Re: OT: Why welfare doesn't work!

On Sep 9, 1:05 am, Joerg <notthisjoerg...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sep 8, 2:37 am, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-Web-
Site.com> wrote:
On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 23:58:28 -0700 (PDT), bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sep 7, 5:46 am, Joerg <notthisjoerg...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
bill.slo...@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On Sep 6, 3:54 pm, "Jon Slaughter" <Jon_Slaugh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>

Employers preferred to
hire youngsters -because they were cheaper and more biddable, and we
frightened of hiring adults who had had to drop out of work - for
whatever reason - for fear that it might happen again.
Aha!  So that's your excuse ?:-)

No Jim, it isn't my "excuse". I never had to "drop out of work". Dutch
employers don't like hiring people over forty, and get even less
enthusiastic over more elderly applicants. I'm good enough that I
managed to get hired in Venlo when I was 57, but when I lost that job
I was three years older, and I haven't been able to beat the odds
since then.

Do you speak Dutch?

Ja, graag.

At one point - when I tried to start on an IT course at Nijmegen
University a few years ago - I sat the Dutch as a second language
tests (NT2) and passed the speaking, listening and reading parts with
comfortable margins - my reading was particularly good. Sadly, I got
499 on the written part against a pass mark of 500. I can write Dutch
fluently but not correctly - there's about one minor error per
sentence - mainly because none of my Dutch employers ever wanted me to
write in Dutch. It was always "write it in English, Bill - that way
the Russian graduate students/buitenlandse filiallen will be able to
read it". My Dutch colleagues could always read English so they
weren't fussed.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
.

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