Employed Temporarily Only To Fulfil A Legal Condition?

Disambiguating Cynosure said:

To begin with... I was encouraged a lot, to volunteer, and then given much support, at first. (I was not diagnosed Aspergers then (1990s), and so I was still a certain "Ethnic Minority" (I shall say not which!) )...

It was fun, they answered my questions, and I learnt much during my first week, there. I met Goats and Sheep and Rabbits and Cats, all with different personalities...

Then one day I was invited to attend an "Interview". This was a strange thing. They asked questions as if I had been there for Months. For example, caring for and leading Horses across Roads, which I had not yet been allowed to do.

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Was the interview to turn the volunteering into a job? It wouldn't surprise me then, I've heard many people say that happened to them. First they were for free and they were given tasks that were quite manageable and people put some effort into making them feel welcome. Then they applied for a job and suddenly they should have known a lot of things without training because suddenly they would get paid and therefore it was seen as unreasonable that anyone would have to put more effort in. The same may even apply if the interview was just about continuing the volunteering - they may have assumed that they can also find a volunteer who can just do it with a lot less of input from them, so you may have been seen as expensive and therefore not worth keeping. Another version of this is to consistently kick people out at the end of their probation period because the employer doesn't want to make any commitment. That's especially common in jobs that do not require very extensive training.

The other thing may be that, diagnosis or not, you had ASD. Someone may have taken offense in whatever you did or said, totally without any intention to offend, but they would not tell you directly. Someone may actually have "told" you in various nonverbal ways and you just didn't get it. At least that seems to happen to me a lot.

I have three heads too! (At least, that's the type of look I get from some people  : /   I'm not blue though, I have no colour at all and so am often ignored / unseen in certain light conditions.)

Hi DC, I misunderstood your theme then sorry,

Disallowed cynosure said,,,,

“To begin with... I was encouraged a lot, to volunteer, and then given much support, at first. (I was not diagnosed Aspergers then (1990s), and so I was still a certain [ "Ethnic Minority]" (I shall say not which!) )...”

You said you were not as yet diagnosed so I took that your comment was aimed at ethnicity, sorry.

Also,,,,

Disallowed cynosure said,,,,

“To close, I shall say, for one thing, that I am of a certain [ "Ethnic Minority"]... and I have seen the same thing happen to others like myself. The Gaining of miraculous "Perks" one day... and then suddenly outright hostility the the next day.

What I am asking is how much it is TRUE that some Companies must employ a certain person in order to continue themselves (Funding or whatever)...?

Age - or Gender - or Race - or Disability. (Not necessarily all of those and maybe just one.)”

Anyway regardless of which it is unacceptable to discriminate, an individual is just that, individual, a nice person or kind person is just that. A horrible person is horrible,

 I wish you well and as I said before, visual discrimination is so wrong on all counts, on here the NAS, it isn’t always easy to know if male or female, black or white,tall or short, etc, I like to imagine if I were to meet you my opinion would not change one bit, you are kind, thoughtful and show great humanity.

btw I am blue and I am eight feet tall and have three heads, just saying Lol.

X()x

Thank You for the replies, LW and DC (!) (DragonCat16)...

Yet This Thread is not actually about "Racism" as such, but rather about the "strange" treatment in order to fulfil a condition. This is why I linked it to the recent Thread from Mr.Robert123. It is a hidden thing, following a ritual as I suggested:

1 - People are very eager and supportive to make a person enter into a certain Job/Course/Subscription.

2 - Once there, that is over with - be it a day, week or month - and then they are very "eager" and "supportive" of reasons to make that same person then leave.

...This is what I have seen, and is the last explanation left after many others fail. It is bad bad bad, but it is what I see. That is why I posted this. The only time this sort of thing can be proven, is if one is actually working for that company at that time... and even then it is not admitted outside of the LEGAL/CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS... or something...!

Being asked to clean a horse stable when you have asthma is disability discrimination. I guess it's too late now, but did the person know you had asthma before asking you to do that task?

It all seems very suspicious. If you were doing a good job, what logical reason would they have had not to want you around? But neurotypicals don't often behave according to rules of logic. I have been through a similar experience (not being from an ethnic minority per se, but having an obvious accent indicating that I am from another country). I don't even know whether I was originally hired to fulfill some quota (there aren't a representative number of females in my field of research). In the end, I don't know exactly what it was that made everyone behave in a hostile way toward me. I can only conclude it was the ASD, because that's what several of them made comments about. However, strangely enough, if I were male with ASD, my being around in the position I was in would have been quite commonplace and even desireable, so it could be a combination of factors.

How strange? I tried to post that screen captured image six times and it failed! And yet this is also a screen captured image of a failed screen captured image? Totally confused now, 

Hello DC, that is so horribly wrong on every count, How nasty and unkind, I really do not understand prejudice of any kind,  it makes my blood boil, so I am prejudice to prejudice people, human beings are all human beings, ethnicity should make no difference to how some one is treated,

 I am so sorry you were treated that way, it really highlights how ridiculous it is to have such thoughts when coming here for instance, I may be from any country ok my English is ok, but that is not a guarantee of my skin colour, 

I do not have any better words now as I am struggling a bit lately( cloudy mind and words take time to think up), just had to say how very much I like you as a human being and that your ethnicity makes no difference to me. Take care x()x

Again, Thank You to all who responded thus far...

