Is being unemployed the most soul destroying thing ever

P_1 · 10-03-2015 09:41PM

It's a catch 22 really, work deprives you of the freedom of time, not having work deprives you of the freedom of money. Bad work deprives you of the freedom of both.

The Peanut · 10-03-2015 10:12PM

strobe wrote: »

Nope it's fvcking awesome. What a gorgeous March day it was today. Sun blazing away in that gentle little playful "just in case you forgot lads, summer's on the way" way that it has, the delightful little scamp. 188 quid in the back burner. And as the droves March endlessly into drab grey buildings to coup themselves away and clickity clack away as that demonic blue-white screen light scorches their soul away through their blood shot eyeballs, everyday is a summer holiday for us. Up at 10 to pop down to the phoenix Park to hand feed some cute little deer.

Then into the city centre for a spot of archery. Archery no less! Sure why not, have the time to learn and always wanted to. All the time in the world. Pop in for a quick pint of some pineapple ale in a nice little beer garden with a good book, just chillin like. Stopping to have a bit of a laugh with the other free people in between chapters.

Pop in for a little bet on Cheltenham. Just a small one mind, fiver each way double. Free tea and sausage sandwiches? Don't mind if I do. Thank you mister bookmaker. Boom! Two second places. That'll do nicely.

Then a spot of people watching down on grafton Street. And take in some busking. Some of these guys are actually pretty good. Must be from all the time they have to practice from being on the dole I guess?

And it's only 5:20. Tuesdays are awesome!

That's not unemployed; that's a day off. Do this for 185 consecutive days and you'll be practicing archery on the deer!

Being unemployed is soul-destroying if you want to be employed. Worst time of my life, although it collided with other issues for me. It's very important to me to contribute to my family's well-being; to do that I need to be working and earning. Holidays and downtime are great and important but I need to work.

shruikan2553 · 10-03-2015 10:17PM

I would rather be unemployed than in a job I hated.

myshirt · 10-03-2015 10:42PM

There is only so much pulling your wire that can be done, so being unemployed is really a bad thing in terms of mental health if you ask me.

louiseber · 10-03-2015 11:50PM

dd972 wrote: »

I've hated every job I've ever had, so being unemployed no biggie for me

Infuriating post. 100 years ago if you refused to work, you would have starved. The welfare state has aided the decline in Western civilisation and made us complacent. This is why countries like China and India are racing ahead of us. Think about it - if everybody had your attitude and nobody worked, who would produce the goods that you consume like food or electronics?

11-03-2015 12:47AM

For me the worst thing about being unemployed is that there's nothing to look forward to. Ya don't look forward to a day to yourself. You don't look forward to a few evening drinks because you're more annoyed at your mates for letting you down the last few times. You don't have enough money for a good holiday but you're up for getting smashed for a weekend, but no-one else is.

Micky Dolenz · 11-03-2015 12:48AM

strobe wrote: »

Nope it's fvcking awesome. What a gorgeous March day it was today. Sun blazing away in that gentle little playful "just in case you forgot lads, summer's on the way" way that it has, the delightful little scamp. 188 quid in the back burner. And as the droves March endlessly into drab grey buildings to coup themselves away and clickity clack away as that demonic blue-white screen light scorches their soul away through their blood shot eyeballs, everyday is a summer holiday for us. Up at 10 to pop down to the phoenix Park to hand feed some cute little deer.

Then into the city centre for a spot of archery. Archery no less! Sure why not, have the time to learn and always wanted to. All the time in the world. Pop in for a quick pint of some pineapple ale in a nice little beer garden with a good book, just chillin like. Stopping to have a bit of a laugh with the other free people in between chapters.

Pop in for a little bet on Cheltenham. Just a small one mind, fiver each way double. Free tea and sausage sandwiches? Don't mind if I do. Thank you mister bookmaker. Boom! Two second places. That'll do nicely.

Then a spot of people watching down on grafton Street. And take in some busking. Some of these guys are actually pretty good. Must be from all the time they have to practice from being on the dole I guess?

And it's only 5:20. Tuesdays are awesome!

I love Tuesdays too. It's my day of doing what you do, minus the betting.

Work is overated.

Rezident · 11-03-2015 11:14AM

I was unemployed for a year and it was generally far more enjoyable than my last job. Long-term unemployment must be hard of course (but how many people really could not get a job after two years of putting all their energy into job-hunting?). I'd say what is much more soul-destroying is not even wanting to work.

