> Wojtek wrote:
>
>> Interesting. Business = the "real world." Academia = unreal (read:
>> bunch of stuffed shirt liberal idlers who know nothing about
>> 'everyday life').
>
>
> Yeah, this is so common, and such a common irritant
> for me. A few years ago I drew money from unemployment
> insurance when out of work. I met with a career
> counselor [with a Masters of Social Work, too] who
> kept using the phrase "Now, when you get back into the
> real world...." constantly, by which she meant "When
> you get a job again..." Well, I was still paying rent,
> paying bills, and actually living quite miserably. Why
> the hell wasn't that "the real world"?
>
> -B.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
Welcome to the wonderful world of institutionalized abuse.
It's because you didn't have a "job", and the flunkified MSW did.
Needing assistance in this country is an opportunity for society to institutionalize and depersonalize us, and that doesn't just mean the prison/mental health complex. Your MSW was saying (subvertly) "I'm "One Up" on you". Perhaps they thought it would get you off your duff to look for a job. The unsaid assumption is that you are educated(trained to conform) and without a job, so you must be lazy, or intentionally on your way to being an educated "slacker".
It was a psychological slam. Whether to distance the MSW from you socially, or as a form of insecurity on their part is not particularly relevant. The effect is demeaning, and absolutely intended to be such. They think if the bureaucratic experience is *too* pleasant you'll be too eager to come back, but in reality, after abuse like you mentioned goes on for years, people develop a kind of victim syndrome which locks you into the cycle. Most unemployed people have never seen "Careeer Counsellors"... Counselling is saved for "white collar" workers who are trying to maintain an appropriate level of income to meet pre-existing expenses, mortgage payments et alia, not people who are perpetually in dire straits and will take any job.
When Seagate laid off thousands of people, the unemployment office claimed to know squat about the federal plant closure act, and offered nothing in the way of re-training for me... I beat the bushes myself, and jammed myself *directly* into a "JTPA" training program. I suspect the reason why the unemployment people were uncooperative at a very basic institutional way("sorry, we don't know anything about that...") was because as long as I was receiving training, my benefits continued.
Leigh