I had a recent discussion with a colleague about the thorny issue of African Gangs. We’d get complaints about African Gangs on a weekly basis, especially in large flat groups. We’d have people from all works of life whinging about the Gangs, from little old ladies through to young males, and all demanding that something be done. When nothing was done, for good reason, the complaints would escalate into Ministerial complaints, for all the good it’d do. We’d advise that the complainants contact the police, again, for all the good it’d do, because the police knew exactly what we did and would deal with the complainants appropriately. So what did we all know?
African Gangs, in this state, simply do not exist and now that I've made that statement I'm going to explain why. The reality is that there are not enough Africans in the state, certainly not enough in the city central and suburbs to be that organised. The perception is that gangs do exist and that those gangs are organised and running rampant over everyone, including bikie gangs, which, as we’re told, the Africans are clearly basing themselves on. I doubt it highly.
First off there’s no such thing as real organised crime in the truest sense of the word. I used to know a guy in Melbourne who clearly knew these things. I always remember once, as he was being arrested for being part of an organised crime gang, he turned to the arresting officer and stated, “Mate, what drugs are you on? There’s not been any organised crime since Al Capone and Squizzy Taylor died.” Part of me knew he was wrong, but part of me also knew he was right. The concept of organised crime means that there’s a central person who controls all the crime that happens in the city or area in question. Capone was able to effectively shut down Chicago by using such weapons as fear and intimidation, along with more subtle methods as bribery and blackmail. Nothing happened in that city during his reign without his knowledge, even criminals such as Dillinger had to clear his presence with Capone and his offsider, and eventual replacement, Frank Nitti or be forced to leave. Such was the power. Capone had his enemies, but none lived that long or they merely shifted base and controlled their own areas. I doubt very highly that there’s any such ‘Mr Big’ running this city, or any other city these days. There’d be plenty of ‘Little Mr Big’ or ‘Mr Not So Large In Stature’, but those are very small fry indeed. Once you’re caught and named your power erodes a lot. Notoriety does not always equate power, and anyone who says otherwise just hasn’t got a clear idea on how the hierarchy of crime works. There’s more guppies in the ocean than there are sharks in the swimming pool. The real ‘Mr Bigs’ are generally in control of the corporate sector more than living like a pimp and buying large houses and luxury cars whilst having no visible source of income. The more you spend and the less you earn will always mean the more attention you draw to yourself. Low profiles are the key.
So why are there no African Gangs? For all the reasons I’ve outlined and more. The Africans in the state are generally benign at the best of time. Most are the friendliest and wittiest people you’d ever want to meet. But there is an element, as there is in any racial group that causes problems. The main problem is that an African youth killing another in the streets is more newsworthy than an Italian youth stabbing a companion at a bus stop. If you don’t believe me then read the newspapers of last year. The criminal element in the African community draws more attention to themselves by nature of their background and origin. Nothing more, nothing less. There are bad ones, but then go to any prison and see how many bad people are there, and see what the percentages of skin colour and country of origin are represented.
Another problem that surrounds the Africans in this state are where they live. Most are refugees to this country, a status that the last government managed to make a symbol of fear and mistrust. Most come here with very little, if any at all, literacy skills and more than a few cannot speak the language. They’re strangers in a strange land, and I’ve always said, you go and see how you’d live in the Sudan. Good luck. They generally live in their own communities and by virtue of nature, and necessity, they congregate together, as you’d expect. But because they’re a minority, people see these gatherings as gang related activity. To use the punch line of my favourite joke, I’m afraid not.
So why the general perception that there are gangs? To use the simplest analogy, and do forgive me here, to most people Africans all look alike. Guess what? It works both ways. I can recall sitting down having a good laugh with some tenants and I had to ask, “So, do we all look alike to you guys?” They stopped, looked at each other and burst into riotous laughter. “You bet you do man, all you whites look the same.” I couldn’t help but join in the laughter. It was here that I was told one of the secrets as to why some of the African youth act like they do. One is an issue with discipline. From what I’ve been told if a youth carries on and does the wrong thing, or is disrespectful to an elder, then they’ll be beaten with a stick. The bulk of the African bad boys here know full well that they can act like they do and they’ll not face any serious retribution. Capitol punishment, which to me is never an answer, is off the table here so what’s the worst thing that can happen? Jail. And that does happen more often than not, sadly enough. There’s too many people with great potential banged up at the moment who, with the right mentorship and guidance, could easily be a force for good in the community at large. Most of the refugees are fleeing environments that we simply can’t imagine. You may see a movie like Hotel Rawanda, but the reality is that nothing Hollywood has to offer comes close to the horrors that occur in these countries. Here they go to jail where they’re clothed, fed and housed. Compare that with facing a future of torture, beatings, starvation and death and you’ll see that our jails hold no fear at all and rightly so. Compared to the death camps in Zimbabwe, our jails are more like rest homes. Do something wrong here and what? They might take your television away. You might get punched out by another prisoner, not that that happens as much as the TV tells you. Do something wrong in the death camps and you’ll soon discover why they’re called death camps.
Isolation and separation from families also play a large part. Africans come to the country with the view of settling down and hopefully bringing out what remains of their family. Most are poorly educated – there’s an expression that goes like this; “Educate an African woman and you educate the world.” That expression comes from an African friend of mine; by the way, it’s not one of my own. Once they’re transplanted here most are left on their own. They can join communities but if their religion or, even worse, affiliations are extreme then the community will find it hard to accept them. Then they’re on their own. Isolation can easily result in a lower self-esteem and that can just as easily lead to crime or falling in with the wrong crowd with the hopes of being accepted. There’s not a lot that a person can do about isolation, but acceptance and understanding is always a good place to start.
The final part of this deals with racism. This is a nation that prides itself on tolerance but really is based, in part, on being racist. Again I blame, to an extent, the former federal government for a lot of this; after all they managed to win a federal election based upon ‘boat people’ and a hatred towards different religions. Witness what happened at Bondi a few years back. Witness what’s happened in placed like Redfern, indeed in places all over the country. The truth is that we are a nation of racists. That’s not to say that everyone is a racist, but, if we’re being honest, there is a racist element buried within us all, no matter what our background and heritage is. In one flat group that we manage virtually all the Africans have been moved on, either evicted or they’ve left on their own. The reasons why are varied, but it didn’t help when a group of illiterate morons decided to go around and place racist signs in the shared lobbies. I say illiterate because, as I explained to one of them, the word they were using actually has two ‘g’s in it. One word is a crude description of the people they were attacking; the word they used might be where those people originally came from. Through threats, intimidation and harassment the small band of racists managed to ruin at least one tenant’s life for good and move on a good number of others. Surrounded by such intolerance I can’t say I’m overly surprised with the actions that went on. People were physically threatened, verbal abuse happened on a daily basis and the general atmosphere was wrong. Mind you the people who complained the most about these things were the same ones who’d been posting messages of hate and racism on a sustained level for months. Typical of all passive-aggressive bullies, they kept baiting and baiting and when the attacks came they were the first to whinge about being hit. There was nothing I could do, or suggest, other than to advise people to stay clear of certain people and just ignore them. Easier said than done. Fear also plays a large part in this. To most Australians the Africans are large, tall and statuesque. They are mysterious; speak an exotic language and look different, thus they have to be feared. Frankly it’s a two ways street – most Africans are just as worried about offending non-Africans as non-Africans are towards them. Communication and cultural understanding will eventually go a long way to eliminating the fear factor.
So, are there any African Gangs here? Unless you count the entire African community as being a gang, a community that includes a lot of professional people who are held in high regard, the short answer is no. There are no African Gangs. There’s simply not enough people out there to make a gang. And if we apply the generally accepted definitions of what makes a gang to African youth, that being young people who spend time in groups of three or more, a group who spends a lot of time in public places, a group that has existed for three months or more, a group that has engaged in criminal or delinquent behaviour in the last 12 months or a group that has a name, an area, a leader, or set of rules makes a gang, then it’s easy to see that if we are to label African youth as being part of a gang, then a simple Friday night gathering at the pub is also a gang, especially if someone has been pulled over for DUI more than once in the past year. So until someone goes and arrests the gang of little old ladies who gather in groups the we should leave any such gathering well alone. After all, you can call yourself NWA or CWA, it’s all the same – a gathering of people all with similar interests, goals and causes.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
#128: The Gambler
Every so often there comes along one person who can manage to not only completely alienate and annoy you, but also drive you towards the boundaries of violence. They might be violent themselves, or offensive or just belligerent beyond belief. Generally they’re called the straws that break Ghandi’s back. I had one recently.
The Gambler presented with a case of excessive rental arrears. He was six weeks in arrears and had a notice to quit his tenancy. I looked at his background information – the rent was more than affordable, his income, on benefits, was roughly six hundred plus a fortnight and he’d only been paid on the Friday – this was Monday. He’d been in his current tenancy for the past eight months, but had already been given rental arrears a month after he moved into the place. Now, seven months later, here he was once more. None of it, on the surface of things, made much sense, but then these things rarely do. I walked into the room and sat down.
TG: Ok, so what?
ME: Sorry?
TG: What?
ME: What, what?
TG: What do you want?
ME: Me? I don’t want anything. As I understand it, you’ve come here for assistance.
TG: Well?
ME: Well what?
TG: So assist me then.
ME: Oh, well it’s not that easy. I need to ask a few questions and establish a few things first.
TG: No, you don’t.
ME: Yes, I do. Unless you don’t want assistance, in which case you’re free to go.
TG: I know your policies. You don’t have to ask me anything. Just give me the money and I’ll go.
ME: This isn’t a pawn shop, and I doubt you know more about our policies than I do.
TG: Don’t fucking count on it.
ME: See these (I say, pointing at my three thick folders), these are folders full of our policies. I’ve read and studied them all. Have you?
TG: Don’t need to. I know your policies.
ME: Ok then. Look, this is getting us nowhere. Let’s focus on the issue at hand. How did you fall into rental arrears?
TG: Didn’t pay my rent.
ME: Why?
TG: Lost my job.
ME: When?
TG: Six weeks ago.
ME: You lost your job, went back onto benefits and yet you stopped paying your rent?
TG: Yep.
ME: Ok, why?
TG: I don’t have to answer that.
ME: You’re right, you don’t. But if you don’t then I can’t help you.
TG: What a load of shit.
ME: Ok, calm down and stay focused. I see that you got the notice on Friday.
TG: No, I didn’t.
ME: It’s dated Friday and it was hand delivered.
TG: Means nothing.
ME: If you say so. Your rent was due on Friday though and you got paid on Friday.
TG: Yep.
ME: So why didn’t you pay the rent?
TG: I had bills to pay.
ME: Rent is a bill.
TG: No, it isn’t.
ME: Yes, it is. It’s an essential bill.
TG: I had bills to pay. There’s worse things out there than being homeless.
ME: Look out the window. It’s raining and it’s cold. A couple of years back someone froze to death sleeping in the parklands. Trust me mate, there’s not many things worse than being homeless in winter.
TG: That’s your opinion.
ME: How much did you pay in bills?
TG: Let’s see. $50 to Cashies and another $120 to a mate because I borrowed money from him before. He said he was going to kill me if I didn’t pay.
ME: But that leaves you over $400. Why didn’t you pay any rent?
TG: I threw the rest into poker machines.
ME: You what? You had a notice of eviction, you knew you were behind in your rent and you blew your money on pokies?
TG: Yep.
ME: Why?
TG: I have an illness. I can’t pass a poker machine without putting money in it.
