Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/07/2006 8:23:25 AM PDT by MadIvan
An unemployed German man with no legs has been told to get a job picking asparagus.
Winfried Gutschwager, 47, said he was outraged when he received a letter from his local job centre saying they had found him a job harvesting asparagus.
"My disability was clearly recorded when I went to sign on for benefits. They simply have no respect for anybody," said the Berlin man, who lost his legs to diabetes last May.
Job centre spokesman Andreas Kanter, 51, apologised saying: "It was an unfortunate mistake due to the fact the client's records had not been updated."
It is not the first time the German welfare office has come under fire for its treatment of people with disabilities.
Last year a woman with no arms and no legs was told she could not get full handicapped benefits because she was not disabled enough.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
Just doing the jobs, the legged won't do.
The woman with no arms and legs was not disabled enough??!! Is their definition of disabled to be dead?
Perhaps they thought she could do touch typing with her nose.
Regards, Ivan
Decisions....decisions....decisions.
LOL -- asked & answered in #7
Yes.
Regards, Ivan
At least he wasn't ordered to become a prostitute.
We can send them a couple of Mexicans. Call it a "jobs Germans won't do" kind of thing.
I'm still looking for that $50 an hour lettuce picking job McPain was just talking about...
As of last May the guy had legs. It doesn't seem particularly odd or outrageous that an enormous bureaucracy hadn't updated its entire database in 10 months.
Well, they were polite enough to NOT suggest he pick coconuts.
What do you call a man with no arms or legs, rolling in the leaves?
Russell
ROTFLMAO!
He is 51. Maybe there is an age limit for prostitution positions.
Actually, he is only 47. I was laughing too hard to get it right.
At least he wouldn't have to bend over.
What a whinger!
He should get one of those little carts like Eddie Murphy's character in 'Trading Places' - then he could pick asparagus like a damn!
Government is a machine - not a person with a brain. We should not expect decisions from the machine that make any sense at all for individuals. Government welfare is the meanest thing we could do for the poor and disabled.
"Job centre spokesman Andreas Kanter, 51, apologised saying: "It was an unfortunate mistake due to the fact the client's records had not been updated."
Baloney. They do it all on purpose, thinking it's another clever way to see if the disability really exists...
The way that the German system works...you have a office with the power to update the database...seven employees. Each will be given a group...A to C, D to J, etc. Under the German style of management...these are more or less permanet stations. You as a 27 year old woman...working in the database area...will be forever the A to C person. And so...as you come up and become pregnant...and you take your two years of semi-employed status (full vacation as you deliver for the kid's first two years)...the organization doesn't really fill your shoes. Yes, I know this sounds amazing...but its basically how it works. The fall-back position is that they will bring in a 16-year old kid...trainee...and give him/her the A to C group....but speed here is 20 percent of what the first employee did.
I've sat here for 13 years in Germany...watching their entire management game...and continue to laugh how they manage to be as good as they are. I went into a office once...one employee...she had boxes of paperwork set into the corner. I gave her my paperwork and ask how long it would take. She laughed and pointed into the corner at the boxes. It was a 3-person office...gal #1 was on 2-year preg leave...gal#2 was on rehab for six months (paid by the government of course). They would not fill the positions because they were already filled. It would be four months before she finally got to my paperwork.
And I'll this on the unemployment game. Fifteen months ago, they went to the new "harsh" treatment of unemployed. After 12 months of unemployment and 80 percent of your paycheck covered...you enter the Hartz Four program. Under this as a Germany....you get enough to cover rent, utilities, food and maybe an extra $40 a week for a family of four. They expect you to either find work or they will find work for you (sweeping streets, cleaning ditches, etc). In the case of the aspargus folks...this is seasonal work for eight weeks and Germany needs at least 10,000 people doing this work. Unlike the US with Mexicans...there just aren't Mexicans around to do this work...so they routinely expect unemployed folks to take the aspargus jobs...or be kicked off the free ride.
I don't want government health care for the same reasons.
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