The Irish system of paying people for not working, does not work properly. The German system of paying you for the first year or unemployment and less for the second year etc. makes far more sense. The Irish system shows a fundamental lack of understanding of human nature, it encourages and rewards idleness. No wonder there's so many skangers happily skanging around town every day, they're well-paid for it.

riclad · 11-03-2015 11:20AM

There maybe people out there working 40 hours a week ,on a low wage
paying rent ,
paying tax ,
who have less money to spend than some one on the dole .
IT depends on your attitude and how you react to being on the dole.
i,d say being an alcoholic or a drug addict is alot worse than being on welfare.

Egginacup · 11-03-2015 11:27AM

Specialun wrote: »

So im now on week three on my first time ever unemployed. I decided to track everything with a diary to hopefully keep sane or just because ive fook all else to do,

To put it into context im 29. Hold a college degree and have years in IT sales/business de elopment a sector which is tough and shown by the media as the sector to be in

So ive applied for 11 jobs

2- opened for sh!tes and giggles as internal rep had be offered job already
1- sorry you dont fell the criteria
The rest with zero contact..

One giant company (it green, its a fruit,great for tarts) i applied for 2 roles and i was recommended internally,both times i mailed the recruiters and both lacked the respect to reply

Yesterday i visited the dole who gave megrief as my redundant pack was on non headed paper..i had to go back to old company and get headed paper

ROFL

I know After hours isnt the correct forum for this its the highest volume forum on here

So AH tell me yer experiences...cheer me up

How do you fill the day as im going off my nut

With spelling and grammar like that, I'm not surprised you haven't received many replies. What was that degree in again? And did you actually pay for it?

Panda_Turtle · 11-03-2015 11:32AM

Being unemployed for longer than two months is c**p, you feel worthless.

Then again being employed is c**p too, ridiculous deadlines and culture of long working hours in most jobs i've had, feic all free time, and then the way the economy has gone no job certainty. although if the pay was high enough it could ease the pain.

oceanman · 11-03-2015 11:33AM

OP, three weeks is not very long to be unemployed so don't go getting too worried, you will find that as the weeks melt into months and you find your routine its gets a lot easier and you start to really appreciate the time you have on you hands and the many things you can do with that time that your job prevented you from doing. the world around you is a wonderfull place once you open your eyes to it. chill and be happy.

DoYouEvenLift · 11-03-2015 11:36AM

Panda_Turtle wrote: »

Being unemployed for longer than two months is c**p, you feel worthless.

Then again being employed is c**p too, ridiculous deadlines and culture of long working hours in most jobs i've had, feic all free time, and then the way the economy has gone no job certainty. although if the pay was high enough it could ease the pain.

Did...did you just censor 'crap'?...

11-03-2015 11:38AM

mikom wrote: »

I'd say being raped or the loss of a child probably pips it tbh..............

ha ha ha ha :eek:

David brent " I think there's been a rape up there" always get their attention.!! jesus, why not add being French kissed by Hannibal lector, enivited to a musical chairs party held by ISIS!!!! guess what happens if you're standing when the music stops??? ye haayyyy you're a foot shorter!!

give the guy some support, he's obviously struggling ffs.

Panda_Turtle · 11-03-2015 11:45AM

DoYouEvenLift wrote: »

Did...did you just censor 'crap'?...

no sorry i misspelt c**tish

iDave · 11-03-2015 11:47AM

Spent 2 and a half months unemployed in early 2009. Yeah at the time it felt pretty undignified, didn't help most of my friends were still in work. Good chance of it happening again soon and to be honest I don't think its worth feeling undignified or soul destroying. Most people are not unemployed by choice and while the alternative is better financially all your doing is helping some corrupt rat in a suit become more wealthy than you ever will so I say just take it as it comes. If you get an offer great, take it but don't feel sh1t for being out of work.

11-03-2015 11:55AM

iDave wrote: »

Spent 2 and a half months unemployed in early 2009. Yeah at the time it felt pretty undignified, didn't help most of my friends were still in work. Good chance of it happening again soon and to be honest I don't think its worth feeling undignified or soul destroying. Most people are not unemployed by choice and while the alternative is better financially all your doing is helping some corrupt rat in a suit become more wealthy than you ever will so I say just take it as it comes. If you get an offer great, take it but don't feel sh1t for being out of work.