ME: Have you seen someone like Gamblers Anonymous?
TG: Nope.
ME: Why not?
TG: That can’t help me.
ME: When did this illness start?
TG: When I got fired.
ME: You’re kidding?
TG: Nope. It’s a real illness. I see the machines and they call out to me. I need to play them – it’s the electronics you see.
ME: Why not just buy a Gameboy or something? I know plenty of people who need to play games because of the electronics.
TG: Can’t win money on a Gameboy.
ME: You’re not winning money on the pokies either.
TG: But I will. Eventually.
ME: You won’t. You haven’t yet and you never will.
TG: That’s what you say. Look, give me the money and I’ll leave.
ME: No. I have problems with this. You’re a gambler who blows his money in poker machines. You refuse to get help for this and you want me to assist with your arrears. I have serious doubts about your ability to salvage the tenancy.
TG: What crap. Your policy states*
ME: Don’t quote policy to me. Policy states that I have to go to a Team Leader with this and get it approved. I’m telling you right now than no Team Leader will approve this based on what you’re telling me.
TG: Oh, bullshit. Just go and get the approval and shut up.
ME: It doesn’t work that way. At some point in your life you need to take responsibility for your actions.
TG: But it’s not my fault.
ME: Yes it is.
TG: No, you can blame Mike Rann for putting the machines in the pubs.
ME: Look, Mike Rann didn’t leap out of your local, place you in a headlock, steal your money and put in a machine. You did all of that on your own. It’s not Ranns fault.
TG: It is. And it’s your fault.
ME: My fault??
TG: You won’t help me.
ME: Because I fear that all I’d be doing is feeding your problem.
TG: Fucking Xenophon.
ME: What’s he got to do with things? The ‘No Pokies’ guy?
TG: Did you know that the Government paid him twenty million and threatened to kill him if he didn’t leave the state?
ME: How long have you had these delusions?
TG: They’re not delusions. The conspiracy goes that deep.
ME: And you know this.
TG: Yep.
ME: Despite the fact that Xenophon is now working in the Senate and doing more for the state than he was as a state member?
TG: That’s not him.
ME: Oh, ok David Icke. They replaced him with a lizard, right?
TG: Exactly.
ME: I don’t often say this, but you need some serious help.
With that I terminated the interview. I’d asked him to bring back certain documents the next day, amazingly enough he did this and began to argue with me once more. By this stage I’d had enough. I approved the amount and sat him down once more.
ME: This is how it’s going to play out. We’ll assist this time. However if you present one more time for arrears, or if you present for assistance due to eviction then assistance will be withheld. Do you understand?
TG: You can’t do that. Your policy states that you have to keep helping me.
ME: See this piece of paper here (I say as I hand him part of our policy)? It says that if excessive assistance is given and money keeps getting claimed then assistance can be withheld. I’m putting that on your file – exactly that. The only way you can get assistance now is if you leave your tenancy and our bond is fully refunded.
TG: Your policy*
ME: Stop with the policy!! Now! I’ll help you this time but that’s it. You need to take responsibility for your actions. Do you understand?
TG: Your policy*
ME: DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I’VE JUST SAID?
TG: Yes.
ME: Thank you.
TG: I’m going to appeal this.
ME: Appeal what? That we assisted you? Go right ahead. I can’t wait to see how that’d play out. Make sure you go directly to the minister and here (I had him an appeal form) take this appeal form, fill it out and lodge it. Make sure you clearly state that you’re appealing the decision to assist you. Have a good life.
I was shocked by the tone and volume of my own voice and right there, right then, I knew I needed a bit of a break. We partially paid him what he owed and I walked off. I’ve not seen him since, nor do I want to. Sometimes people are just too difficult to deal with.
The Gambler presented with a case of excessive rental arrears. He was six weeks in arrears and had a notice to quit his tenancy. I looked at his background information – the rent was more than affordable, his income, on benefits, was roughly six hundred plus a fortnight and he’d only been paid on the Friday – this was Monday. He’d been in his current tenancy for the past eight months, but had already been given rental arrears a month after he moved into the place. Now, seven months later, here he was once more. None of it, on the surface of things, made much sense, but then these things rarely do. I walked into the room and sat down.
TG: Ok, so what?
ME: Sorry?
TG: What?
ME: What, what?
TG: What do you want?
ME: Me? I don’t want anything. As I understand it, you’ve come here for assistance.
TG: Well?
ME: Well what?
TG: So assist me then.
ME: Oh, well it’s not that easy. I need to ask a few questions and establish a few things first.
TG: No, you don’t.
ME: Yes, I do. Unless you don’t want assistance, in which case you’re free to go.
TG: I know your policies. You don’t have to ask me anything. Just give me the money and I’ll go.
ME: This isn’t a pawn shop, and I doubt you know more about our policies than I do.
TG: Don’t fucking count on it.
ME: See these (I say, pointing at my three thick folders), these are folders full of our policies. I’ve read and studied them all. Have you?
TG: Don’t need to. I know your policies.
ME: Ok then. Look, this is getting us nowhere. Let’s focus on the issue at hand. How did you fall into rental arrears?
TG: Didn’t pay my rent.
ME: Why?
TG: Lost my job.
ME: When?
TG: Six weeks ago.
ME: You lost your job, went back onto benefits and yet you stopped paying your rent?
TG: Yep.
ME: Ok, why?
TG: I don’t have to answer that.
ME: You’re right, you don’t. But if you don’t then I can’t help you.
TG: What a load of shit.
ME: Ok, calm down and stay focused. I see that you got the notice on Friday.
TG: No, I didn’t.
ME: It’s dated Friday and it was hand delivered.
TG: Means nothing.
ME: If you say so. Your rent was due on Friday though and you got paid on Friday.
TG: Yep.
ME: So why didn’t you pay the rent?
TG: I had bills to pay.
ME: Rent is a bill.
TG: No, it isn’t.
ME: Yes, it is. It’s an essential bill.
TG: I had bills to pay. There’s worse things out there than being homeless.
ME: Look out the window. It’s raining and it’s cold. A couple of years back someone froze to death sleeping in the parklands. Trust me mate, there’s not many things worse than being homeless in winter.
TG: That’s your opinion.
ME: How much did you pay in bills?
TG: Let’s see. $50 to Cashies and another $120 to a mate because I borrowed money from him before. He said he was going to kill me if I didn’t pay.
ME: But that leaves you over $400. Why didn’t you pay any rent?
TG: I threw the rest into poker machines.
ME: You what? You had a notice of eviction, you knew you were behind in your rent and you blew your money on pokies?
TG: Yep.
ME: Why?
TG: I have an illness. I can’t pass a poker machine without putting money in it.
ME: Have you seen someone like Gamblers Anonymous?
TG: Nope.
ME: Why not?
TG: That can’t help me.
ME: When did this illness start?
TG: When I got fired.
ME: You’re kidding?
TG: Nope. It’s a real illness. I see the machines and they call out to me. I need to play them – it’s the electronics you see.
ME: Why not just buy a Gameboy or something? I know plenty of people who need to play games because of the electronics.
TG: Can’t win money on a Gameboy.
ME: You’re not winning money on the pokies either.
TG: But I will. Eventually.
ME: You won’t. You haven’t yet and you never will.
TG: That’s what you say. Look, give me the money and I’ll leave.
ME: No. I have problems with this. You’re a gambler who blows his money in poker machines. You refuse to get help for this and you want me to assist with your arrears. I have serious doubts about your ability to salvage the tenancy.
TG: What crap. Your policy states*
ME: Don’t quote policy to me. Policy states that I have to go to a Team Leader with this and get it approved. I’m telling you right now than no Team Leader will approve this based on what you’re telling me.
TG: Oh, bullshit. Just go and get the approval and shut up.
ME: It doesn’t work that way. At some point in your life you need to take responsibility for your actions.
TG: But it’s not my fault.
ME: Yes it is.
TG: No, you can blame Mike Rann for putting the machines in the pubs.
ME: Look, Mike Rann didn’t leap out of your local, place you in a headlock, steal your money and put in a machine. You did all of that on your own. It’s not Ranns fault.
TG: It is. And it’s your fault.
ME: My fault??
TG: You won’t help me.
ME: Because I fear that all I’d be doing is feeding your problem.
TG: Fucking Xenophon.
ME: What’s he got to do with things? The ‘No Pokies’ guy?
TG: Did you know that the Government paid him twenty million and threatened to kill him if he didn’t leave the state?
ME: How long have you had these delusions?
TG: They’re not delusions. The conspiracy goes that deep.
ME: And you know this.
TG: Yep.
ME: Despite the fact that Xenophon is now working in the Senate and doing more for the state than he was as a state member?
TG: That’s not him.
ME: Oh, ok David Icke. They replaced him with a lizard, right?
TG: Exactly.
ME: I don’t often say this, but you need some serious help.
With that I terminated the interview. I’d asked him to bring back certain documents the next day, amazingly enough he did this and began to argue with me once more. By this stage I’d had enough. I approved the amount and sat him down once more.
ME: This is how it’s going to play out. We’ll assist this time. However if you present one more time for arrears, or if you present for assistance due to eviction then assistance will be withheld. Do you understand?
TG: You can’t do that. Your policy states that you have to keep helping me.
ME: See this piece of paper here (I say as I hand him part of our policy)? It says that if excessive assistance is given and money keeps getting claimed then assistance can be withheld. I’m putting that on your file – exactly that. The only way you can get assistance now is if you leave your tenancy and our bond is fully refunded.
TG: Your policy*
ME: Stop with the policy!! Now! I’ll help you this time but that’s it. You need to take responsibility for your actions. Do you understand?
TG: Your policy*
ME: DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I’VE JUST SAID?
TG: Yes.
ME: Thank you.
TG: I’m going to appeal this.
ME: Appeal what? That we assisted you? Go right ahead. I can’t wait to see how that’d play out. Make sure you go directly to the minister and here (I had him an appeal form) take this appeal form, fill it out and lodge it. Make sure you clearly state that you’re appealing the decision to assist you. Have a good life.
I was shocked by the tone and volume of my own voice and right there, right then, I knew I needed a bit of a break. We partially paid him what he owed and I walked off. I’ve not seen him since, nor do I want to. Sometimes people are just too difficult to deal with.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
#127: Suffer Little Children
Be warned, the following contains some very strong language and adult themes and shouldn’t be read until after 9:30pm.
Now that that’s out of the way I have a few questions to ask people, the first and foremost amongst them is a simple one: what the fuck is wrong with some people? And you know full well who I’m talking about. I mean, Jesus Fucking H Christ on a bloody bike!!
I recently had to allocate a property out at a group of units. I grabbed the file and drove out, found the units and outside was a child waiting. The child greeted me and I asked, “So, where is Blankety Blank?” The child laughed and said, “I’m Blankety Blank.” I almost fell over with shock and surprise. I’ve seen some odd things in my time but this was very strange indeed – the child was just past the age of being able to legally vote and looked four years younger. I wanted to ask the question, “Where are your parents?” but refrained as I knew the answer wouldn’t be a good one. I've learnt that lesson very well.
We went inside, did the paperwork and I did my usual spiel and asked, “Now, do you have any questions?” She looked down and quietly said, “Well, yes. I don’t know how to get the electricity connected.” I went through the process, made a phone call and managed to get it all sorted out for her and spent a good hour explaining how to cope with living in a flat for the first time, what to expect, what to avoid and that, if assistance was required, to contact us or the cops, depending on what was happening. In effect I went above and beyond my usual role to give this kid a crash course on how to set the place up with the essential services that she'd need. It's one of those things that any number of us will stop and do, although certain Media Queens will insist that we don't, but hey, there you go. It's not in the J&P, it's called being human, having compassion and caring. Insane.
