Take This Job and Shove It!

Imagine...

Imagine you're 23 years old, working your way through graduate school. To support yourself, you work full time in BigMegaGroup's telemarketing center...

Imagine you're a single parent with two young children trying to make ends meet by working as a Web Designer for advertising agency...

Imagine you're a talented art therapist working at the County Hospital...

Or don't imagine you're somebody else... instead be who you are.

And now think about what it would be like to lose your job.

Yeah, it would suck. Yes, you might panic for a bit. Almost certainly you would begin to look for more work. But one thing is for sure, you'd file for unemployment benefits. After all, part of your hard work went to paying into the unemployment system, as did funds from your former employer. That's your money and it's there to help you during tough times.

So here you are, unemployed and looking for work, living on your unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, you've run into trouble finding work in your field of choice. The unemployment agency steps in and begins sending you out to jobs that you can do, not necessarily ones that you want to do. But it's how the system works. So you work as a waitress for a few weeks, you temp in an office for a month...You're making less than your unemployment benefit pays, so the government makes up the difference while they try to find you permanent work.

Then you get the call! A company that pays into the unemployment benefits system needs new staff. They've come across your profile in the government database and would like you to come to work right away! Exciting stuff! Oh joy!

So what will you be doing?

Turning tricks in a brothel.

What?!?!?!?!? You mean to say that the government lined me up a job as a prostitute?!?!?!?

Well, I turn it down! I'm a wife/single mother/grad student. I have my morals. I will not be a hooker!

Then we'll cut off your unemployment benefits, says the government.

Think it can't happen? It does now in Germany!

Yes, that's right! Our "allies" in Europe have legalized prostitution! And because it is legalized, brothels have the same rights as any other employer when it comes to using the unemployment system to staff its beds. And if you don't do it, then you lose your benefits. You're screwed either way, whether you like it or not.

I call it state-sponsored rape.

I wonder what the Germans call it... Oh yeah, welfare reform.