Perfect, well said.

5starpool · 11-03-2015 11:59AM

It's not unemployment that is soul destroying, it's not having money coming in. I was made redundant a few years back and had te luxury of being able to afford to take around a year off and it was great. I used the time to join a gym and lose weight that I had been promising to do for years but never did. I also spent more time with my girlfriend who is a primary teacher so was home in mid afternoon.

If I had enough money to never have to work agina I'd be delighted, but sadly I don't and I've been back in ful ltime employment for the last few years.

Mr_Roger_Bongos · 11-03-2015 12:36PM

MrWalsh wrote: »

Was made redundant after 14 years in a job. The team was like a family. The redundancy payment allowed me take some time out.

Best 2 years of my life EVER. Back working a couple of years now and I just feel like Im on a treadmill. My priorities totally changed during the 2 years off.

What did you do during the two years?

Genuinely interested, i'd love to use the time well.

the_monkey · 11-03-2015 01:00PM

I took voluntary redundancy just before Christmas, got a nice payoff and started the new interview process in January, at the end of Jan. I had a new job starting in mid Feb. and the two weeks off were great !!

Spend loads of time with my kid ... went to cafes and read .... played tennis ... was great.

Trick is to continue to get up early and keep busy during the day - even if "keeping busy" are leisurely activities.

Zillah · 11-03-2015 01:11PM

I worked in a supermarket when I was a teenager and it taught me the valuable lesson that nothing on Earth is worth spending all day every day in a miserable job.

I'll take the dole queue over retail any day.

I've been in my current job 3+ years, and it's fine. Pay is ok, lots of perks. I still resent having to go to bed and get up at someone else's schedule but it's better that what a lot of people endure.

I was unemployed for nine months before and I have to say, it was fine. There was that nagging sense of people looking down on you, and when you meet someone new there are only so many ways of telling them you don't have a job when they ask what you do.

There's a lot of bitterness out there. We've seen some of it in this thread, though not nearly as much as we've seen in others. That attitude where someone is working miserable hours, in a hopeless box of a building, doing crap all day, under a condescending prick of an employer, and are so tired and burned-out after that they have no hobbies or interests outside of work, and watch shitty TV (ads and all) and wait until it is time to go to bed and go to work again, the kind of person that doesn't work-to-live or work-to-work, they just work and then stand around confused as to what to do with their free time - this soulless type of creature that has been ground down to a shadow of a person, they look at you and think "Why aren't you a miserable waste of a life like I am?" and they'll make some nasty remark about hippies or wasters or skangers, because the only thing more despicable to them than being a 'waster' is being poor.

We used to spend our days roaming the forest and hanging out with our friends. It's a dark testament to our adaptability that we've learned to think of slaving away on repetitive nonsense in a factory or office as the natural and desirable way of things.

Jude13 · 11-03-2015 01:13PM

iDave wrote: »

Spent 2 and a half months unemployed in early 2009. Yeah at the time it felt pretty undignified, didn't help most of my friends were still in work. Good chance of it happening again soon and to be honest I don't think its worth feeling undignified or soul destroying. Most people are not unemployed by choice and while the alternative is better financially all your doing is helping some corrupt rat in a suit become more wealthy than you ever will so I say just take it as it comes. If you get an offer great, take it but don't feel sh1t for being out of work.

Spot on, I was in the same position, I expended all my savings paying maintenance until I eventually had to emigrate.

Egginacup · 11-03-2015 02:10PM

louiseber wrote: »

Infuriating post. 100 years ago if you refused to work, you would have starved. The welfare state has aided the decline in Western civilisation and made us complacent. This is why countries like China and India are racing ahead of us. Think about it - if everybody had your attitude and nobody worked, who would produce the goods that you consume like food or electronics?

It isn't the reason why China and India are racing ahead of us. The welfare state is NOT the reason that countries go into decline so please stop making this oversimplification and gross overgeneralisation. Germany, and Japan, and Sweden, and The Netherlands have had their fare share of racing ahead of everyone and you'll not get more generous welfare programs than in those countries.

Zillah · 11-03-2015 02:16PM

Egginacup wrote: »

It isn't the reason why China and India are racing ahead of us. The welfare state is NOT the reason that countries go into decline so please stop making this oversimplification and gross overgeneralisation. Germany, and Japan, and Sweden, and The Netherlands have had their fare share of racing ahead of everyone and you'll not get more generous welfare programs than in those countries.

