Trapped in an NT game!!

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1. I get unemployment money each month for 6 months or until I get a job if it's before that.
2. I'm supposed to accept ANY job the unemployment office refers me to (provided I'm accepted for the job.
3. Businesses that apply to the unemployment office are allowed to pay the employee as little as they want, provided they pay the minimum wage.
4. The unemployment office then pays me, for 6 months, the difference between what I'm being paid and what I'd get as unemployment.
5. If I'm not accepted for the jobs I'm referred to, I continue getting unemployment money as usual, without having to work. Why would anyone make the effort to interview well and be accepted for the job???????
6. Any company can hire the best professionals (who normally cost a fortune) for minimum wage (even if it's 1/100th of their worth and normal salary) for 6 months if the person is unemployed (likely due to lay-offs at this time).

I smell an NT non-verbal game here between the government, the private sector and the unemployed workforce. But as an Aspie, I have absolutely no intuition of what the game is and therefore how I'm expected to play my role. Playing by the rules is obviously not what is expected of the unemployed workforce, because nobody would be so stupid to make the effort to win the job in these circumstances.

Gosh, what a stupid system! I hate all that stuff, all that government and employment and society organization stuff. I find it really confusing and almost impossible to negotiate (I still struggle with the basics, I only learned about a month ago that you could actually deposit cash in the bank as well as withdraw money, and I've only known how to use my debit card for like a year now. But I'm expected to negotiate all the complex systems to get youth allowance (which I need if I'm continuing full time university - otherwise I can't support myself), and get payment documentation for every job and payment I've had, and all this other stuff.

It's a living nightmare for me - and I was so happy just to have figured out how to withdraw money from the bank and move funds between my bank accounts only a year ago.

confused me just reading about it, i don't understand it.

It's a bit stupid alright; that's why most people end up on the dole long term (and often have unofficial jobs on the side).

Your best bet is to probably fail the interviews the government give you, and look for a job on your own (where you can negociate the contract).

The referral stated clearly that no need to apply without accounting skills, but I was forced by the unemployment agency to go anyway. They rejected me before starting the interview, because I don't have a clue about Accountings. What's this game???????? What am I missing?

I just talked to a Psychologist who specializes in laid off employees. She told me one usually solves these illogical situations in one's favor by applying social savvy and good social relations. Great, just what I don't have.

I'm trapped in a surreal world I don't understand.

At a guess, the unemployment agency are being judged on the number of referrals they make, rather than on the result of those referrals, and so they simply try to send as many people to interviews as possible, regardless of the likely outcome.

In that case, it's all a pretense game by the gov't and I just have to play along, pretend to take it seriously and pretend I don't see the illogic in it all...

Greentea, I don't understand the logic of all of this as well. Until about 2 years I didn't know debit cards existed. I don't understand any of our systems at all including our banking. How can I play the game NTs expect me to play with this lack of knowledge I have?

Hi GreenTea

The only reason a company hires an employee is to make money from that employee. Depending on the position and how much money filling that position will generate for the company normally determins the pay for that position.

Normally, a company will not offer an important money generating position for minimum wage because they know that most likely a person truely qualified for that position will not take it at minimum wage. They would end up with someone not qualified to fill the spot and therefore unable to perform the duties and therefore not generating a profit for the company.

There are many companies that have listing with unemployment that offer wages hire then minimum wage. The wage range should be listed on the listing.

On a second note as someone else stated there are people out there who really don't want to get another job and just want to suck off the system for 6 months. That is sad because that is not what the system was set up for.

Saguaro, you're confused. If you read the points again, you'll see that the unemployed person is forced by the gov't to take the position for ANY wage, therefore the companies pay the minimum wage by law, even if the work is worth 100 times more.

This is another case of what I'd call "evolved paradox." From what was once an honorable or well-meaning idea on the part of someone in the government (or someone pushing the government into it), a thing has become a quagmire of nonsense. This is what occurs when a plan, sometimes well thought out, sometimes not, has to be implemented on a large enough scale that people are brought in on it who do not share the vision or simply don't get it. It is often left in the hands of these people to interpret what they are told, possibly without sufficient information, and they often fail even in small ways resulting in an eventual mess. Another problem could be that the plan had better intentions than designs, not taking reality into account but instead shoving a quick fix or one size fits all solution at the problem, thus when implemented the plan does what little it can and quickly turns in on itself.

In short, it was either a poorly laid out plan in the first place or poorly applied later on, and is now being perpetually enabled by low-paid lackeys who feel lucky to have jobs themselves. Literature is loaded with examples of such systems, and tales of one person varying from it. In that, there's a story, because most people just go along. Stupid, isn't it?

Irish, that was an impeccable explanation, thanks! One of my Theory of Mind problems has always been to underestimate the stupidity of humans, especially when working together.

But it can also be that someone's making good profit from this ridiculous state of affairs and therefore supporting the whole circus. And I suspect it is, as you mention, the Unemployment Office staff, fearing for their own jobs if the gov't starts looking for a more effective solution to the masses of people laid off in the past few months.

Government schemes topic

Such employers that pay mini wages for maxi work will end up with unqualified employees who are rapidly in/out of the revolving employment door. I find this confusing.

Why unqualified? Fine, exquisitely qualified employees have been laid off in the last few months, meaning that if they want unemployment money, they have to accept working at anything, for any money. We'll have specialist surgeons cleaning the streets and telecom developers opening doors at restaurants.

Overqualified topic

Sounds like your examples are over the top! What I mean by unqualified is that the employee is a poor match for the skills required. I should have said misqualified. A surgeon cleaning the streets is absurdly misqualified for that position.

I thought only this could happen in Canada! We have pediatricians driving cabs and Economics professors delivering pizza!

Since we're forced to take any job at any money, companies that used to pay, say, 25k for an Engineer, can now pay 4k for him - and they get them, because the guy is forced to take the job in order to receive unemployment money. Therefore, he has no time to look for a better job and is stuck earning the same as an unskilled labourer. If another Engineer wants a job, they'll have to compete with these guys that are getting unemployment money so are working for minimum wages. So they have to lower their expectations to minimum salary only. The government is therefore fostering the lowering of salaries to ridiculous levels, across the board. Sounds like we're getting to Communism in the end.