Employers attitude to CC ing

[Sir Nibble]

I sympathise with your position, but we have to live in the world as it is rather than as we would have it. As for lying, you signed your licence application to say you would abide by the rules and conditions and now you are bridge hopping. Why stop there? Assuming you get a BW mooring, it will be a condition of that that you do not live aboard. I see no reason why you shouldn't live your life as you choose, but glass houses and stones come to mind.

[anhar]

Quote "If I decide to leave my mooring and go CCing (which might happen if they raise the fees much higher), I certainly wouldn't tell my employer I was now of no fixed abode, that's just putting them in a difficult position."

 

That was your insinuation, not mine. Lying to your employer "for their benefit" is still just a lie. And if you're doing it to avoid rising mooring fees, then it is for financial gain.

 

Oh and I believe Ian Huntley used a 'workaround' to get round his CRB

I agree with a lot of what you say in general Carl, though not necessarily in this thread, but you are completely out of order in dragging the Huntley case into your argument with blackrose. By no stretch of the imagination whatsoever are Huntley's terrible crimes and related earlier history anything to do with Mike's comments about his residence status as it affects his employer. That is for the obvious reason that Mike has no criminal intent in describing his actions (presumably ), whereas Huntley did.

 

regards

Steve

Edited May 17, 2007 by anhar

[tired old pirate]

I sympathise with your position, but we have to live in the world as it is rather than as we would have it. As for lying, you signed your licence application to say you would abide by the rules and conditions and now you are bridge hopping. Why stop there? Assuming you get a BW mooring, it will be a condition of that that you do not live aboard. I see no reason why you shouldn't live your life as you choose, but glass houses and stones come to mind.

 

Really? So even if I get a long term BW mooring offered to me I cant legally live there? Is that right?

[tired old pirate]

10 years ago 2 friends bought a piece of scrappy land in the middle of nowhere to park their buses on so that they could bring their children up away from carparks, the police and rabid landowners. After a 4 year battle the council refused to grant residential planning permission and they were evicted from their own land. One couple left the country and were last seen heading to Portugal and the others were rehoused by the local authority in a place deemed 'more suitable' for people like them after having their child (well adjudsted and happy) placed on the child protection register. He commited suicide 3 years later and his remaining family has been a burden on the state ever since.

 

I know I'm being naive and idealistic and that my friend was probably ill and made a wrong choice as far as I'm concerned. We live in a world far from perfect, I know about compromise and how people have to live if you dont have money and family and stuff. Just wish it could be a bit different thats all

 

do I really have to choose between living in a house or marina? Is that my only choice?

 

Really sorry If my questions made anyone cross.

Edited May 17, 2007 by tired old pirate

[tired old pirate]

shot at? set on fire..

thats some serious shit!

 

living on a boat is definitely less frowned upon than say living in a van or caravan ( or yurt, tent, bus or other).

having said that, everyone i work with ( and i consider them fairly open minded) still cant quite grasp the fact i move the boat each week or each two weeks and I have to come to work from a different location.

they dont understand "why" i would want to move if I find a nice area or marina.

 

marinas are like carparks and they cram you in if you live on a narrowboat ( its not so bad if you are in a boat with some semblance of hull shape, you get put in a different area with more space usually)

 

xactly what u said, buses etc were definatly not tolerated let alone frowned upon! I tried to make mine all shiny and joined the caravan club to get away from all the smashing and trashing! I still remember being told by nearly every site I tried to pull onto that it was full despite empty fields! Marinas remind me of that stuff something terrible! Maybe they r not all so bad but I didnt like mine. If you dont fit in the box climb out!

[blackrose]

Quote "If I decide to leave my mooring and go CCing (which might happen if they raise the fees much higher), I certainly wouldn't tell my employer I was now of no fixed abode, that's just putting them in a difficult position."

 

That was your insinuation, not mine. Lying to your employer "for their benefit" is still just a lie. And if you're doing it to avoid rising mooring fees, then it is for financial gain.

