Crap Jobs: Another Atlas Shrugged Echo

Jenny McCartney tells the tale today of how John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development - there's a passing reminder of the classic "Personnel? That's for assholes!" from Dirty Harry Calahan in The Enforcer - explains the attitude of so-called disadvantaged youths towards the employment market as being markedly influenced by employers not sufficiently addressing the big issue - "the world of work is so crap".

While Jenny M's analysis is entirely correct, it reminds me of the scene in Atlas Shrugged where Hank Rearden has his hectic working day interrupted by his resentful mother, for the sole purpose of begging him to give a job to his wasteful idler of a brother Philip. And not just any dirty old job amid his blast furnaces, but an office job with a nice desk. Rearden's most telling response, apart from reminding his mother that he was running a steel plant and not a whorehouse, was "But he'd be no use to me whatsoever!"

Indeed. A sentiment echoed up and down the country by thousands of small business owners whenever they take a look at the legions of unemployable chavs and chavettes, many of whom would not lift a finger to seek to trade their state benefit existence for the said crap jobs. To say nothing of the barely literate applications and CVs that might come in, and the hopeless performance at interviews of any who make it that far.

If Mr Philpott cannot answer his own rhetorical "what is the point" question with an answer that involves having to start at the bottom in order to better oneself, perhaps he too is in a crap job.