The Stigma study

I have to find the link,
but you can find references for it I'm sure

About ten years ago,
at one of those big universities with large psychology dept.'s
MIT or Harvard, something like that

They did a study.
A whole whack of students were chosen as the test subjects.
They were tested beforehand, all were COMPLETELY sane.
Tests out the bloody wahoo

So they take this mob of SANE people
and send them off to the various hospitals in town to book themselves in
after a short course in how to APPEAR schizophrenic.

They wanted to see how a normal person would be discovered through the process.
Years later,
even after every hospital and clinic was made aware of the fact
that these people had never been ill at all,

the students who participated were still getting treated as if they were mentally ill
any time they went to any hospital for any kind of regular health problem.
Or applied for jobs.

YEARS later. A DECADE later,
the stigma of that label still followed them, even though they were never actually crazy.

It's an insidious thing, and it creeps throughout the system.
And the system through which it creeps is much larger than you think.

I always found that story very disturbing.
Don't you?

Long ago, if a man married a rich woman,
all he had to do to get her money,
was tell another male doctor she was insane.
She'd never get out, and he'd be rich.

Doused by the JobWave...the shit washes off the scam...

It's so fucking insidious
this "external contractor" shit
money flows by the millions to these private contractors
and they don't really deliver anything that wasn't available before

Even worse, they are scattered about
go here, go there, waste more time

I'm up at 5, I get to this place called JobWave.
It looks a bit too McHappy to be real.
And their parent companies are U.S. Corporations
Yee-Haw to Database Mining in the age of the Patriot Act
Sing praises to the New State: Canada

I sent them an email last week, inquiring about their services
I didn't get a reply. Not a peep.
I know I haven't been signed up by the MiniDeath yet,
but I figure they have a phone
for job seekers

They're riding the wave of Gov't mismanagement of core services
I can see that

The receptionist has more bling than a pimp
way more
gold rings and bracelets, necklaces, and earrings
She's pretty
a beautiful figure
Phat in that bling

I see the phone that job seekers use in the background
there's another phone on her desk that I know from experience is worth about $600
Ergo chair again

I ask to use the phone
To make sure that MiniDeath can sign me up
for whatever it is they do here.

It seems there's more employees than clients almost
Multi-thousand dollar desks and slick computers
Everybody dressed for success
Yuppies feeding off the trough, throwing crumbs to the "clients"

The Barrier slams in my face.
The phone is only for "clients".
Travel across town to wait 20 minutes so I can stand in front of a gov't employee for 2 minutes
and with a quick burst of energy from his fingers
The Wave gets its loot
and suddenly I get what?

I wonder how much profit they make, on average, per client
It must be a lot
For all that bling and attitude

I anticipate I'll get a course in "resume writing"
the standard schtick
Bullshit on a stick
as if a 5 year old can't use a template today

Do they have some secret trove?
Jobs they hoard and dish out to their followers
the Riders of the Wave

The barrier is in my face, so I have to go on another trip
wasting my time
With a 30 second tap of her fingers
the phone in front of her could call the ministry
And I could walk right in
But it's always about
the runaround game

Bling!

Thank all your gods I have my tracker phone and a bus pass
If I didn't, I'd be walking 3 miles
in exchange for 30 seconds of finger tapping.

So I call.
Elderly sounding lady
She's being really nice
but she's insistent

You see, there are only 3 programs
and you MUST be in one of them to "fulfill your obligation to the ministry"

PCRS which supposedly helps people find accommodation
but really doesn't have anything other than some webpages to send you to, and no booking connection with any of the shelters.
Money for nothing. Give up your privacy for free.

JobWave, which is obviously making shitloads of money, but what do they really offer other than the tired old let's fix up your resume and la dee da bullshit? I guess we'll see.
Money for nothing. Give up your privacy for free.

Theo, which is an instant label of "mental instability, depression, or addiction"
And they are a feeding point for the Great Addiction Moneysink and Stigma Machine
Because to people like that, anything but bottled mineral water and organic apples is an "addiction" and "addictions" are HUGE money these days.

The Christian prohibitionistas are in control, and anything more than a glass of wine at communion is a sin against the great and glorious cleanliness of spirit.
As if they really know,
I seem to remember something about a great and wondrous miracle where there was copious amounts of wine produced. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Or crazy.

I can go to Theo if I'm willing to get signed up to the "crazy" train.
Crazy is another big money sucker, now that its all privatized.
But I'm either too paranoid or not paranoid enough to get myself into that ball of shit.
I hate condesencion with a passion, and unfortunately people that work those places figure everyone is sick in someway.

Of course. Nobody makes cash from the golden MiniDeath cow by working with regular people, there's so much more money in madness and mental instability.
Stigma and labels that will follow you for the rest of your life.

I consider my self very stable, in an angry "I'm gonna fuck your head up with this stone, Goliath!" type of way.

So you take your pick: nothin, nuts, or bling in your face.

FUCK.
Fucking millions of taxpayer dollars....
More than it used to cost when it all ran out of the same fucking office.

and my empty stomach is growling, my pack is stashed in a bush, I have to leave my dog with someone who has five cats that hate her and try to slash her, and a bunch of fucking yuppies are well fed and full of sarcastic bullshit.

Why not just stop pretending and grind us up into Soylent Green.

The next day, in my "interview"
I get more help with eyeglasses and a list of doctors than I did with PCRS.
What?
This place is doing the "job search" thing, and I get better health and glasses information than PCRS?
Fuck. Maybe they knew I was coming.
Yadayadayada....
come back next tuesday for a group orientation about the wonders of the JobWave, and I'll see you next weekend.
Money for NOTHING, and bullshit is free.
You get half an hour on the computers the sign says. There's no one here so I guess I get more, but the central library I get 2 hours.
I get access to a phone to call out, the same one I couldn't use yesterday. There's 3 of them.
I can use a fax machine.
All of which I can get at a community search service 6 blocks from where I'm living, not downtown.

How much does the MiniDeath pay them to "assist" me I wonder.
$1000? $2000? More?
I get computer access that doesn't work with my main gmail account, it blocks certain college HR websites,
a phone station to call jobs from and voice mail.

I could have used the fucking $1000 to get a place where I could leave Koala safe and look for a fucking job myself, which is all I'm doing here.
They have NO RESOURCES. No extra, special job list.
It's bullshit piling up to the fucking ceiling.

The woman watching the computer lab makes about $8 an hour more than I made working for Atlantis, and she has less computer knowledge than my 7 year old nephew.

Great.
Someone to look over my shoulder while I job search.
That's what I'm getting.
Possibly a cert exam paid for. Possibly.
No more food vouchers for Quest, which I got from PCRS.
I was living on those.
So now, broke, hungry, still fucking living outside, still no safe place for Koala, each day I wonder if an eye is going to be scratched out when I go to get her, and I got jack shit
Except for some fucking photocopies.

What do you want to bet that JobWave is owned by a former MLA or one of their friends?
Sucking money from the social services system to deliver fucking DICK.


Here's a little fucking evil clip for you, an aside:
From bchousing.org









and all of their "subsidized housing" for single people
is in FUCKING SKID ROW.

Give up your only friend and live in junkie town.
That fucking organization makes MILLIONS!