 

Whether I am living on a BW non-residential mooring without a postal address or CCing really makes no difference to my employer. All they want is a contact address, but I'm sorry that you disapprove of me and my emplyer to such an extent for merely trying to get on with each other. If you think that those who cannot afford mooring fees are out for financial gain, I disagree - personally I think it is BW who are making the financial gain by constantly raising their fees above the rate of inflation, but that's an argument for another time.

 

Oh and I believe Ian Huntley used a 'workaround' to get round his CRB

Really? And so did the Appollo 13 mission to get them back to earth, but what have either of these examples got to do with anything?

 

What I find really bizzarre is that many of those who profess to an alternative lifestyle because of some aversion to modern conventional society (and I'm not necessarily including you in this Carl), then expect that same society to accommodate their particular needs. If they were truly alternative they might be less confrontatonal in their thinking and able to get their heads around a solution involving some compromise on both sides.

Edited May 17, 2007 by blackrose

[carlt]

I agree with a lot of what you say in general Carl, though not necessarily in this thread, but you are completely out of order in dragging the Huntley case into your argument with blackrose. By no stretch of the imagination whatsoever are Huntley's terrible crimes and related earlier history anything to do with Mike's comments about his residence status as it affects his employer. That is for the obvious reason that Mike has no criminal intent in describing his actions (presumably ), whereas Huntley did.

 

regards

Steve

Sorry if I offend but the reason for CRB checks is to protect the vulnerable, so there are no workarounds. It's too important a thing to mess with. You lie (or omit, to protect the sensibilities of your employer), and you get the sack. Whatever your motives, however innocent or sinister (used in the malevolent sense rather than left handedness ).

 

A girl who worked with swmbo had a spent conviction for possession of cannabis (not something that would have bothered the employer) she omitted this from her application and, when it popped up on the CRB she was fired; not for being a dopehead, but for lying on the application.

 

You don't lie. omit, fib or 'workaround' on your CRB.

[honey ryder]

xactly what u said, buses etc were definatly not tolerated let alone frowned upon! I tried to make mine all shiny and joined the caravan club to get away from all the smashing and trashing! I still remember being told by nearly every site I tried to pull onto that it was full despite empty fields! Marinas remind me of that stuff something terrible! Maybe they r not all so bad but I didnt like mine. If you dont fit in the box climb out!

 

marinas vary quite a lot, if you look around theres lots of different types, from the huge supermarket types to the small and almost invisible quiet reclusive types. they arent all like carparks but the majority are. im torn between liking having facilities near by, such as taps, toilet disposal and stuff like that and living freely away from marina restrictions by the canal side where I can come and go as I please. im pretty sure I wouldnt want a longterm mooring canal side. I may end up in a marina again in the future, one that turns a blind eye to you "visiting" your boat everyday. although that may be with a different boat on a river or estuary.

 

I live on my boat, i cruise constantly yet i and my partner hold down full time jobs. I also have a CRB thingy for my part time work as a cycle coach so if I want to continue doing that then I need to keep some sort of address going.

Im torn between not wanting to live in a house but also wanting to continue to be a part of society.

working around the fact that you live in something other than a house isnt really too difficult. you just have to learn to bite your lip sometimes and tell them what they "want" to hear.

 

imagine the situation, you want a 12v adapter for your computer... you ask the computer shop, I would like a 12v adapter for my computer. they say, ok, is it going to be plugged into your car...

if you say No, it going to be plugged into my boat.. they will suck air through their teeth and tell you they dont know about such things and your warrantly may be invalid.

if you say yes it will be plugged into a cigarette type lighter in my vehicle then they will say, ok no problem.

