Radio Days

I've been listening to the radio and chatting to one of my online friends this morning. I have a number of people I've met who are in far flung places and it's nice to be able to talk to people whose perspectives on the world are totally different to mine. Some are nearby and some are thousands of miles away in places I cannot even imagine what their worlds are like. I remember when I was at school we were encouraged to find a pen pal - someone in a far flung place who you could exchange letters with and find out what kind of a life they had. I didn't have one but my sister did. I do spend some time talking like this. It's nice to do and it does help the day pass by without too much tedium. What I would like to say to all my friends is that their support (however little use they sometimes seem to feel it is) is very much appreciated. It's horrible when there is nothing you can do for someone but sometimes just being there really is enough. Knowing they are helps a great deal.

The radio is like a friend to me. I live alone and so, as I've mentioned before, there are times when I barely speak to a human being for ages. I listen to Radio 4 and music - depending on the programmes (as I don't like all of them). Today there was a programme about the experience of unemployment. It was a really interesting programme, sometimes it was like being in a support group with people articulating some of the things that I felt, and even expressed in this blog. It was quite a liberating experience to hear this. The other side was a lot more depressing.

I've long expected that the unemployment rate could rise to 3 million, and I've said here that the possibility of a recovery does not mean that people who have been directly affected by it will actually see the benefits for a long time afterwards. An expert predicted 3.5 million people being unemployed before things get better. She also indicated that these numbers would not start to fall until 2011. This seems an inconceivably distant timeframe to consider recovery. I feel at the moment that I'm in a situation where I am making do and getting by with my life and little more. If work isn't forthcoming, how do you manage to see a vast expanse of nothing spreading out before you which could last years? I felt like a ship, run aground on rocks in a storm and as a blot of lightning splits the sky, the ship groans and lurches further up splitting the bough, realising that the situation is much worse than you thought.

While listening to the programme I realised - as I do often - that this blog isn't here to represent the experiences of others. This is no "voice of the people" blog. I'm degree level educated (crap university, average pass rate), no family of my own and not even a partner, a critical mind. I do ask questions about everything which, particularly in a man, isn't something people tend to do. I don't want to say that the experiences are unique, they're not. I've had the same kind of bad deals that thousands of people have had. I am also older than some and facing my 45th year in a matter of weeks. Of all the things that get me down this month I think the "unemployed 45 year old" tag is probably the most depressing.

One thing is the stereotype of being an unemployed jobseeker. The difficulty is that people see jobseekers in a certain light. You are perceived as a failure in that you have had to resort to asking someone for money. People also assume that people on benefits are a certain kind of person. Educated people don't claim benefits, do they? Well yes, they do. The trouble is that the support network devised to help people also assumes the kind of help needed is of a rather remedial level. Help with writing a basic CV, literacy, and the like are the primary functions. Yes, when I'm at the job centre I do see people who are a lot less educated and some have an enormous amount of other issues to deal with which make things really hard. That said there is little that the Government is offering to people like me. We need support but it's not there. There is a real lack of understanding that resources do need to be provided, as some of us don't have masses of reserves to get us through this "difficult time". Yet we are lone voices calling for action, barking at the moon.