In the library

My debut post might have sounded a little depressing, that's not my intention, although I guess I wanted to set a marker from which the blog would get more and more upbeat and pleasant to read. Post by post, the blog will (I expect) focus more and more on the present moment, like a daily update of stuff going on, but I have to set the scene first I think, give some account what's been going since late August, when I handed in my MA dissertation and lost my contract with the Scottish Government in the same week.

Here's something that IS really depressing:

D is an experienced and qualified gardener who has volunteered at [X] for five years. He has been unemployed during that time. Last November, however, he was hired as a gardener at Hyde Park.

D left New Cross each morning at 5:30am for a 6:30am start. The job involved 40 hours a week of physically demanding work in cold weather for national minimum wage.  

When D was nearing three months on the job – a threshold that would have triggered an improved contract from the agency that employed him – the agency ran a spot check on all of the gardeners who had started at the same time as D. Anyone without a hi-vis jacket or a risk assessment form had to leave the site that day. The risk assessment form was supposed to be filled in every day, but after a few weeks most workers realized that the risks were the same every day and let it slip. None of them had a risk assessment form that day and all were sacked, including D.

D decided not to complain about this as he hopes to get the job again next winter, when he will be 60. D is back volunteering at [X].

That's from an evaluation report I'm writing for a local charity, one of the few lingering commitments I have from various personal initiatives launched over the last six months. The total list is:

- Write research report for local charity
- Finish series of pub landlord interviews for hyperlocal website (five interviews completed, four published, three to go)

It's quite a short list, I hope to be free of commitments pretty soon so I can just enjoy the countdown to the 2014 World Cup!