Also if you want to take a look at the quality of life that the average Chinese and Indian worker have, and think that having that here would be a good idea, then you can go jump off a bridge. The GDP boost is not worth national misery.

Son Of A Vidic · 11-03-2015 02:31PM

dd972 wrote: »

recent research concluded that being stuck in a job you hate is worse for your mental health than being unemployed.

A bestmate of mine became unemployed last year. This after he had two career changes to try and find the right path for him. He said to me recently the money is obviously tighter, but he couldn't careless if he never worked again. He finally seems to be living his life rather than working like a dog. He's pursuing interests he never had time for and he now has more quality time with his kid. To be honest, I've known him since I was 5 and I've never seen him happier.

Adamantium · 11-03-2015 03:09PM

Egginacup wrote: »

It isn't the reason why China and India are racing ahead of us. The welfare state is NOT the reason that countries go into decline so please stop making this oversimplification and gross overgeneralisation. Germany, and Japan, and Sweden, and The Netherlands have had their fare share of racing ahead of everyone and you'll not get more generous welfare programs than in those countries.

The welfare state getting bigger and bigger is one of the big symptoms of a declining society. There can't be true economic recovery when it hoovers up everything, we complain about corporations enslaving us only to go looking for the entirely wrong entity, government to do the same supposed horrible job the corporations do, but then worse of all the governments of the world don't make no profit

Coddled from the grave, there was a great quote I heard once"

If you can't discipline yourself to work, you'll have to find somebody else who you'll pay with your time to discipline yourself for you."

It seems that school incapacitates people from structuring their own lives and just being self assured and confident in your own ideas, that things will work out, or maybe its just people are always people. You know the people who ask the same question 10 times when of they had listened the first or second time they'd have got it. The kind who will ask "how will we get there, how will we get there and never think how we will get there?

School was a babysitting class, it could be compressed into 3 full time years and much of work is the exact same thing. 2 hour of work , six hours of sitting around and my advice is to use that 6 hour doing something other than idle chat

Tarzana2 · 11-03-2015 03:13PM

5starpool wrote: »

It's not unemployment that is soul destroying, it's not having money coming in.

This is exactly it. Most people wouldn't care about being in paid employment if they had plenty of money to live on. Financial stress is incredibly tough mentally.

iDave · 11-03-2015 03:15PM

Tarzana2 wrote: »

This is exactly it. Most people wouldn't care about being in paid employment if they had plenty of money to live on. Financial stress is incredibly tough mentally.

Bingo, if I was sole winner of a Euromillions rollover would I keep working? Would I fcuk!

11-03-2015 03:26PM

strobe wrote: »

Nope it's fvcking awesome. What a gorgeous March day it was today. Sun blazing away in that gentle little playful "just in case you forgot lads, summer's on the way" way that it has, the delightful little scamp. 188 quid in the back burner. And as the droves March endlessly into drab grey buildings to coup themselves away and clickity clack away as that demonic blue-white screen light scorches their soul away through their blood shot eyeballs, everyday is a summer holiday for us. Up at 10 to pop down to the phoenix Park to hand feed some cute little deer.

Then into the city centre for a spot of archery. Archery no less! Sure why not, have the time to learn and always wanted to. All the time in the world. Pop in for a quick pint of some pineapple ale in a nice little beer garden with a good book, just chillin like. Stopping to have a bit of a laugh with the other free people in between chapters.

Pop in for a little bet on Cheltenham. Just a small one mind, fiver each way double. Free tea and sausage sandwiches? Don't mind if I do. Thank you mister bookmaker. Boom! Two second places. That'll do nicely.

Then a spot of people watching down on grafton Street. And take in some busking. Some of these guys are actually pretty good. Must be from all the time they have to practice from being on the dole I guess?

And it's only 5:20. Tuesdays are awesome!

Bloody Hell! Am being made redundant at end of April after 14 years. Any chance I could hang around with you for the summer

This has cheered me up so much.

Gonzo · 11-03-2015 03:49PM

a good thing to do while unemployed is to try skill up in new areas or become better at what your good at. If you are into IT/computers/media a Lynda.com subscription is great to help you learn alot of new stuff or find similar videos on youtube that offer great tutorials. Become very good at it and have a goal towards becoming freelance or working in a much better job than what you had previously with the new skills.

Is being unemployed the most soul destroying thing ever

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