Starting a new job and my thoughts on the situation

So, I've been as poor as fuck for ages. I haven't had a regular income source for over a year and half, albeit able to survive (barely) because I was in full-time education. I've become desperate as my money has ran down to a few pennies and I've accumulated a massive debt. So today I took the plunge and got a job with seemingly the ONLY company in Medway willing to employ me. Why am I blogging about it? Well it's simply really, it does not have a guaranteed regular wage. Saying I am nervous about my financial well-being is an understatement. I could easily be able to make some sort of living (as in being able to buy some food, drink and live in a building with a roof) just as easily as being left to rot in poverty due to not being on any sort of wage. Basically, I feel like I might be fucked, and more importantly, I can't do anything about it. My university screwed me out of being able to wait any longer for the right job by withholding a vital bursary until well after I require it. Additionally, this countries measly unemployment benefit would hardly help me to be able to withhold for a short time until I find a job that I want to do, I am qualified to do, or even just a job that would actually support me without this ridiculous risk of it all crashing down after one or two pay-less weeks.

The privileged few who decide upon such things, or if you prefer, the 'old boys' who have run this country (seemingly forever) will tell you that there is no meaningful barriers to achievement. Essentially, they deny the blindingly obvious structural inequality. The inequality that we at the end of the stick covered in layers of old and new shit have observed and experienced. They will tell you that people are afforded the chance from all backgrounds to go to university, to leave university with great future prospects, and step into a job that elevates ones position on the class/economic/social ladder. This is just bullshit for the most part, the ones who are at most risk of never achieving such a thing are the poorest of the lot, those whose families have been on benefits for one reason or another their whole lives, or those whose families are in the lowest income brackets. They cannot remain out of work after university long enough to find a decent job, assuming they had managed to scrape through university with the help and support required from family, friends and whoever else can spare a little. Even that increasingly becoming less and less realistic when you factor in the rising living cost and other expenses related to university and home life. 

It's not simply whilst you are at university either. These problems relating to your background continue once you've graduated. Recently I had an assessment with a recruitment company in London. This particular agency was prestigious and one that was highly contested. There must have been roughly 50 to 60 people in this room all vying to be picked. The fact I was not picked is not why I am mentioning this, I knew I was very unlikely to get picked. What is important about this is that about 70% of the people who were picked were from privileged backgrounds. They were not working class men or women. I had suspected this would be the case when speaking to both my fellow candidates and the assessors beforehand; as they announced who would be taken on I was not disappointed. In knowing who was to be taken on I felt both vindicated and incredibly pissed off. What I had been saying for weeks about the job market I had observed was definitely true, class still matters in the UK today. I am not stupid, I know there could be other factors in the selection. However, such an overwhelming advantage for those who were able to dress in expensive suits, as this agencies own emailed information suggested, or who spoke in an accent you would associate with 'privileged professionals' cannot be ignored. Even the job applications themselves, ones that openly state they will only accept applications from those at red-brick universities, can be hugely off putting for a working class individual. An individual who may not have had the required support (both financial and domestic) to achieve the grades to gain entrance to these exclusive clubs, but nether-the-less achieved a comparable qualification at another university. If you do not believe me read this. Inequality of opportunity like this will not be helped by the tuition fee increase. Those who run these red-brick universities are able to charge more than the less prestigious former polytechnics. It will create a larger class divide in our higher education. Something to which I am sure many in the upper-middle classes will be delighted about, they can finally keep all of the riff-raff out.

Yes, there will be a lucky few who find it easy and are hired, in spite of obvious classism, into favourable jobs within weeks of leaving university. Yes, there is an opportunity to move on in life if you are from an underprivileged background. However, as I have discovered recently these opportunities are less common than  people claim they are, and many of us from very poor backgrounds will be in no better position once we graduate than we were before university. We will still be taking low-paid jobs and be left wondering why we even bothered.