Once back in the office I had a read of the paperwork. I’d like to think that what I subsequently read was an aberration, but, unfortunately, to use the cliché, it’s a typical story, sad but true. Here’s the breakdown: parents get divorced. So what? Mine got divorced. I can’t think of too many people who didn’t get divorced. In this case the evil Step-Parent Syndrome reared it's ugly head, walked up to the plate and began made life not difficult, because that'd be easy, but downright impossible. With the step-father it was a case of borderline sexual assault, resulting in the child complaining to the mother only to be kicked out of the property post-haste. Yep, you did read that right - the step-father attempted to rape the child, more than once, and the mother blamed the kid. Not to mention the beatings. The child then went to live with the father, who, amazingly enough, also began to beat the child and make advances whilst drunk because the child looked like the mother. Thus the two places that should have been the safest havens of them all were violated to the point of being utterly inappropriate, both personally and in relation to housing.
It didn’t get better. From there the child moved in with her boyfriend only to suffer a sexual assault from his father. It was all downhill, couch surfing, borderline street sleeping. Thank the maker that she didn't go down the road of prostitution, or sought solace in drugs like so many do. Once it was all brought to our attention we stepped in provided the one thing we can do in this situations – provide safe and secure housing. I hope that from now on life will look up and things will improve, but it’s hard for a young one out on their own, trying to make a life at an age when they should be looking at better and brighter things.
So who do I blame in all of this? Sorry, but I blame the piss weak excuses of parents. No matter how difficult things get I cannot understand why a parent would chose a new partner, or anyone for that matter, over their own child. It's an utterly alien concept to me. No matter how dysfunctional my own family might be (and we did put the dys into functional) if I ever needed help, or a place to stay, I could call any of them and crash out for as long as I needed to. All I can say is that such parents need to be assessed before being allowed to breed once more. And to those idiots out there who’ll say that there’s always two sides to any story, in this case there’s not. Not when you’re faced with a quiet, inoffensive child, scared yet brave enough to move onwards and leave the crap behind and forge ahead with a new life. There’s no two sides to that story, just one side – the child coming up as the winner. If there is another side it’s equally as simple – the parents are the absolute scum of the earth. Those are the sort of people who'll blame society and the world for their own flaws and leech off the system. Those are the ones who complain the loudest. I guess if they can deflect the attention from their own failings as humans no-one will notice them. Keep dreaming...
To paraphrase John Grisham, via Samuel L Jackson, “Yes they deserve to die and I hope they rot in Hell!” Arseholes.
Closing note. Walk to a property, go up the drive. Walk to the door and KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!! Sounds of scurrying. Wait for a second. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
ME: “Hello?? Anyone home??” No answer. So I look through the window and spy a newspaper, a piece of toast and a cup of coffee steaming away on a table. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
ME: ‘HELLO!! OPEN THE DOOR!” More scurrying, but no answer. Wait for five minutes. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
ME: “MATE!! HELLO?? YOUR BREAKFAST IS GETTING COLD!!!” KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Ok, so he didn’t answer, but at least he wasted a slice of bread and hopefully his last cuppa.
Now that that’s out of the way I have a few questions to ask people, the first and foremost amongst them is a simple one: what the fuck is wrong with some people? And you know full well who I’m talking about. I mean, Jesus Fucking H Christ on a bloody bike!!
I recently had to allocate a property out at a group of units. I grabbed the file and drove out, found the units and outside was a child waiting. The child greeted me and I asked, “So, where is Blankety Blank?” The child laughed and said, “I’m Blankety Blank.” I almost fell over with shock and surprise. I’ve seen some odd things in my time but this was very strange indeed – the child was just past the age of being able to legally vote and looked four years younger. I wanted to ask the question, “Where are your parents?” but refrained as I knew the answer wouldn’t be a good one. I've learnt that lesson very well.
We went inside, did the paperwork and I did my usual spiel and asked, “Now, do you have any questions?” She looked down and quietly said, “Well, yes. I don’t know how to get the electricity connected.” I went through the process, made a phone call and managed to get it all sorted out for her and spent a good hour explaining how to cope with living in a flat for the first time, what to expect, what to avoid and that, if assistance was required, to contact us or the cops, depending on what was happening. In effect I went above and beyond my usual role to give this kid a crash course on how to set the place up with the essential services that she'd need. It's one of those things that any number of us will stop and do, although certain Media Queens will insist that we don't, but hey, there you go. It's not in the J&P, it's called being human, having compassion and caring. Insane.
Once back in the office I had a read of the paperwork. I’d like to think that what I subsequently read was an aberration, but, unfortunately, to use the cliché, it’s a typical story, sad but true. Here’s the breakdown: parents get divorced. So what? Mine got divorced. I can’t think of too many people who didn’t get divorced. In this case the evil Step-Parent Syndrome reared it's ugly head, walked up to the plate and began made life not difficult, because that'd be easy, but downright impossible. With the step-father it was a case of borderline sexual assault, resulting in the child complaining to the mother only to be kicked out of the property post-haste. Yep, you did read that right - the step-father attempted to rape the child, more than once, and the mother blamed the kid. Not to mention the beatings. The child then went to live with the father, who, amazingly enough, also began to beat the child and make advances whilst drunk because the child looked like the mother. Thus the two places that should have been the safest havens of them all were violated to the point of being utterly inappropriate, both personally and in relation to housing.
It didn’t get better. From there the child moved in with her boyfriend only to suffer a sexual assault from his father. It was all downhill, couch surfing, borderline street sleeping. Thank the maker that she didn't go down the road of prostitution, or sought solace in drugs like so many do. Once it was all brought to our attention we stepped in provided the one thing we can do in this situations – provide safe and secure housing. I hope that from now on life will look up and things will improve, but it’s hard for a young one out on their own, trying to make a life at an age when they should be looking at better and brighter things.
So who do I blame in all of this? Sorry, but I blame the piss weak excuses of parents. No matter how difficult things get I cannot understand why a parent would chose a new partner, or anyone for that matter, over their own child. It's an utterly alien concept to me. No matter how dysfunctional my own family might be (and we did put the dys into functional) if I ever needed help, or a place to stay, I could call any of them and crash out for as long as I needed to. All I can say is that such parents need to be assessed before being allowed to breed once more. And to those idiots out there who’ll say that there’s always two sides to any story, in this case there’s not. Not when you’re faced with a quiet, inoffensive child, scared yet brave enough to move onwards and leave the crap behind and forge ahead with a new life. There’s no two sides to that story, just one side – the child coming up as the winner. If there is another side it’s equally as simple – the parents are the absolute scum of the earth. Those are the sort of people who'll blame society and the world for their own flaws and leech off the system. Those are the ones who complain the loudest. I guess if they can deflect the attention from their own failings as humans no-one will notice them. Keep dreaming...
To paraphrase John Grisham, via Samuel L Jackson, “Yes they deserve to die and I hope they rot in Hell!” Arseholes.
Closing note. Walk to a property, go up the drive. Walk to the door and KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!! Sounds of scurrying. Wait for a second. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
ME: “Hello?? Anyone home??” No answer. So I look through the window and spy a newspaper, a piece of toast and a cup of coffee steaming away on a table. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
ME: ‘HELLO!! OPEN THE DOOR!” More scurrying, but no answer. Wait for five minutes. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
ME: “MATE!! HELLO?? YOUR BREAKFAST IS GETTING COLD!!!” KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Ok, so he didn’t answer, but at least he wasted a slice of bread and hopefully his last cuppa.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
#126: Tomorrow Can Pay The Rent
Sometimes I just love taking calls like the one I took recently. Our phone has the worst ring tone ever – it makes grown men wince, women have been known to break down and weep on the third sound of it's ring. It’s been compared to the sound of a train entering a concentration camp, such is the demoralising effect of it’s power. My call went like this:
BRUUUUUUUUNG….
BRUUUUUUUUNG….
BRUUUUUUUUNG….
ME: Hello, this is RHO, how may I help you?
TEN: Yeah, look, I’m just calling you to tell you I’m not paying any rent for the next few weeks.
ME: Sorry?
TEN: I ain’t paying any rent.
ME: Ooooookay…any reason why?
TEN: Several.
(long silence)
ME: Care to share one?
TEN: Do I have to?
ME: Well, yeah. You see if I go to my team leader and say that Humphrey Bear has called to say he’s not paying any more rent, well I’m gonna get my ears boxed at the least. I need something to go in there with.
TEN: What? My word isn’t good enough?
ME: You've not really given me a reason though.
TEN: Well I have loads of bills.
ME: Rent is a bill.
TEN: No, it’s not.
ME: Yes, it is. If you were in private rental and phoned your landlord and just said you’d not be paying any rent for the next month, well let’s just say you’d be evicted before you were ready to restart.
TEN: Bullshit. You’re lying. Anyway, this isn’t private rental, so I don’t have to pay rent.
ME: Ummmmmm…yes, you do. You do have to pay rent.
TEN: Why? Give me one good reason why I should pay rent.
ME: Because you could be evicted if you don’t.
TEN: Oh, fuck off.
ME: No, seriously. Look, what bills do you have?
TEN: Not that it’s any of your business but Telstra, gas, electricity, FoxTel, car payments – the usual stuff. Food, smokes…
ME: What happens if you don’t pay Telstra?
TEN: They’d cut off my internet and mobile phone, and my home phone.
ME: And the gas company?
TEN: They’d cut the gas off.
ME: You see a pattern developing here? You’d not ring Telstra and tell them you’re not paying your bills would you?
TEN: That’s because I need the internet and the phones.
ME: What use are they if you’ve got nowhere to live?
TEN: Piss off. I’m calling to tell you I’m not paying rent, so fuck off.
With that charming ending the phone cut off. I must have looked stunned because a work colleague asked what was up. I told them. They merely shrugged their shoulders and advised that I pass it onto our debt recovery section and perhaps they could address the issue. No biggie. I've never said that logic was a big point with the general public and I was right.
Now I’m not sure about most people out there but in our household we pay rent. Why? Because we don’t want to be homeless. My mother, who raised my family in the same houses I now oversee, always paid the rent and told us at an early stage that you need to pay the rent first - the rent is the meat and potatoes of life, the rest, like smokes, booze, hookers, FoxTel, drugs and the like, are the gravy. Essentials, such as the phone or electrcity are the peas and carrots. If I called my landlord and said the above I’d be out before I hung the phone up. Simple, quick and easy really. Yet some people believe that rent is optional to tenancy and that it can’t be enforced. I guess this is because they can’t see the big picture, that being they can see something happening if they don’t pay another bill – cause and effect. If they don’t pay FoxTel then they don’t watch FoxTel. If they don’t pay the electric company then they’re living by candle light. Cause and effect. However if they don’t pay rent then the effect isn’t immediate – they’re not removed from the property the next day. It takes time, and rightly so, so the cause and effect is delayed somewhat. Still, in the private rental market you’d expect that, if you made that call, the landlord or land agent would begin immediate proceedings – I’m stuffed if I know why we don’t.
It does make me laugh when someone argues the rental aspect of their property and then throws down the ultimatum; “If you try and force me to pay rent I’ll vacate and find private rental and then you’ll get no money at all.” The logic in this is deeply flawed – if they’re calling to say they’re not going to pay us regardless then what do we lose if they vacate? And what makes them think they’ll exist in private rental, where the rents are higher and the landlords and land agents are fierce at times? My answer is always, “That’s your choice. I can send you the termination of tenancy forms today if you want.” That always shuts them up.
