This thing called work

Cantilip

I’m a pensioner so not in the firing-line, but I worked all my adult life and occasionally now, bits of typing. I started thinking about this work thing. Yes, it’s varied from the sewage-worker to the King having to meet a lot of people who bore him silly, night-shifts, oil-rigs, Do most of us understand work as going to an office or factory, toiling for 8 hours and coming home again? Picking up tools, a van, maybe a repair-person, garbage disposal.. Basically there are set hours in which you do things and these are determined by your employer and may be in direct collision with the hours determined by your condition and/or medication in which you are at your best.

Work, I thought, was essentially doing something someone else wants done when they want it done and it’s that above all which means some people can’t do it. In addition to my mechanical disabilities I have an autoimmune disease and limited energy. Sure I can type, sure I can make with spreadsheets. I have a nice little modern languages degree, a wealth of experience. Yay, am I not employable! Not in the slightest because I can only manage being on the ball for something like 30-45 minutes at a stretch. It’s interesting. What I’m doing currently is typing up some past writings for a cousin. He’s paying me; I note time taken, e.g. 10.32-11.15. After 30-45 minutes I want to stop. It doesn’t mean I can’t do more later. It does mean I should be totally useless to an employer who wanted even a 3 hour shift from me, other than maybe weekly. I could possibly cram myself with coffee and do a 3-hour stretch once a week. Daily, no chance. My commitment is 4 hours a week, not 4 hours a day.

And that is WFH, supposed to be the catch-all solution.

That is without getting to a place of work. The most disability-friendly employers in the world, falling over themselves to provide adaptations are useless if you need to commute to get to this wonder-job. I commuted from outer London to the West End for 30 years. The train breaks down. The bus is diverted. Someone has thrown himself on the track. There are no drivers. It’s the wrong kind of snow. Whenever something goes wrong with whichever service you are trying to use, you have to attempt to make your way to another one and that if you have mobility issues is a raging nightmare.

There was a letter in the Guardian recently from a doctor who conducted ‘fit to work’ interviews:

During a 40-minute interview I would ask the person about their ability to perform routine tasks such as walking, climbing stairs, cooking and shopping. The physical examination tested mobility, hearing and eyesight.

I did ‘fit for work’ tests for the DWP. Here’s what I found | Benefits | The Guardian

And that has what to do with fitness for work? I’d call it basic functionality, basic independence. Or just screaming garbage. There may be more to it, but the proposition that you can for instance shop sufficiently to have something in the house for breakfast, get out of bed without help, descend to your kitchen, prepare and consume your breakfast and then return upstairs to your bedroom miraculously indicates your ability to subsequently wash, dress and go and catch the 7.20 into town, where you will work for 8 hours is perilously close to farce.

MW123

@Cantilip

Your example of typing up past writings for your cousin on a schedule that works for you illustrates how alternative ways to contribute and earn income can be more suitable for people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. The traditional work model, with its fixed hours and rigid expectations, often fails to accommodate individuals with fluctuating energy levels and specific medical needs.

Work-from-home flexibility should encompass more than just a change of location; it must include adaptable hours and workload expectations tailored to an individual’s capacity. Your experiences of the challenges posed by commuting is especially poignant. The unpredictability and physical strain of commuting can be a significant barrier to employment, underscoring the need for a more holistic approach to workplace accessibility that considers the entire journey from home to work, not just adaptations in the workplace.

Moreover, the fit-to-work assessments, as your post rightly points out, seems disconnected from the practical realities of sustaining employment. Assessing basic functional abilities does not adequately reflect the complexities of managing a full or part-time workday, particularly when health conditions are involved. These assessments need a comprehensive overhaul to better evaluate an individual's true capacity for work in a meaningful and realistic manner.

Cantilip

In short the DWP is clueless, which we knew already, negligently clueless to boot. Incompetence can be at least part forgiven in the well-meaning, people who when picked up on something, say whoops, sorry, just put that right. I don't think anyone ever applied the word(?s) well-meaning to the DWP. It is not fit for purpose but as you so rightly say employers could do so much more with a little imagination and flexibility. If people just stopped to think about all the things they do in a normal day, go to the kitchen, go to the water-dispenser, go to the loo, meeting in the manager's office. Then there're fire-alarms when it's forbidden to use the lifts. That could be the most difficult of all. In Central London, 9/10 times it's someone's burnt the toast and the 10th it's a bomb-scare. There are procedures for evacuating patients but the lovely disabled data-analyst might be more problematic. But in day to day things management attitudes may be the hardest nut to crack, not their positivity but the culture of wanting things done by yesterday. Some things are urgent but other things, with a bit of foresight and planning, could be designated something like, ;Jane who WFH could do that. Jane, if you could get it done within the next two weeks, that'd be brill."

egister

Healthy people NEVER understand disabled people

66Mustang

@egister

I would avoid accusing an entire group of holding a prejudice, because that means you yourself are holding a prejudice about that group

But I do actually get what you mean

It’s quite tiring having to explain why you can’t do stuff all the time

One thing I don’t really understand is what “reasonable adaptions” means, because lots of things to me don’t seem overly reasonable yet they are immediately OKayed, but then something that’s totally reasonable to me is not considered reasonable to lots of employers

egister

@66Mustang, “reasonable adaptions” is a polite verbal construction that means we want to help you, but we don’t have the ability.

egister

"I would avoid accusing an entire group of holding a prejudice, because that means you yourself are holding a prejudice about that group"

Policeman can't design airplanes - prejudice? When will ALL healthy people properly understand the specific needs of people with all possible disabilities? Never. Statement of facts is not prejudice.

worried33

The biggest flaw with assessments is they concentrate on specific functions and make an assumption that if you can do some functions then you can work.

They dont consider "employability". In the real world unless someone is being charitable or paid a lot of money to do it, sick people dont get employed. If you are unemployable then you effectively cannot work.

You can perhaps make some people employable again, by giving them appropriate treatment, and support. But the DWP dont do that, instead they just recategorise people and give them mandated activity then claim it is support.

I was employed when my health problems started, probably the best employer I ever worked for in how they looked after their staff and conditions, but as soon as it was evident they would have had to treat me with care (move me to new role etc.which I was willing to try) they didnt want to know, I was out the door.

Cantilip

The biggest flaw with assessments is they concentrate on specific functions and make an assumption that if you can do some functions then you can work.

They dont consider "employability". In the real world unless someone is being charitable or paid a lot of money to do it, sick people dont get employed. If you are unemployable then you effectively cannot work.

@worried33 As I said, retired, so not been through it but that is so much my impression. That it's a nonsense along the line of 'you can demonstrate the use of a calculator therefore you are obviously employable using a calculator for 36 hours a week'.