Undeserving poor
Sir: A short while ago, I placed an adver- tisement in the Scotsman offering employ- ment. As might be expected in a recession, I received a great many replies. Of these, a large number decided they were not keen to commit themselves to the amount of hard work involved. This I can understand, but what lies beyond my comprehension is the fact that I talked to 18 people on the phone who agreed, sometimes after a lengthy discussion about the job, to come to an interview. In each case I arranged a time. Yet only two of these 18 actually turned up, and not one bothered to ring up and cancel the appointment. Indeed one of 'Well, I think it's bloody tactless.' those who rang and never turned up, only lived 200 yards away.
This is not a pattern isolated to Scotland, I have seen it in East Anglia, and in Lon- don. But what is perhaps most surprising is that the majority of those who do turn up, who ring and say to you 'I'm not afraid of hard work'; are men in their forties and fifties.
Charles Leach
1 Drummond Place, Edinburgh
Previous page