Having said all of that the reality is non-payment of rent isn’t the greatest expense that we have as we generally terminate the tenancy if things get too out of control. You’ll hear about rent debts in the thousands – the largest I’ve seen was at a level where the tenant could have paid a very, very decent deposit on a house or even bought a brand new Toyota Urban Cruiser clear – but the real big ones are mainly down to a combination of unpaid rent and outright fraud. The fraud aspect is almost always a situation where someone has claiming government benefits and working at the same time. Once the dole office catches such a person, and they always do, they hit them with a large bill for overpaid benefits and then they advise any other organisation that the person has dealt with, namely us, of what's been going on. Once we find out the rent gets reverted to the amount it should have been, backdated and that’s where the bill really blows out.
Debt is always manageable though, but only via constant communication and negotiation. Most people are scared by the prospect of a looming eviction and will engage and enter into an arrangement to pay back any underpaid rent. I say ‘most’ though as there’s always those belligerent ones who’ll not only refuse to pay but will only engage with a perverse desire to upset as many people as possible by threats, intimidation verbal and, if given a chance, physical abuse. Those are the truly scary people and before anyone begins to decry us in public, remember this: if we didn’t house, and ultimately deal with, those people then you, as a private owner, would. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?
Before leaving allow me to share this one that happened very recently.
KNOCK KNOCK.
DOOR OPENS, LADY PEERS OUT
LADY: Yeah?
ME: Hi. My name is (he says flashing id badge). Is Johnny Peanut here?
LADY: Nope.
ME: Ok, can I ask who you are? (he asks knowing that Johnny Peanut has always declared he lives alone)
LADY: None of your fucking business. (she answers as I notice a child come into view)
ME: Ok, and the child?
LADY: What’s it to you, prick?
ME: Those are odd names. Can you get Johnny Peanut to call me?
LADY: Sure.
ME: Thanks. (he says as the door slams shut on his face)
Now why would a parent hand out those names?
BRUUUUUUUUNG….
BRUUUUUUUUNG….
BRUUUUUUUUNG….
ME: Hello, this is RHO, how may I help you?
TEN: Yeah, look, I’m just calling you to tell you I’m not paying any rent for the next few weeks.
ME: Sorry?
TEN: I ain’t paying any rent.
ME: Ooooookay…any reason why?
TEN: Several.
(long silence)
ME: Care to share one?
TEN: Do I have to?
ME: Well, yeah. You see if I go to my team leader and say that Humphrey Bear has called to say he’s not paying any more rent, well I’m gonna get my ears boxed at the least. I need something to go in there with.
TEN: What? My word isn’t good enough?
ME: You've not really given me a reason though.
TEN: Well I have loads of bills.
ME: Rent is a bill.
TEN: No, it’s not.
ME: Yes, it is. If you were in private rental and phoned your landlord and just said you’d not be paying any rent for the next month, well let’s just say you’d be evicted before you were ready to restart.
TEN: Bullshit. You’re lying. Anyway, this isn’t private rental, so I don’t have to pay rent.
ME: Ummmmmm…yes, you do. You do have to pay rent.
TEN: Why? Give me one good reason why I should pay rent.
ME: Because you could be evicted if you don’t.
TEN: Oh, fuck off.
ME: No, seriously. Look, what bills do you have?
TEN: Not that it’s any of your business but Telstra, gas, electricity, FoxTel, car payments – the usual stuff. Food, smokes…
ME: What happens if you don’t pay Telstra?
TEN: They’d cut off my internet and mobile phone, and my home phone.
ME: And the gas company?
TEN: They’d cut the gas off.
ME: You see a pattern developing here? You’d not ring Telstra and tell them you’re not paying your bills would you?
TEN: That’s because I need the internet and the phones.
ME: What use are they if you’ve got nowhere to live?
TEN: Piss off. I’m calling to tell you I’m not paying rent, so fuck off.
With that charming ending the phone cut off. I must have looked stunned because a work colleague asked what was up. I told them. They merely shrugged their shoulders and advised that I pass it onto our debt recovery section and perhaps they could address the issue. No biggie. I've never said that logic was a big point with the general public and I was right.
Now I’m not sure about most people out there but in our household we pay rent. Why? Because we don’t want to be homeless. My mother, who raised my family in the same houses I now oversee, always paid the rent and told us at an early stage that you need to pay the rent first - the rent is the meat and potatoes of life, the rest, like smokes, booze, hookers, FoxTel, drugs and the like, are the gravy. Essentials, such as the phone or electrcity are the peas and carrots. If I called my landlord and said the above I’d be out before I hung the phone up. Simple, quick and easy really. Yet some people believe that rent is optional to tenancy and that it can’t be enforced. I guess this is because they can’t see the big picture, that being they can see something happening if they don’t pay another bill – cause and effect. If they don’t pay FoxTel then they don’t watch FoxTel. If they don’t pay the electric company then they’re living by candle light. Cause and effect. However if they don’t pay rent then the effect isn’t immediate – they’re not removed from the property the next day. It takes time, and rightly so, so the cause and effect is delayed somewhat. Still, in the private rental market you’d expect that, if you made that call, the landlord or land agent would begin immediate proceedings – I’m stuffed if I know why we don’t.
It does make me laugh when someone argues the rental aspect of their property and then throws down the ultimatum; “If you try and force me to pay rent I’ll vacate and find private rental and then you’ll get no money at all.” The logic in this is deeply flawed – if they’re calling to say they’re not going to pay us regardless then what do we lose if they vacate? And what makes them think they’ll exist in private rental, where the rents are higher and the landlords and land agents are fierce at times? My answer is always, “That’s your choice. I can send you the termination of tenancy forms today if you want.” That always shuts them up.
Having said all of that the reality is non-payment of rent isn’t the greatest expense that we have as we generally terminate the tenancy if things get too out of control. You’ll hear about rent debts in the thousands – the largest I’ve seen was at a level where the tenant could have paid a very, very decent deposit on a house or even bought a brand new Toyota Urban Cruiser clear – but the real big ones are mainly down to a combination of unpaid rent and outright fraud. The fraud aspect is almost always a situation where someone has claiming government benefits and working at the same time. Once the dole office catches such a person, and they always do, they hit them with a large bill for overpaid benefits and then they advise any other organisation that the person has dealt with, namely us, of what's been going on. Once we find out the rent gets reverted to the amount it should have been, backdated and that’s where the bill really blows out.
Debt is always manageable though, but only via constant communication and negotiation. Most people are scared by the prospect of a looming eviction and will engage and enter into an arrangement to pay back any underpaid rent. I say ‘most’ though as there’s always those belligerent ones who’ll not only refuse to pay but will only engage with a perverse desire to upset as many people as possible by threats, intimidation verbal and, if given a chance, physical abuse. Those are the truly scary people and before anyone begins to decry us in public, remember this: if we didn’t house, and ultimately deal with, those people then you, as a private owner, would. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?
Before leaving allow me to share this one that happened very recently.
KNOCK KNOCK.
DOOR OPENS, LADY PEERS OUT
LADY: Yeah?
ME: Hi. My name is (he says flashing id badge). Is Johnny Peanut here?
LADY: Nope.
ME: Ok, can I ask who you are? (he asks knowing that Johnny Peanut has always declared he lives alone)
LADY: None of your fucking business. (she answers as I notice a child come into view)
ME: Ok, and the child?
LADY: What’s it to you, prick?
ME: Those are odd names. Can you get Johnny Peanut to call me?
LADY: Sure.
ME: Thanks. (he says as the door slams shut on his face)
Now why would a parent hand out those names?
Friday, May 01, 2009
#125: The Full Bug
I’ve been having an ongoing debate with a few people about hoarders versus collectors. Most people fail to see any difference between the two groups – you’re either one or the other, and each will deny that they’re the worst. A hoarder will tell you that they don’t hoard, they collect items, and a collector will tell you that they have everything under control and as such can’t be considered to be a hoarder. Over the past few years I’ve seen both types, hoarders and collectors, and I can tell you there is a very defined line between them.
Just for fun and games let’s look at the common (accepted) definitions of the two terms. Collectors are those people who buy and sell, or manage to gather from wherever, items of some value, be it monetary or otherwise. Collectors will generally itemise their collections, they’ll organise them, catalogue and, more often than not, will set up little displays for themselves and if need be, other people, to enjoy viewing. Collectors often have a specialised field in which they play – myself, I collect what I collect and I have no desire to have a collection of beanie babies. Evil bastard things, I’d use them for footballs if I had the chance.
A hoarder will gather anything and everything. They refuse to throw anything out, if they pass a Samboy chip wrapper on the floor they’ll pick it up and take it home. They have no rhyme or reason and they’ll fill both their properties and lives with clutter that soon over-runs their basic household needs and living requirements. A hoarder has a collection of stuff that, for the most part, is worthless. It’s not catalogued, there’s no use itemising it (“Oh, a rare January 2009 banana peel taken from a dumpster behind McDonalds,” is not a description of use) and no-one would be interesting in seeing it. Sorry, but a ‘collection’ of pizza boxes, complete with food stuffs left in them, does not constitute a valid collection. Hoarders will allow their possessions to utterly overtake their lives to the point of serious physical and mental harm. There might be a show named ‘Collectors’ on the ABC, but you’ll notice there isn’t one called ‘Hoarders’. I wonder why…
The Collyer brothers were hoarders. William Randolph Hearst was a collector. There’s your difference. One was rich beyond imagination and bought almost everything he saw, had it catalogued, itemised and shipped to storage or placed upon display. At his time of need he managed to sell some of what he’d bought for a decent profit and became rich again. The bulk of Hearst’s collection still exists at San Simeon and is a world renowned tourist attraction. The Collyer brothers died, one of neglect holding a bottle of rancid milk, unable to care for himself, the other buried beneath a pile of rotting newspapers which took weeks to clear. Nothing exists of the Collyer brothers ‘collection’ today, no tourist attractions exists and no-one wanders by to see a collection of Collyer Apple Cores. By now you should be able to see the difference very clearly.
Both a collector and a hoarder can suffer from a mental health issue, such as OCD, but, for the most part, OCD is not required to be a collector. It does seem to be a pre-requisite for being a hoarder though, along with various other diseases and issues. I doubt anyone ever caught nits or suffered suppurating sores from touching Prince Rainier’s stamp collection, nor did they have to endure warts by holding one of William Babcock’s Daumier paintings, nor has there ever been a case of anyone contracting bubonic plague from buying one of Edgar Church’s comic books. However these diseases, and more, could possibly be contracted from handling or eating food prepared in an old food container that hasn’t been cleaned in years, or by attempting to drink milk which is solid enough to break a shovel. Well, perhaps not the plague, but then rats are carriers, and they are often hang around hoarders.
Possibly the most famous of all hoarders, the Collyers, operated in New York and had a career hoarding spanning nearly three decades. When the elder Collyer, Homer, died of starvation in March 1947 it took the police a few hours to break into the property to find him. The brothers had gathered so much shit that it took the police two weeks to find the younger brother, Langely, who’d been killed by one of his own booby traps. The rats ate well that fortnight. The brothers had turned their four bedroom mansion into a maze of corridors and tunnels, formed by newspapers and other debris that the two found on the streets and dragged home. And the Collyers weren’t poor – they owned the mansion outright and their net worth was estimated at around $90,000 at the time of their death, in 1947 that was no small sum. $20,000 of that was estimated to be their piles of crap, piles that weighed over 100 tons, I kid you not. The Collyers are generally held up as being the most extreme example of hoarding.
