Originally Posted by
November Rain
As I've mentioned on other threads, I work for a charity selling items on eBay to raise money. The items are all sent in from their terrestrial shops, and I have to sort the trash from the treasure, photograph, list, answer questions - all the normal eBay stuff. The normal shops have work placement "volunteers" ie people that work as a volunteer in order to learn new skills and (real reason) to allow them to keep their benefits. If they didn't do the work, they'd lose their dole.
Anyway, we're wanting to expand the amount we sell, so I contacted the work placement people, described the sort of person I was looking for & they sent a guy in today. He was in his 50s and, according to him, supremely over qualified. He was extremely disgruntled that he was being forced to work, particularly at such lowly status in order to keep his benefits and felt his time would be better spent applying for work. He was very quick to tell me that not only could he do my job better than me, he could probably do my bosses' jobs better than them, too.
Anyway, I doubt he will work with us, because he also had bad knees and my little office is up loads of stairs.
The experience of meeting him got me thinking, though. The work placement people I've met so far have been really nice, but perhaps not the most intelligent people on the planet, so I could really see the benefits to them gaining more skills, building up their CVs and helping a charity. I have no idea if this guy was telling me the truth about his experience and qualifications, but if he was, he might have a reason to be so arrogant and negative about being put in placements like this.
Any thoughts on whether these placements are a good idea and whether they benefit all, some, or none?