...Yet this Thread is dropping into "forgotten" just like so many other Threads, and, well, what more can be said concerning *that*...?

I shall at least explain that, the example I gave in starting, was my own experience of London and then a "City Farm"...

To begin with... I was encouraged a lot, to volunteer, and then given much support, at first. (I was not diagnosed Aspergers then (1990s), and so I was still a certain "Ethnic Minority" (I shall say not which!) )...

It was fun, they answered my questions, and I learnt much during my first week, there. I met Goats and Sheep and Rabbits and Cats, all with different personalities...

Then one day I was invited to attend an "Interview". This was a strange thing. They asked questions as if I had been there for Months. For example, caring for and leading Horses across Roads, which I had not yet been allowed to do.

During the interview, they more-or-less dismissed my own answers and "put words into my mouth", and then said "Yes? Is that true?"... And then after that I was allowed to go home early...

The days after this strange interview were strange. Those who were polite and supportive before, suddenly regarded myself with an obvious dismissiveness or a great hostility. I was given things to do which I could know nothing about as yet, and they would stand and watch me with a sort of sneer or leer upon their faces. Yet I still did nothing wrong, and that was when the sneer dropped yet what I did correctly was dismissed...

In the End: The reason why I quit was due to my being asked to clean out a Horse Stable and the HAY caused an Asthma Attack (I could not breathe!)... and yet upon my saying so, the person could not hide the relief and glee upon his face as he asked: "Just so long as it's your own reason and nothing to do with us or our animals."... to which I could only agree...

I could have been "snuffed off" right at that moment... but they did not care about that. They were just glad that they fulfilled their "Ethnic Minority" obligation and wanted to get rid of me after that.

Sorry for the long Post. Myself Venting, maybe. But what happened to me there, I know that it still carries on. But I am made to be too ill to tolerate it nowadays.

Not sure if there are legal requirements, I worked for a public sector research organisation, so we weren't quite civil servants but something close and in theory we got half a day off to celebrate the Queen's birthday :)  Anyway, there were no such quotas, What surprised me a bit was that they also didn't have something like when two people are equally qualified for a job but one has a disability then the one with the disability should get the job. This is very common with German public sector jobs, so I assumed it would be the same here, especially because they apparently are "Investors in people" (which I later found out means nothing, certainly not that they invest in people). The Disability confident employer scheme is similar - "The Disability Confident scheme supports employers like you to make the most of the talents disabled people can bring to your workplace." None of these things are aimed at helping people with disabilities. But it's well possible that in order to get a certificate of some sort it looks good if they can say we employ so and so many people from some kind of ethnic minority or who have a disability or who are women. And the certificate may be useful when applying for funding or competing with another place for a large contract or whatever. It also makes HR feel brilliant, so they can be as nasty as they like but in the end of the day the certificate proves they are good people so they can sleep well. As far as I'm aware there is no legal requirement to fulfill any kind of quotas of that sort though. 

I'm wondering if the sudden change is rather because people just change back to how they really are. When someone new starts they may think it will look bad if they are nasty to them straight away, even if they probably decide within minutes of seeing you whether you are someone they will like or not. So to start with they appear very nice (and we are perhaps less able than others to look behind the facade at that point, and find the people that are more genuine). Then after a certain time it feels save to switch back to normal. It doesn't mean they will be nasty to everybody after such a time, but you may be someone some other people think doesn't fit in with them because you are different somehow (which doesn't mean there's actually something wrong about you, but they may have quite a narrow-minded idea of how their colleagues should be). So it may not be that you did anything that made them gradually more and more annoyed with you, but that they had been wearing a mask and then they take it off, after a day, a week, a month...   

"Unemployment is at an all time low", lol. Newspeak for "we are sanctioning more people, which classifies them as leaving the claimant count". Insanity.

I've worked for both private companies and public organisations. I'm from a mix of several ethnicities. I always have to put "other" as my race on a form when asked. I'd say that public organisations are far more concerned with quotas. I used to work at a Council and they had to operate with strict quotas. I don't know about private companies. I live in a city where pretty much any job you do is ethnically diverse. Both the private companies and public organisations were about representative of my cities demographic. I don't know how it works in mandatory work placements though. It's actually an interesting question. They might buff out the figures. I'd imagine that they are more than glad to exploit the cheap labour of anyone.

I can recognise some of these things from when I was a teenager forced into various 'employment opportunities' so I guess Age was the discriminating factor back then. I too ended up quitting and repeating the cycle for a while.

I think it's more difficult nowadays though because there seem to be fewer jobs around and so it's not so easy to simply quit and move on now. Even more difficult I would imagine when benefits and sanctions etc. are added to the mix and so these employers have people over a barrel really.

Most of these employment schemes just seem to be a way of getting the unemployment figures down (without actually providing legitimate employment) backing up the "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." thing.