Piss off. I’ve seen worse than that. This past month actually.
I’ve seen many examples of people hoarding and people collecting. I did a visit on a lovely lady who showed me, with great pride and deservedly so, her collection of fine Doulton, the bulk of which was behind glass in a display cabinet in her sitting room. Worth quite a bit, very decorative and although my knowledge of Royal Doulton is limited to the toilet, I could easily appreciate both the time and effort that she’d gone to in amassing her collection. The next day I saw another house where the tenant had made new rooms and corridors out of newspapers and magazines. The kitchen was one big sink – such was the sheer amount of clutter I had to ask if there was a table in the room. I was told yes, but I’d be damned if I could find it. Access to the house was via the front door or a side window, with the window being the preferred point of entry, not that I’d use it. I insisted on using the door, much to the tenant’s dismay. During the visit another person materialised, it seemed, out of thin air. He lived in another room within a room with some cats. The tenant told me that the cats kept the mice away but I felt that the mice left the property of their own accord. The tenant herself had several open, weeping sores on her hands and as I left she held one out for me to shake. I leapt backwards like I’d be stung by a bee, grabbed my clipboard and fled. Once in the car I spent the next ten minutes washing my hands furiously with alcohol based hand sanitiser.
What got me was when I asked the tenants if they needed help cleaning their place up they looked at me like I was an alien from the planet Arse. “There’s no problems though,” they replied. “But,” I said, “have a look. There’s stuff piled up to the roof, and in the case of where the manhole is, it goes into the roof.” “But,” they replied, “it’s just our collection.”
What I felt like saying was that a collection is the Doulton on the walls I saw yesterday, your pile of rubbish is a pile of rubbish. The house would have looked like the local tip, only without the order. I told a colleague when I returned, imagine five photos of five different places you’ve seen that have been invaded with hoarders. Now overlay the photos. And then double it. You’re almost there. And yes, it really WAS that bad. Not to mention the stench. It was a cold day, and slightly overcast, yet I could smell the property clearly from the road. At first I thought that someone had dumped some old potato peelings wrapped around cracked, rotten eggs into a pool of spiled milk and vinegar, but no, the smell was actually coming from the house. The closer I got the worse it got, but then I put that down to simple physics – the closer the proximity to the epicentre, the stronger the smell. Once inside my first impression was that someone, or something, had recently died. I didn’t ask because I really didn’t want an answer. The grass was overgrown and the house just looked tired. If a brick can age like a person and get exhausted then these bricks already had. I felt sorry for the property and thought that the noble and humane thing to do would to simply have it put down. At some stage one room might have been used for something like a bathroom, but now it was merely a room full of books, however I doubt that the tenants suffered from any serious form of bibliomania as the bulk of the books were mouldy and covered in what I hope was cat urine, but you know, I wasn’t going to be hanging around to test it. I could go on and on but I think you get the idea.
Hoarding creates its own special set of problems and issues. I’m sure that most people who live where I do have seen the footage of a property where a family lived, the child died a needless death. Now if you look at those photos you’ll see what happened – hoarding. More than one person has asked why didn’t we, as an organisation, do something about this and the answer is a very simple one – it wasn’t one of our properties, so we’re not to blame. But the property I visited was worse than the one that’s now legendary in the media, but as far as I’m aware there were no children present in the property, but then again I didn’t lift the newspapers up to look underneath. I wasn’t game. But I digress. Some of the obvious issues that hoarding brings with it include physical ailments of a serious nature. I’ve seen people in some houses who have needed immediate medical attention, however due to the nature of the related mental health problems commonly associated with hoarding, it’s never easy to get those people the assistance that they need. Hoarders often display characteristics of recluses, some often only come out at night to collect their items and vanish during the day. It’s hard to engage them, they’ll refuse to admit that there’s any problem to deal with – acceptance, which is important to aid treatment, if often missing. It’s also not that hard to draw a line between hoarding and mental health issues, such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and kleptomania amongst others. The Collyers were so good that a hoarding issue, Dipsophobia, was nick-named Collyer-brothers syndrome in recognition of their events.
How do we treat hoarders? Good question. We can intervene to a point. Some hoarders will recognise their issues and sometimes they do cry out for help. Those who do ask for help not only deserve it, they get it. It’s easy to look upon a hoarder as being somewhat deranged – the crazy cat lady for example – and such a simplistic outlook is as unfair as it is inaccurate. My own personal belief is that hoarding, in its most extreme state, is an illness all of its own. I also believe that some people who claim to be hoarders just aren’t – just as there’s a difference between hoarding and collecting, there’s a large difference between being a hoarder and just being an utter lazy bastard. There’s an easy way to spot the difference and here it is. A hoarder will collect everything and most are extremely active – they’ll wander around the city and suburbs looking for more and more material in which to fill the house with. Lazy bastards will just be content to sit in their own filth surrounded by the debris of their lives as they can’t be arsed cleaning up behind them. Hoarders want to live in the debris of EVERYONES lives, not just their own. Hoarders will go out of their way to get out, under the cover of the night to explore. Lazy swine will sit there, watch TV, have the computer with the internet permanently switched on in the bedroom, or not that far from the bed and just throw empty bottles and food containers everywhere. Neglect of others can lead to serious illness and, sometimes, death. A hoarder will fall ill because of what they collect, not by what they’ve dumped. Both will lie about their problems, but in my observations the hoarder will simply lie to say that they have no problem and that they’re not a hoarder. The lazy bastard will lie about their problem and attempt to cover it all up by blaming others. For the lazy bastard society is to blame, not them. If they’re caught in a serious situation, such as death, then they’ll cry about how they were screaming for help, despite the utter absence of any supporting evidence. Shifting the blame is the name of that game. False claims, only in a totally different way. Spot the difference now?
What do we do with hoarders? In the extreme cases the properties can be declared to be unsafe on the grounds of health and safety. If such a thing happens it’s not that difficult to engage support services or obtain council and local government assistance and arrange the cleaning out of properties. In some very, very extreme cases I’ve seen what’s referred to as a pathological clean up of the property. For those who don’t know, pathological cleans are generally done when a violent crime or nasty suicide has happened, in effect something so toxic that the property isn’t safe for any form of human contact without the correct safety gear, gloves, biohazard suits, masks, goggles – you name it, you’ll be wearing it because the risks to your own health and wellbeing are far more important. Trust me on that one.
Just how much can you fit into a place is another common topic. Here’s an example – I once visited a tiny one-bed roomed unit that the occupants had turned into a labyrinth made up of newspapers, old magazines, clippings, form guides, TV books – you name it, it was in there. The usual tunnels and corridors existed, along with the main room of the property having been turned into a sub-unit made up of three separate sections, portioned off by newspapers from the floor to the ceiling. It took me and a colleague a good forty minutes to get in through the front door, and in doing so we had to remove enough items to nearly fill the front verandah section of the complex and hadn’t scratched the surface. Two people lived in the unit and I doubt that they’d seen some parts of the unit since they moved in. One person had turned an old lounge char into a bed, a bed that, upon him standing up, we noticed a family of mice living inside via a large hole in the seat. The electricity had been cut off a few days previously but this didn’t bother the tenants – they merely resorted to candle power. In the height of summer. And a heatwave. The tenants were totally oblivious to the obvious fire hazard that they were causing. Needless to say we effected what we rarely do – immediate removal of the tenants and the locks changed. One tenant wasn’t supposed to be at the property in the first place, the second had supports to take him away. I arranged a clean up by the council and was amazed to walk past to find three industrial sized skips out the front. They were all overflowing with garbage. The tenant’s supports had told the council to remove everything and they had. The next time I looked inside the unit it looked huge compared to the twelve roomed unit it’d once been. Now it back to a four roomed unit. We moved the tenant out and he’s remained hoard-free ever since.
I doubt anyone has any real answers to combat hoarding other than patience and understanding. If someone calls for help, if someone needs help, then we have a duty to assist them. There are solutions, if the person is willing to embrace them. Supports need to be in place, long term supports though, as short term solutions might clean the immediate problem but won’t eliminate the situation totally. You can clean a house out but if you’re not prepared to hang around then you’ll soon discover that all that’s happened if that the place has been prepared to be filled once more. A person also can’t be sucked into believing that hoarding is another form of collecting – it’s not. Without rhyme or reason, without any logical or rational pattern, the collecting aspect goes out the window and the hoarding comes in. And that’s where the problems all begin…
Just for fun and games let’s look at the common (accepted) definitions of the two terms. Collectors are those people who buy and sell, or manage to gather from wherever, items of some value, be it monetary or otherwise. Collectors will generally itemise their collections, they’ll organise them, catalogue and, more often than not, will set up little displays for themselves and if need be, other people, to enjoy viewing. Collectors often have a specialised field in which they play – myself, I collect what I collect and I have no desire to have a collection of beanie babies. Evil bastard things, I’d use them for footballs if I had the chance.
A hoarder will gather anything and everything. They refuse to throw anything out, if they pass a Samboy chip wrapper on the floor they’ll pick it up and take it home. They have no rhyme or reason and they’ll fill both their properties and lives with clutter that soon over-runs their basic household needs and living requirements. A hoarder has a collection of stuff that, for the most part, is worthless. It’s not catalogued, there’s no use itemising it (“Oh, a rare January 2009 banana peel taken from a dumpster behind McDonalds,” is not a description of use) and no-one would be interesting in seeing it. Sorry, but a ‘collection’ of pizza boxes, complete with food stuffs left in them, does not constitute a valid collection. Hoarders will allow their possessions to utterly overtake their lives to the point of serious physical and mental harm. There might be a show named ‘Collectors’ on the ABC, but you’ll notice there isn’t one called ‘Hoarders’. I wonder why…
The Collyer brothers were hoarders. William Randolph Hearst was a collector. There’s your difference. One was rich beyond imagination and bought almost everything he saw, had it catalogued, itemised and shipped to storage or placed upon display. At his time of need he managed to sell some of what he’d bought for a decent profit and became rich again. The bulk of Hearst’s collection still exists at San Simeon and is a world renowned tourist attraction. The Collyer brothers died, one of neglect holding a bottle of rancid milk, unable to care for himself, the other buried beneath a pile of rotting newspapers which took weeks to clear. Nothing exists of the Collyer brothers ‘collection’ today, no tourist attractions exists and no-one wanders by to see a collection of Collyer Apple Cores. By now you should be able to see the difference very clearly.
Both a collector and a hoarder can suffer from a mental health issue, such as OCD, but, for the most part, OCD is not required to be a collector. It does seem to be a pre-requisite for being a hoarder though, along with various other diseases and issues. I doubt anyone ever caught nits or suffered suppurating sores from touching Prince Rainier’s stamp collection, nor did they have to endure warts by holding one of William Babcock’s Daumier paintings, nor has there ever been a case of anyone contracting bubonic plague from buying one of Edgar Church’s comic books. However these diseases, and more, could possibly be contracted from handling or eating food prepared in an old food container that hasn’t been cleaned in years, or by attempting to drink milk which is solid enough to break a shovel. Well, perhaps not the plague, but then rats are carriers, and they are often hang around hoarders.
