Will I ever work again?

Inactive account said:

I'd personally be surprised if you have a more productive workforce as a result

This was never even a consideration. A compliant and controllable workforce was the desired end result.

It was also a good occasion for them to shed a lot of "dead wood" as they called it - those who complain a lot or were a burdon on the company. Sadly this consisted of a lot of disabled employees who went from having a very accommodating environment to one that was faceless and largely insensitive to them.

Why was this encouraged? Because when they left we could hire more DEI staff to replace them and it generated positive news of the civil service hiring disabled staff. Cynical but effective.

I think you have a taste for this approach from when the company was unwelcoming to your need for reasonable adjustments. For them it is easier to let you leave and replace you with someone with lower expectations and needs - and probably for less money.

Thanks. It's not my first foray. The first one was not a great success - not a good fit with my skill set (or lack of it). Having to see loads of people face to face some of them likely to be objectionable or aggressive. No thanks. I gave it a few goes and decided that wasn't for me.

This is just a charity that I want to help out. I'll tell you one thing it's not: being a moderator here! I can't navigate disagreement very well.

I would be interested to hear how you find the experience of your foray into the world of volunteering. 

I used to be involved in a voluntary organisation as a young adult (not something I have attempted as a more mature adult).

Recently, the modes of volunteering opportunities have really extended - it no longer needs to mean in-person / on the telephone role performance. 

Post-COVID era; so many organisations have adapted to / adopted hybrid / remote working options that now volunteering from home is also sometimes a realistic and flexible option (I had not really considered that before thinking about your post).

All being well, I wouldn't have thought you would necessarily need to think too much about the confidence aspect ahead of embarking upon the voluntary role.  I say that as, when I was last involved in voluntary activities; I used to try and concentrate on questions such as:

- do I want to learn how to do this?,

- do I think I might meet some interesting people?,

- might I be able to refresh some old skills or be exposed to some new skills within a safetynet of people keen for me to learn (other people want me to get good at doing this)?,

- would the role give me access to places, experiences or people otherwise unavailable to me?

- could I imagine some aspects of the voluntary role actually might be fun / enjoyable?

- can I envisage how I might gain satisfaction from feeling I have contributed to the tasks and outcomes? 

- do the tasks potentially sound like portable / translatable skills which I would be happy to summarise on my CV / Linkedin even though it was a voluntary role (would it build on or compliment my "story" to date)? 

- will I potentially enjoy telling people I already know about my new experiences (i.e. give me some fresh topics of conversation to share with others?  

...if that all sounds way too "happy-clappy" for your taste / style / comfort / point in your surfacing - my apology in advance: it was just some thoughts about how I would approach de-stressing the unfamiliar challenge.

Hope you find some promising early voluntary role experiences (whether that is on your first attempt, or one further along the way). 

Iain said:

What was your core skill set at the last place or two?

I'm jiggered (my favourite word would be censored) if I know.

Iain said:

what are your special interest areas

Not a lot these days. IT/tech probably at one time, but I'm not proficient these days, and haven't had a useful outlet for any skills I once had for a very long time now. Skill set is depleted to the point of being useless.

Iain said:

Lastly, what are your passions that are not quite special interests?

Haha! I'm a passionate pedant. Quite passionate about language and languages. I was passionate about gardening for a while, but failed to make a go of that or anything else that I once enjoyed.

Seriously, don't try to solve my problem. I appreciate the good intent, but I'm not in a place to do anything with any advice at this point. I'm about to apply for voluntary work, that could be a step in the right direction as it might help rebuild confidence (in truth I never had much confidence, so "rebuild" is a stretch)

Thanks for the support.

Thanks. Yes, I can understand the drivers for it. The inhumanity of it was more than I could (and can) bear. I'd personally be surprised if you have a more productive workforce as a result. I suppose some of the pain might well be transitional. New people coming in and not experiencing those changes obviously would not have the sense of being abused. However, management who introduce such changes will no doubt continue to cause pain.

Inactive account said:

I'm not sure how I'm going to fill the rest of my life

What was your core skill set at the last place or two?

Also, what are your special interest areas - could any of these be developed into a viable career?

Lastly, what are your passions that are not quite special interests? Gardening, driving, teaching etc? Some of these could shape into something to make money that you actually enjoy.

Share as much or as little as you want and we can see what we can come up with for you to consider.

PS if you end up being a baker I hope NAS people get a special discount

I ask myself that question. I've only had freelance contracts since I left full time education and even though I'm looking for that stable job, it seems to get harder and harder.

I know what I want (and need) better now though, so I can only hope that it helps.

Inactive account said:

Hot desking! Turning up at work, never knowing if you were going to find a suitable working environment. Bleurgh!

I was a project manager in the Civil Service when we were merging 2 organisations into 1 and we had to take about 800 staff who were used to their own spaces and move them into large, open plan spaces (apart from the managers of course).

I pushed back against the open plan idea but it was being driven down from the top - the government effectively. This decision spanned both Labour and Conservative governments before any political arguements start.

The rational was:

We have to be fair to the largest number of people and that means the few who have special needs will loose them in order to make the vast majority feel better about loosing their own spaces. In effect - everyone suffers.

Why? There are big cost savings in less space needed, cleaning is simplified, people cannot "hide out" in their offices and are always under the watchfull eye of CCTV, the noisy and messy individuals will be censured by their peers rather than management having to risk discrimination cases, people have to conform and become more drone like (predictable and compliant) and so people go back to feeling like part of the "big machine".

Naturally most of these were never published but were talked about in the high level management meetings in the design stages. We had outside "consultants" from the high level Civil Service always in these meetings so the right path was always chosen.

I thought you may like to see what it was like from the inside of the corporations as to why this sort of thing is happening.

I've seen company after company go down this route and have often been called in to sort out the IT service teams who lost most of their staff through it. This was considered a transitional pain and a good excuse to either outsource support or hire in people willing to take the company line.

I'm glad I'm out that market now - it was kind of soul destroying knowing what was happening, why and that I had to be part of the face implementing it.