked countless weekends to justify the money you are asking for for a service you believe in. No the tumble of a few balls would consign you to either the ranks of the lottery millioncares or the try again next timers. No endless pondering and soul searching if something had been written differently would it have made the quality cut-off, all that would matter would be a few numbered balls. No need for the excruciating feedback where the feedbacker has all the empathy of a frozen pea. Truth is we in the voluntary sector put ourselves through the funding lottery including lottery funding, we are like students who blame personality clashes on getting bad marks when in simple terms there is just not enough money to go around and no matter how good, how effective, how needed our particular project is we are up against others that are just as good, effective and needed and somebody has to win the lottery and somebody has to lose its the luck of the draw

Mine's a double Bill

We opened our offices on Thursday night to newly unemployed people to come along and get some advice on their job options. We weren't inundated as the article hadn't been published in the Belfast Telegraph (it was published on Friday 20th but more on that later). However we did have two people come to seek support and by pure coincidence they were both called Bill.

Bill 1 was a man in his early 50's with a lengthy sales/territory manager history and a track record in selling to the construction industry. Bill was self employed and relied on sales plus commission and unfortunately the sales weren't coming in and the commission had all but dried up. Bill 1 was frankly "old school" with buckets of experience and very little idea of where to begin in marketing himself in new potential employment contexts.

Bill 2 was 23 with 4 A levels at grade a, a 2:1 Law and a MSc in Corporate Governance and had a dilemma try to get an apprenticeship with a large Solicitors or spend another 3 years on a Doctorate. Bill 2 had some temporary admin work but was becoming increasingly anxious about his career prospects.

Both Bills were supported to explore their options with Bill 1 undertaking one to one mentoring sessions aimed at building his confidence and awareness of the world of working for someone else and intensive interview preparation to move him from patter to competence based interview proficiency.

With Bill 2 we used some careers interest software and then a SWOT analysis of each of this identified options - Bill 2 has the opportunity for a funded Doctorate including a reasonable amount of tax free "bursary" Bill 2 will probably opt for the Doctorate and will either pick up on professional legal practice when he completes it or move into the private sector in a company secretary role or into further research/policy. The foregoing represents a basic overview of our work and while it might help to pay their Bills it won't do much to help us pay ours.

The article has resulted in a request for support for a company due to close with 38 people scheduled to lose their jobs and a list of other people contacting us individually. We are opening our offices Tuesday and Thursdays 5pm-8pm as part of our committment to do our bit to support the newly unemployed and I hope that others will do the same. It is going to get worse and everyone doing their bit can help to make it better.

Belfast Telegraph Article 20th February 2009

Losing your job is a shock and a loss that can hit you in much the same way as bereavement with all the feelings of shock, anger and denial as you struggle to come to terms with the impact on you not just financially but emotionally; your self-worth and confidence can take as big a hit as the one you feel in your pocket and for anyone facing unemployment the biggest risk is reaching the point of seeing yourself as unemployable.

You are the same person with the same skills, knowledge and experience that contributed to the performance and productivity of your former employer or business – you haven’t changed but the economic landscape has and how you negotiate it in these challenging times must change too.

Your short-term goal needs to be re-entry to employment as soon as possible before the rust sets in. How quickly you do this will depend greatly on how you view your employment expectations in the current tight labour market and how you align those expectations to the reality of the jobs that are currently available now and the salary levels they command. This will involve you looking at positions and sectors that you would not previously considered and identifying how you can transfer your existing skills to new business contexts. For example, you may have a track record in financial services, marketing or procurement in the private sector, have you considered how your skills could be applied in local government, health care or the community and voluntary sector? You need to adopt an innovative approach to becoming employed and who knows you may find a rewarding career opportunity that will challenge and bring out your talents. You may of course opt for a survival job, by this we mean a job that can give you the space to explore your options and perhaps look at training and volunteering opportunities that can do so much to provide personal challenge and reward.

Whatever you do to find work will require work from you and you may need help and support with the nuts and bolts stuff such as CV’s and application forms and interview practice, especially if you are newly unemployed following a lengthy period in the same job or with the same company those skills can get a bit rusty.

You may also need some one to one personal guidance and mentoring to get you over that initial hump and of course, you may also need to sort out your benefit entitlements and seek advice on dealing with the financial side of reduced income and reduced earning potential. Seeing all these things as challenges and not threats will be a positive first step in moving from unemployment back into work.

It can be useful to apply the ACIP model – think of it like a new brand of tea or coffee or soft drink the first sip isn’t enough and you need to drink more before you decide whether it’s for you or not.

By ACIP we mean:

Alternatives – what are your current options for employment?

Consequences – what are the consequences of each option?

Information – what information do you need to help you decide on your action?

Planning – what is your personal employment action plan and who apart from you is involved in it?

You might have lost your job, been placed on redundancy notice or fear you will be next when the job cuts come, but this does not mean that you have to lose hope.