Possibly the most famous of all hoarders, the Collyers, operated in New York and had a career hoarding spanning nearly three decades. When the elder Collyer, Homer, died of starvation in March 1947 it took the police a few hours to break into the property to find him. The brothers had gathered so much shit that it took the police two weeks to find the younger brother, Langely, who’d been killed by one of his own booby traps. The rats ate well that fortnight. The brothers had turned their four bedroom mansion into a maze of corridors and tunnels, formed by newspapers and other debris that the two found on the streets and dragged home. And the Collyers weren’t poor – they owned the mansion outright and their net worth was estimated at around $90,000 at the time of their death, in 1947 that was no small sum. $20,000 of that was estimated to be their piles of crap, piles that weighed over 100 tons, I kid you not. The Collyers are generally held up as being the most extreme example of hoarding.
Piss off. I’ve seen worse than that. This past month actually.
I’ve seen many examples of people hoarding and people collecting. I did a visit on a lovely lady who showed me, with great pride and deservedly so, her collection of fine Doulton, the bulk of which was behind glass in a display cabinet in her sitting room. Worth quite a bit, very decorative and although my knowledge of Royal Doulton is limited to the toilet, I could easily appreciate both the time and effort that she’d gone to in amassing her collection. The next day I saw another house where the tenant had made new rooms and corridors out of newspapers and magazines. The kitchen was one big sink – such was the sheer amount of clutter I had to ask if there was a table in the room. I was told yes, but I’d be damned if I could find it. Access to the house was via the front door or a side window, with the window being the preferred point of entry, not that I’d use it. I insisted on using the door, much to the tenant’s dismay. During the visit another person materialised, it seemed, out of thin air. He lived in another room within a room with some cats. The tenant told me that the cats kept the mice away but I felt that the mice left the property of their own accord. The tenant herself had several open, weeping sores on her hands and as I left she held one out for me to shake. I leapt backwards like I’d be stung by a bee, grabbed my clipboard and fled. Once in the car I spent the next ten minutes washing my hands furiously with alcohol based hand sanitiser.
What got me was when I asked the tenants if they needed help cleaning their place up they looked at me like I was an alien from the planet Arse. “There’s no problems though,” they replied. “But,” I said, “have a look. There’s stuff piled up to the roof, and in the case of where the manhole is, it goes into the roof.” “But,” they replied, “it’s just our collection.”
What I felt like saying was that a collection is the Doulton on the walls I saw yesterday, your pile of rubbish is a pile of rubbish. The house would have looked like the local tip, only without the order. I told a colleague when I returned, imagine five photos of five different places you’ve seen that have been invaded with hoarders. Now overlay the photos. And then double it. You’re almost there. And yes, it really WAS that bad. Not to mention the stench. It was a cold day, and slightly overcast, yet I could smell the property clearly from the road. At first I thought that someone had dumped some old potato peelings wrapped around cracked, rotten eggs into a pool of spiled milk and vinegar, but no, the smell was actually coming from the house. The closer I got the worse it got, but then I put that down to simple physics – the closer the proximity to the epicentre, the stronger the smell. Once inside my first impression was that someone, or something, had recently died. I didn’t ask because I really didn’t want an answer. The grass was overgrown and the house just looked tired. If a brick can age like a person and get exhausted then these bricks already had. I felt sorry for the property and thought that the noble and humane thing to do would to simply have it put down. At some stage one room might have been used for something like a bathroom, but now it was merely a room full of books, however I doubt that the tenants suffered from any serious form of bibliomania as the bulk of the books were mouldy and covered in what I hope was cat urine, but you know, I wasn’t going to be hanging around to test it. I could go on and on but I think you get the idea.
Hoarding creates its own special set of problems and issues. I’m sure that most people who live where I do have seen the footage of a property where a family lived, the child died a needless death. Now if you look at those photos you’ll see what happened – hoarding. More than one person has asked why didn’t we, as an organisation, do something about this and the answer is a very simple one – it wasn’t one of our properties, so we’re not to blame. But the property I visited was worse than the one that’s now legendary in the media, but as far as I’m aware there were no children present in the property, but then again I didn’t lift the newspapers up to look underneath. I wasn’t game. But I digress. Some of the obvious issues that hoarding brings with it include physical ailments of a serious nature. I’ve seen people in some houses who have needed immediate medical attention, however due to the nature of the related mental health problems commonly associated with hoarding, it’s never easy to get those people the assistance that they need. Hoarders often display characteristics of recluses, some often only come out at night to collect their items and vanish during the day. It’s hard to engage them, they’ll refuse to admit that there’s any problem to deal with – acceptance, which is important to aid treatment, if often missing. It’s also not that hard to draw a line between hoarding and mental health issues, such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and kleptomania amongst others. The Collyers were so good that a hoarding issue, Dipsophobia, was nick-named Collyer-brothers syndrome in recognition of their events.
How do we treat hoarders? Good question. We can intervene to a point. Some hoarders will recognise their issues and sometimes they do cry out for help. Those who do ask for help not only deserve it, they get it. It’s easy to look upon a hoarder as being somewhat deranged – the crazy cat lady for example – and such a simplistic outlook is as unfair as it is inaccurate. My own personal belief is that hoarding, in its most extreme state, is an illness all of its own. I also believe that some people who claim to be hoarders just aren’t – just as there’s a difference between hoarding and collecting, there’s a large difference between being a hoarder and just being an utter lazy bastard. There’s an easy way to spot the difference and here it is. A hoarder will collect everything and most are extremely active – they’ll wander around the city and suburbs looking for more and more material in which to fill the house with. Lazy bastards will just be content to sit in their own filth surrounded by the debris of their lives as they can’t be arsed cleaning up behind them. Hoarders want to live in the debris of EVERYONES lives, not just their own. Hoarders will go out of their way to get out, under the cover of the night to explore. Lazy swine will sit there, watch TV, have the computer with the internet permanently switched on in the bedroom, or not that far from the bed and just throw empty bottles and food containers everywhere. Neglect of others can lead to serious illness and, sometimes, death. A hoarder will fall ill because of what they collect, not by what they’ve dumped. Both will lie about their problems, but in my observations the hoarder will simply lie to say that they have no problem and that they’re not a hoarder. The lazy bastard will lie about their problem and attempt to cover it all up by blaming others. For the lazy bastard society is to blame, not them. If they’re caught in a serious situation, such as death, then they’ll cry about how they were screaming for help, despite the utter absence of any supporting evidence. Shifting the blame is the name of that game. False claims, only in a totally different way. Spot the difference now?
What do we do with hoarders? In the extreme cases the properties can be declared to be unsafe on the grounds of health and safety. If such a thing happens it’s not that difficult to engage support services or obtain council and local government assistance and arrange the cleaning out of properties. In some very, very extreme cases I’ve seen what’s referred to as a pathological clean up of the property. For those who don’t know, pathological cleans are generally done when a violent crime or nasty suicide has happened, in effect something so toxic that the property isn’t safe for any form of human contact without the correct safety gear, gloves, biohazard suits, masks, goggles – you name it, you’ll be wearing it because the risks to your own health and wellbeing are far more important. Trust me on that one.
Just how much can you fit into a place is another common topic. Here’s an example – I once visited a tiny one-bed roomed unit that the occupants had turned into a labyrinth made up of newspapers, old magazines, clippings, form guides, TV books – you name it, it was in there. The usual tunnels and corridors existed, along with the main room of the property having been turned into a sub-unit made up of three separate sections, portioned off by newspapers from the floor to the ceiling. It took me and a colleague a good forty minutes to get in through the front door, and in doing so we had to remove enough items to nearly fill the front verandah section of the complex and hadn’t scratched the surface. Two people lived in the unit and I doubt that they’d seen some parts of the unit since they moved in. One person had turned an old lounge char into a bed, a bed that, upon him standing up, we noticed a family of mice living inside via a large hole in the seat. The electricity had been cut off a few days previously but this didn’t bother the tenants – they merely resorted to candle power. In the height of summer. And a heatwave. The tenants were totally oblivious to the obvious fire hazard that they were causing. Needless to say we effected what we rarely do – immediate removal of the tenants and the locks changed. One tenant wasn’t supposed to be at the property in the first place, the second had supports to take him away. I arranged a clean up by the council and was amazed to walk past to find three industrial sized skips out the front. They were all overflowing with garbage. The tenant’s supports had told the council to remove everything and they had. The next time I looked inside the unit it looked huge compared to the twelve roomed unit it’d once been. Now it back to a four roomed unit. We moved the tenant out and he’s remained hoard-free ever since.
I doubt anyone has any real answers to combat hoarding other than patience and understanding. If someone calls for help, if someone needs help, then we have a duty to assist them. There are solutions, if the person is willing to embrace them. Supports need to be in place, long term supports though, as short term solutions might clean the immediate problem but won’t eliminate the situation totally. You can clean a house out but if you’re not prepared to hang around then you’ll soon discover that all that’s happened if that the place has been prepared to be filled once more. A person also can’t be sucked into believing that hoarding is another form of collecting – it’s not. Without rhyme or reason, without any logical or rational pattern, the collecting aspect goes out the window and the hoarding comes in. And that’s where the problems all begin…
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
#124: Working On It
One of the hardest ways to obtain a job with the Government is via an external agency. There’s several reasons for this and right here, right now, I’ll cover a few of them. Just for the sheer hell of it all.
The first thing an external agency will do is make you jump over more hurdles than a 100 metre track final. I kid you not. In a standard Government job the procedure goes something like this: you apply with a cover letter, address the J&P and include a resume. You’ll get a letter either saying your application will be considered or you’ve not made the first cut. If you make the second cut, and are shortlisted for an interview then you’ll get a letter stating so with the time of the interview. The interview will generally be a week after the letter has been sent, so you’ll get a few days to prepare, as is the wont. Do the interview and you’ll either be offered a position or not, and then offered feedback.
Feedback here is an important thing and if offered then you should take it, and it will be offered. However some feedback will be misleading – if the panel was stacked or clearly wanted an internal applicant then the feedback might not be what you’re expecting. It’ll be something along the lines of, “You did really well, however you weren’t successful.” Its then up to you to ask as to where you went wrong with your application or interview. The process can be appealed if you feel that you’ve been taken advantage of, but you cannot appeal the appointment, so be very careful as to what you do next. Immediately after the interview it’s always a good idea to make some notes about how you feel you went. You’ll soon know if you did well or not. Expect to score lower for simple things – I went from first to third in an interview simply because I failed to mention one key point. Seriously. One little point saw me ranked down the list and as such I was offered a pissy contract where I prayed for an extension. Still, that’s another story, but the point here is that if a department is doing its own selection then they’ll generally play fairly. No-one wants the union or anyone else for that matter poking about in their selection process. Too much paperwork and no-one needs that black mark against their name as they’re trying to climb the corporate ladder. Each interview will consist of the same questions and scenarios – there’ll be nothing different. You’ll only be asked questions that are appropriate for the job at hand and no-one is tripped up – it’s entirely fair and equal. Really, it is. Remember that, it’ll come in handy down the track.
An external agency doesn’t play fair, nor does it need to. It doesn’t hate you, it doesn’t care enough to hate you. In fact it just doesn’t ever recognise you, unless you win a position or you can benefit them – but more on the latter shortly. Remember how the process worked a few paragraphs ago? Here’s the same job, with the breakdowns, as done by an external agency:
Application – cover letter, short J&P and resume – all on-line. From there you'll either be...
Shortlisted or rejected via email.
If shortlisted then you’ll be sent a link to an ‘aptitude’ or ‘personality’ test to complete on-line where you’ll be complete a test somewhat akin to being hooked up to a monitor to see how high your midi-chlorian are. From there you'll either be...
