A job that changed me: At the dole office, I met very few ‘bludgers’. Most people desperately wanted work
It was 1994 and the then prime minister, Paul Keating, had a problem. Me. I was about to graduate with an arts degree, smack-bang into
It was 1994 and the then prime minister, Paul Keating, had a problem. Me. I was about to graduate with an arts degree, smack-bang into the middle of the “recession we had to have”. With not much of a plan, I seemed destined to swell the ranks of those – as Tracy Chapman sang – “wasting time in the unemployment lines”. I’d entertained tepid thoughts of applying for the public service, even going so far as to register for the national exam. View image in fullscreen Jay Martin in the kitchen of a share house in 1995, the year she found herself behind the front counter of the CES. Photograph: Supplied by Jay Martin But, you see, our share house fridge had carked it. And on the day of the test, we got wind of a reconditioned one going cheap, and no other housemates could be found. Fridge or job? Well, there would be other job offers, I reasoned (hoped?). There might not be any other cheap white goods. So I blew off that exam and picked up the fridge. It turned out my hopes had been well founded. Keating had concocted a cunning plan: employ dozens of new graduates as employment officers in the Commonwealth Employment Service to encourage – read badger – unemployed people into jobs, while keeping those new grads out of the already swollen dole queues at the same time. Everyone who’d registered for the exam got the offer. With no other offers or better ideas, in 1995 I found myself behind the front counter of the CES, the government office founded in 1946, tasked with finding jobs for people and people for jobs. Like everyone, I’d heard terms like “dole bludgers” and “welfare cheats”, and I went in with, I guess, some preconceived ideas. View image in fullscreen ‘Luckily, I had a drawer full of resources – training programs, job subsidies, even bus tickets – to offer people.’ Photograph: Archives of Australia In fact, most of the people I ended up meeting desperately wanted to work.
But it was an employers’ market and they were just never the best person for the job. It was especially sobering for me; I felt how easily our places could have been reversed. I also saw how people’s lives could spiral. They’d be doing OK, then lose a job, not pay the car insurance, have an accident. Without transport, it became 10 times harder to get work. I felt their vulnerability too. I barely had a fridge. Luckily, I had a drawer full of resources – training programs, job subsidies, even bus tickets – to offer people, and I threw myself into trying to help my clients. I soon saw how these things could turn people’s lives around. View image in fullscreen CES’s Job Hunting Game. Illustration: Commonwealth Emplyoment Service A cabinet maker originally from Hong Kong had been having a hard time getting an interview. I arranged a work experience placement, and two days later his wife called to say he’d been offered a job. “We are happy we can now contribute to Australia,” she said. I helped another woman with interview training and a job-winning retail management CV. I only saw her once more; she came to give me a pen engraved with my name. We both blinked back happy tears. Not that everyone I dealt with was excited about working. “I just go to work, come home, watch TV, and do it all again the next day,” one client working as a carer told me, pretty much describing my own life. “It’s a first step, it will get better,” I said, not sure if I was reassuring him or myself. That was my expectation for me – that I’d go on to something more interesting and fulfilling. But there were people who took work in chicken processing plants, in the abattoir.
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