Shortlisted or rejected via email.
If shortlisted then you’ll get a phone call to for a verbal interview. This will be conducted by someone reading a script somewhat
Like
This
Slowly
Word
By
Word
Get
The
Point? They don’t have the time to waste and will rush you through each and every scripted question. These people are paid by the hour with attractive bonuses for each person they get out of the way during the day. Thus they don’t give a crap about your qualifications or questions and will simply ignore anything that isn’t part of the script. They’ll notate your responses and if you answer with the right buzz words then it’s onto the next stage, which is...
Shortlisted or rejected via email.
If shortlisted then you’ll be asked to come into the agency for an ‘assessment’ and interview. By now you’re thinking, “Hang on, I’ve done this already,” and if you are then you don’t know shit. You’ll be asked to put aside a few hours, no exceptions. I once tried to re-schedule one of these due to a combination of a family emergency and a persistent nosebleed that I’d carried throughout the day only to be told that if I didn’t attend then my application would be considered withdrawn. Again, the agency could care less for you.
Once at the agency you’ll be shunted into a room with other idiots, usually between seven to eleven. Nine is usually the number as a few people will invariably fail to attend. Someone will stand there and introduce the agency and patronise you, after which you’ll be given a group exercise to do. My favourite was a murder mystery which I solved within two minutes out of the fifteen minutes allocated only be shouted down by three know-it-all cretins whilst the other five people sat quietly and clearly waited for the agency people to walk back in. I gave up discussing the mystery as the people involved were clearly those ones who believe that the way to shine during such group exercises is to utterly dominate them to the point of violence. Oddly enough my guess of the killer was right, not that it helped. During this exercise you’ll be monitored from another room via camera, and generally laughed at, with the best bits making a blooper tape – even better if someone hauls off and belts the living suitcase out of another participant.
One the group fun is over the group will be divided into two and you’ll generally be shown into another room where you’ll either wait to be called for another interview or subject to either an aptitude or a skills test, or both and possibly a role play. The one-on-one interview is always fun as it’ll involve one of the agency people and hopefully someone from the department who’ll be hopefully hiring you. After three hours have passed you’ll be at the end of it all and you’ll either be...
Shortlisted or rejected via email.
If shortlisted then you’ll be asked to attend another interview, this time with the department you’re applying for. This will be the standard interview and you’ll either be...
Hired or rejected via email.
As easy as that really. Selection via attrition.
Having said all of that here’s the stumbling blocks to watch out for. Agencies don’t need to be fair or equal. They have a rough idea as to who they want for the job and here’s one of the biggest secrets out there, one which, when I reveal it, I doubt I’ll ever land another job via an agency: they cheat for money.
I once applied for a job at a phone carrier in the dark ages when I really needed the cash. I went through the process and did the role play and was stunned. During the role play I was faced with an angry caller who refused to engage with me and basically told me to fuck off no matter what solution I suggested. There was nothing I could do to obtain a positive outcome, so I adopted the ‘angry caller’ syndrome and believing that this was a test of my ability to cope with a difficult customer, gave the three warnings and terminated the call. I then wandered back into the main room where five others waited. We discussed the calls and I learned that four out of the five had very easy calls, easily resolved, no abuse. Myself and one other had abusive, non-resolvable calls. I went home and waited for the inevitable rejection. I stated that I felt that I’d been harshly treated as the assessments were not fair and equal. I was given another chance, same result. It was then that a close friend who was working for an employment agency caught up with me for lunch. We discussed what had gone on and she told me, “Oh, you’d not get that job if you’re not signed to the employment agency.” I asked what she meant and she told me this secret:
Employment agencies exist with the assistance of federal Government funding via Centrelink and other little job network funding. They’re generally paid for each person that they can sign up and land a job for. Thus if you come into the agency for an assessment and are on their books and are successful then your employment can mean a few grand more in funding for the agency. If you come into the agency and land a job and are not signed to the agency then you’re worth bugger all in extra funds. As such they’ll push, and push hard, for the people on their books to gain any form of employment and an even harder push to ensure that those people not on the books to fail. Once the person has failed to gain employment the agency will often contact the person and attempt to sign them up.
Good rort isn’t it? You get your arse it is.
Feedback from external agencies is about as meaningful as hearing a $20 hooker saying that you’re the biggest boy she’s ever seen. They’ll call you and just say, “Sorry, you didn’t get the job,” and cut you off if you ask why. I remember once getting one of these calls and attempting to explain why I did poorly (loss of blood, emotionally charged week) only to have the agency person on the other end of the phone actually say, “Look, I don’t care. I have twenty more of these calls to make before I knock off. You didn’t get the job mate,” and with that he merely hung up. Great feedback. Very helpful. What it did do was ensure that I’ll not go anywhere near that agency again.
Agencies also couldn’t care less for any experience that you might have. Again, just for shits and giggles, in the mid 1990s I applied for my own job via an agency only to be told that I didn’t have any on-the-job experience, despite me having worked in the role for over two years. Go figure.
The lesson in all of this is as follows: if you apply for a position directly via the Government department in question then you have a better than good chance of landing the job. You’ll be treated as fairly as could be expected and despite some of the hurdles I’ve mentioned previously you’ll have a good shot at it, especially if you have the right buzz words as we’ve discussed previously. If nothing else then you’ll get some decent feedback, especially if you get someone who is willing to go through your entire application and offer suggestions as to how to improve your overall application – I once spent an entire hour with a senior manager on the phone as we pulled apart my application section by section. The end result was the next job I applied for, incorporating her suggestions, I landed. However if you go through an external agency then anything can happen. If nothing else you’ll be working hard before you ever get near the job. And that’s entertainment!
More to come.
The first thing an external agency will do is make you jump over more hurdles than a 100 metre track final. I kid you not. In a standard Government job the procedure goes something like this: you apply with a cover letter, address the J&P and include a resume. You’ll get a letter either saying your application will be considered or you’ve not made the first cut. If you make the second cut, and are shortlisted for an interview then you’ll get a letter stating so with the time of the interview. The interview will generally be a week after the letter has been sent, so you’ll get a few days to prepare, as is the wont. Do the interview and you’ll either be offered a position or not, and then offered feedback.
Feedback here is an important thing and if offered then you should take it, and it will be offered. However some feedback will be misleading – if the panel was stacked or clearly wanted an internal applicant then the feedback might not be what you’re expecting. It’ll be something along the lines of, “You did really well, however you weren’t successful.” Its then up to you to ask as to where you went wrong with your application or interview. The process can be appealed if you feel that you’ve been taken advantage of, but you cannot appeal the appointment, so be very careful as to what you do next. Immediately after the interview it’s always a good idea to make some notes about how you feel you went. You’ll soon know if you did well or not. Expect to score lower for simple things – I went from first to third in an interview simply because I failed to mention one key point. Seriously. One little point saw me ranked down the list and as such I was offered a pissy contract where I prayed for an extension. Still, that’s another story, but the point here is that if a department is doing its own selection then they’ll generally play fairly. No-one wants the union or anyone else for that matter poking about in their selection process. Too much paperwork and no-one needs that black mark against their name as they’re trying to climb the corporate ladder. Each interview will consist of the same questions and scenarios – there’ll be nothing different. You’ll only be asked questions that are appropriate for the job at hand and no-one is tripped up – it’s entirely fair and equal. Really, it is. Remember that, it’ll come in handy down the track.
An external agency doesn’t play fair, nor does it need to. It doesn’t hate you, it doesn’t care enough to hate you. In fact it just doesn’t ever recognise you, unless you win a position or you can benefit them – but more on the latter shortly. Remember how the process worked a few paragraphs ago? Here’s the same job, with the breakdowns, as done by an external agency:
Application – cover letter, short J&P and resume – all on-line. From there you'll either be...
Shortlisted or rejected via email.
If shortlisted then you’ll be sent a link to an ‘aptitude’ or ‘personality’ test to complete on-line where you’ll be complete a test somewhat akin to being hooked up to a monitor to see how high your midi-chlorian are. From there you'll either be...
Shortlisted or rejected via email.
If shortlisted then you’ll get a phone call to for a verbal interview. This will be conducted by someone reading a script somewhat
Like
This
Slowly
Word
By
Word
Get
The
Point? They don’t have the time to waste and will rush you through each and every scripted question. These people are paid by the hour with attractive bonuses for each person they get out of the way during the day. Thus they don’t give a crap about your qualifications or questions and will simply ignore anything that isn’t part of the script. They’ll notate your responses and if you answer with the right buzz words then it’s onto the next stage, which is...
Shortlisted or rejected via email.
If shortlisted then you’ll be asked to come into the agency for an ‘assessment’ and interview. By now you’re thinking, “Hang on, I’ve done this already,” and if you are then you don’t know shit. You’ll be asked to put aside a few hours, no exceptions. I once tried to re-schedule one of these due to a combination of a family emergency and a persistent nosebleed that I’d carried throughout the day only to be told that if I didn’t attend then my application would be considered withdrawn. Again, the agency could care less for you.
Once at the agency you’ll be shunted into a room with other idiots, usually between seven to eleven. Nine is usually the number as a few people will invariably fail to attend. Someone will stand there and introduce the agency and patronise you, after which you’ll be given a group exercise to do. My favourite was a murder mystery which I solved within two minutes out of the fifteen minutes allocated only be shouted down by three know-it-all cretins whilst the other five people sat quietly and clearly waited for the agency people to walk back in. I gave up discussing the mystery as the people involved were clearly those ones who believe that the way to shine during such group exercises is to utterly dominate them to the point of violence. Oddly enough my guess of the killer was right, not that it helped. During this exercise you’ll be monitored from another room via camera, and generally laughed at, with the best bits making a blooper tape – even better if someone hauls off and belts the living suitcase out of another participant.
One the group fun is over the group will be divided into two and you’ll generally be shown into another room where you’ll either wait to be called for another interview or subject to either an aptitude or a skills test, or both and possibly a role play. The one-on-one interview is always fun as it’ll involve one of the agency people and hopefully someone from the department who’ll be hopefully hiring you. After three hours have passed you’ll be at the end of it all and you’ll either be...
Shortlisted or rejected via email.
If shortlisted then you’ll be asked to attend another interview, this time with the department you’re applying for. This will be the standard interview and you’ll either be...
Hired or rejected via email.
As easy as that really. Selection via attrition.
Having said all of that here’s the stumbling blocks to watch out for. Agencies don’t need to be fair or equal. They have a rough idea as to who they want for the job and here’s one of the biggest secrets out there, one which, when I reveal it, I doubt I’ll ever land another job via an agency: they cheat for money.
I once applied for a job at a phone carrier in the dark ages when I really needed the cash. I went through the process and did the role play and was stunned. During the role play I was faced with an angry caller who refused to engage with me and basically told me to fuck off no matter what solution I suggested. There was nothing I could do to obtain a positive outcome, so I adopted the ‘angry caller’ syndrome and believing that this was a test of my ability to cope with a difficult customer, gave the three warnings and terminated the call. I then wandered back into the main room where five others waited. We discussed the calls and I learned that four out of the five had very easy calls, easily resolved, no abuse. Myself and one other had abusive, non-resolvable calls. I went home and waited for the inevitable rejection. I stated that I felt that I’d been harshly treated as the assessments were not fair and equal. I was given another chance, same result. It was then that a close friend who was working for an employment agency caught up with me for lunch. We discussed what had gone on and she told me, “Oh, you’d not get that job if you’re not signed to the employment agency.” I asked what she meant and she told me this secret:
Employment agencies exist with the assistance of federal Government funding via Centrelink and other little job network funding. They’re generally paid for each person that they can sign up and land a job for. Thus if you come into the agency for an assessment and are on their books and are successful then your employment can mean a few grand more in funding for the agency. If you come into the agency and land a job and are not signed to the agency then you’re worth bugger all in extra funds. As such they’ll push, and push hard, for the people on their books to gain any form of employment and an even harder push to ensure that those people not on the books to fail. Once the person has failed to gain employment the agency will often contact the person and attempt to sign them up.
Good rort isn’t it? You get your arse it is.
Feedback from external agencies is about as meaningful as hearing a $20 hooker saying that you’re the biggest boy she’s ever seen. They’ll call you and just say, “Sorry, you didn’t get the job,” and cut you off if you ask why. I remember once getting one of these calls and attempting to explain why I did poorly (loss of blood, emotionally charged week) only to have the agency person on the other end of the phone actually say, “Look, I don’t care. I have twenty more of these calls to make before I knock off. You didn’t get the job mate,” and with that he merely hung up. Great feedback. Very helpful. What it did do was ensure that I’ll not go anywhere near that agency again.
Agencies also couldn’t care less for any experience that you might have. Again, just for shits and giggles, in the mid 1990s I applied for my own job via an agency only to be told that I didn’t have any on-the-job experience, despite me having worked in the role for over two years. Go figure.
The lesson in all of this is as follows: if you apply for a position directly via the Government department in question then you have a better than good chance of landing the job. You’ll be treated as fairly as could be expected and despite some of the hurdles I’ve mentioned previously you’ll have a good shot at it, especially if you have the right buzz words as we’ve discussed previously. If nothing else then you’ll get some decent feedback, especially if you get someone who is willing to go through your entire application and offer suggestions as to how to improve your overall application – I once spent an entire hour with a senior manager on the phone as we pulled apart my application section by section. The end result was the next job I applied for, incorporating her suggestions, I landed. However if you go through an external agency then anything can happen. If nothing else you’ll be working hard before you ever get near the job. And that’s entertainment!
More to come.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
#123: Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car
Not every day in the job ends up being happy days with fun stuff like someone going out on a home visit and having a dog engage in carnal knowledge of their leg. For everything that happens that makes you chuckle at the sheer insanity of people and situations, someone will always come along to bring you right down to earth, with a shattering, not shuddering, thud. Not everything that happens has a happy ending and something always happens to remind you that, despite any amount of experience and knowledge that you've gained over the years, you've not heard everything. Not by far. This was one such day.
It started out as a perfectly normal interview. I was happy that a support worker was in attendance, and it was a support worker that I’d dealt with before and had established a rapport with. All was really well, the usual stuff, domestic violence, drugs, alcohol abuse – you name it, it was there. The person in question had almost reached the milestone birthday where life begins again and already had twelve kids to her name, with ages ranging from the ages of twenty three through to just under a year. What can I say? Some people start early. At least six different fathers and kids all over the country. Good stuff.
Now the support worker and myself were busy working up plans and the like when the person in question said that they had a desire to discuss one important aspect of the domestic violence. Now in this job, and in life really, I’ve seen and heard almost everything, and I expect that the support worker has as well. Still, this was a new one by me and it bothered me. A lot. Here’s how it unfolded.
ME: So, you're a victim of domestic violence?
CUST: Yep. Last time he bashed me so badly that I miscarriaged at four months. Put his hands in my mouth and broke my jaw and knocked my eye out of it's socket.
ME: Jesus! Did you engage the Domestic Violence Crisis Service?
CUST: Nope.
ME: Why? They do provide shelter.
CUST: Yeah, but when I did they put me in a boarding house with druggies.
ME: But it says here that you're also addicted to valium, are on the methadone program and have problems with alcohol.
CUST: So?
ME: In effect you're also a drug addict.
CUST: Doesn't mean I want to hang around with the losers. Stupid bastards.
SUPPORT WORKER: Hang on, he broke your jaw? How? Did he just hit you?
CUST: He came home pissed and just punched me to the ground. He then sat on my chest and punched me in the right eye constantly. After a bit, can’t say how long, he knocked my eye out and fractured my eye socket. Well, they said it was a fracture, I think he just fucked it up completely. Then he put both his hands in my mouth.
SW: You didn’t think to bite him?
CUST: I was barely conscious. He grabbed the top of my jaw and the bottom and just pulled my jaw apart. Sounded like someone breaking a chicken wishbone actually.
ME: Jesus!!
At this point I caught a glance from the support worker. She looked horrified and I knew this was the first she’d heard of the extent of the violence. I looked back probably with the same look of shock and horror on my face. But it wasn’t over.
CUST: Once he’d broken my jaw apart he kept pulling until he’d torn the skin and nearly ripped my bottom jaw off. I wanted to pass out but for some reason I couldn’t. But I could barely move, and that’s when he kicked me.
ME: He kicked you?
CUST: Yep, he kicked me in the guts and kept going. That’s why I miscarried.
SW: I’m sorry to hear that.
CUST: Yeah. Me too. I was four months pregnant and he kicked the foetus out of me right there and then. Lots of blood was on the floor. I was upset. Then he went down to the pub and left me on the floor. One of my neighbours heard the noise and came down to see if I was alright. Stupid, my partner had left the door open, so my neighbour called the ambulance.
ME: Fu…Jesus! I don’t know what to say.
CUST: Yep, that was the worst of it, I guess.
ME: So where are you staying now?
CUST: Oh, I couch surf a lot. When he cracks the shits I generally leave.
ME: Hang on a second – he did all of that to you and you STILL live with him?
CUST: Yep. The Domestic Violence Service reckon that if I keep going back then they can’t help me.
ME: Why do you go back?
CUST: Well he is the dad of three of my kids.
ME: That’s…nah, I’m speechless. Sorry.
By this point the support worker was sitting there stunned.
CUST: I don’t stay there often and he hasn’t hit me since. He is going to court though.
ME: Thank Christ for that.
CUST: Yeah, he beat up the guy upstairs and has to go for assault on him as well.
ME: What have the police said?
CUST: Oh, they say they’re going to lock him up. He’s pleaded not guilty though and says that the cops are on his side.
ME: Trust me with this – in these situations, the coppers are never on the side of anyone who’s done what he’s done.
CUST: Yeah, but he says they are. So I’ll wait til he’s locked up and then move. Then he can’t touch me.
Plans of action were then put in place and it’s just wait and see. The pair left the building and went back to the agency. A day later the phone rang – it was the support worker.
SW: Fucking hell man. I can’t get that out of my head.
ME: Me neither, but what can we do?
SW: Well she refuses to engage and get this – she’s going back to him today. From what I can gather it isn't about control. He just likes beating the shit out of her and she just keeps taking it.
ME: Fuck! I dunno...I mean...I just don't know what to do?
SW: I guess we should watch the obits.
ME: Let’s hope he gets locked up before he does anything else. Ya know, people wonder why I have nightmares.
SW: Me too.
What happens next is anyone guess.
It started out as a perfectly normal interview. I was happy that a support worker was in attendance, and it was a support worker that I’d dealt with before and had established a rapport with. All was really well, the usual stuff, domestic violence, drugs, alcohol abuse – you name it, it was there. The person in question had almost reached the milestone birthday where life begins again and already had twelve kids to her name, with ages ranging from the ages of twenty three through to just under a year. What can I say? Some people start early. At least six different fathers and kids all over the country. Good stuff.
Now the support worker and myself were busy working up plans and the like when the person in question said that they had a desire to discuss one important aspect of the domestic violence. Now in this job, and in life really, I’ve seen and heard almost everything, and I expect that the support worker has as well. Still, this was a new one by me and it bothered me. A lot. Here’s how it unfolded.
ME: So, you're a victim of domestic violence?
CUST: Yep. Last time he bashed me so badly that I miscarriaged at four months. Put his hands in my mouth and broke my jaw and knocked my eye out of it's socket.
ME: Jesus! Did you engage the Domestic Violence Crisis Service?
CUST: Nope.
ME: Why? They do provide shelter.
CUST: Yeah, but when I did they put me in a boarding house with druggies.
ME: But it says here that you're also addicted to valium, are on the methadone program and have problems with alcohol.
CUST: So?
ME: In effect you're also a drug addict.
CUST: Doesn't mean I want to hang around with the losers. Stupid bastards.
SUPPORT WORKER: Hang on, he broke your jaw? How? Did he just hit you?
CUST: He came home pissed and just punched me to the ground. He then sat on my chest and punched me in the right eye constantly. After a bit, can’t say how long, he knocked my eye out and fractured my eye socket. Well, they said it was a fracture, I think he just fucked it up completely. Then he put both his hands in my mouth.
SW: You didn’t think to bite him?
CUST: I was barely conscious. He grabbed the top of my jaw and the bottom and just pulled my jaw apart. Sounded like someone breaking a chicken wishbone actually.
ME: Jesus!!
At this point I caught a glance from the support worker. She looked horrified and I knew this was the first she’d heard of the extent of the violence. I looked back probably with the same look of shock and horror on my face. But it wasn’t over.
CUST: Once he’d broken my jaw apart he kept pulling until he’d torn the skin and nearly ripped my bottom jaw off. I wanted to pass out but for some reason I couldn’t. But I could barely move, and that’s when he kicked me.
ME: He kicked you?
CUST: Yep, he kicked me in the guts and kept going. That’s why I miscarried.
SW: I’m sorry to hear that.
CUST: Yeah. Me too. I was four months pregnant and he kicked the foetus out of me right there and then. Lots of blood was on the floor. I was upset. Then he went down to the pub and left me on the floor. One of my neighbours heard the noise and came down to see if I was alright. Stupid, my partner had left the door open, so my neighbour called the ambulance.
ME: Fu…Jesus! I don’t know what to say.
CUST: Yep, that was the worst of it, I guess.
ME: So where are you staying now?
CUST: Oh, I couch surf a lot. When he cracks the shits I generally leave.
ME: Hang on a second – he did all of that to you and you STILL live with him?
CUST: Yep. The Domestic Violence Service reckon that if I keep going back then they can’t help me.
ME: Why do you go back?
CUST: Well he is the dad of three of my kids.
ME: That’s…nah, I’m speechless. Sorry.
By this point the support worker was sitting there stunned.
CUST: I don’t stay there often and he hasn’t hit me since. He is going to court though.
ME: Thank Christ for that.
CUST: Yeah, he beat up the guy upstairs and has to go for assault on him as well.
ME: What have the police said?
CUST: Oh, they say they’re going to lock him up. He’s pleaded not guilty though and says that the cops are on his side.
ME: Trust me with this – in these situations, the coppers are never on the side of anyone who’s done what he’s done.
CUST: Yeah, but he says they are. So I’ll wait til he’s locked up and then move. Then he can’t touch me.
Plans of action were then put in place and it’s just wait and see. The pair left the building and went back to the agency. A day later the phone rang – it was the support worker.
SW: Fucking hell man. I can’t get that out of my head.
ME: Me neither, but what can we do?
SW: Well she refuses to engage and get this – she’s going back to him today. From what I can gather it isn't about control. He just likes beating the shit out of her and she just keeps taking it.
ME: Fuck! I dunno...I mean...I just don't know what to do?
SW: I guess we should watch the obits.
ME: Let’s hope he gets locked up before he does anything else. Ya know, people wonder why I have nightmares.
SW: Me too.
What happens next is anyone guess.
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