 

its like that for so many things, its just the way you tell them... so instead of saying you have no fixed abode which people automatically associate with homeless or vagrants and thus are automatically concerned, you can say "I live in a boat on xx waterway in xx region. I have a PO box address from now on. "

 

I wouldnt worry about bridge hopping, so many other boaters do it, it really doesnt matter to other CC'ers or people who do the same. the only people who dont like it are usually those who dont live on their boat or those who pay huge mooring fees. ( theyre just jealous they cant do it themselves)

[Chertsey]

From what I've seen here my sympathies are entirely with t.o.p and not one jot with his rigid, bureaucratic, covering-their-own-backs employers - the irony that they are presumably in a 'caring' field, supporting vulnerable people! I agree in principle with everything Carl says, and I'm a very honest person, BUT in that position I wouldn't hesitate to get an accomodation address somehow and use it. It's not even dishonest - you're saying 'here is an address where you can contact me' not 'here is an address where you can find me at any time of the day or night' - the day employers start demanding that we won't be able to set foot outside our front doors.

Edited May 17, 2007 by WarriorWoman

[charles123]

As a manager of about 100 people I would chose all things being equal between 2 candidates a person applying for a job that is conventional in that he/her lives at a conventional address because experience tells me that if you select an unconventional employee more often than not it bites you on the bum and you spend time managing what is likely to turn into a high maintenance employee and managers have enough to do without making work for themselves. I doubt whether I would have given you a job. So from what you have said I would support your employer in their actions. Also you have not helped yourself by putting no fixed abode which is bound to raise queeries from any amployer

 

Good luck

 

Charles

[carlt]

As a manager of about 100 people I would chose all things being equal between 2 candidates a person applying for a job that is conventional in that he/her lives at a conventional address because experience tells me that if you select an unconventional employee more often than not it bites you on the bum and you spend time managing what is likely to turn into a high maintenance employee and managers have enough to do without making work for themselves. I doubt whether I would have given you a job. So from what you have said I would support your employer in their actions. Also you have not helped yourself by putting no fixed abode which is bound to raise queeries from any amployer

 

Good luck

 

Charles

This is actually a benefit of putting NFA on the application form. Weeds out the bigoted employer.

 

Edited because I'm not sure a bigot would understand my first attempt.

Edited May 18, 2007 by carlt

[charles123]

This is actually a benefit of putting NFA on the application form. Weeds out the bigots.

 

Actually it weeds out the potential problem employees before they become emplyees

[fuzzyduck]

As a manager of about 100 people I would chose all things being equal between 2 candidates a person applying for a job that is conventional in that he/her lives at a conventional address because experience tells me ....

 

Excellent thinking

 

Now can I have the name of this company so that I never accidentally make the mistake of doing business with you?

[blackrose]

Sorry if I offend but the reason for CRB checks is to protect the vulnerable, so there are no workarounds. It's too important a thing to mess with. You lie (or omit, to protect the sensibilities of your employer), and you get the sack. Whatever your motives, however innocent or sinister (used in the malevolent sense rather than left handedness ).

 

A girl who worked with swmbo had a spent conviction for possession of cannabis (not something that would have bothered the employer) she omitted this from her application and, when it popped up on the CRB she was fired; not for being a dopehead, but for lying on the application.

 

You don't lie. omit, fib or 'workaround' on your CRB.

 

You said earlier that CRBs can accomodate NFAs, so in that case what's the problem? You only need to workaround obstacles that exist - not ones that don't.

 

I used to work for Samaritans and had a CRB check without a problem. I gave them my mother's address and mentioned that I also lived on a boat, so no lies, omissions or fibs - the truth was fine.

Edited May 17, 2007 by blackrose

[shane]

Excellent thinking

 

Now can I have the name of this company so that I never accidentally make the mistake of doing business with you?

 

[Postcode]

Actually it weeds out the potential problem employees before they become emplyees

 

Surely this depends if the position benefits from having someone with rigid thinking? Branson seems to have done ok and he was not burdened with a steryotypical beginning. He lived on a boat - that seems to have aided his ability to think 'out of the box'.

[David Schweizer]

I have only just read this thread so I apologise in advance if otheres have already made the same points and I have missed them (some of the contributions are very long!)

 

Judging from the letter you posted from your employers, I would guess that you either work for the Local Authority T.O.P. or a Voluntary Organization primarily funded by them. If this is the case I can understand their difficulty (I worked for local Government for more than 25 years) They are required to have fairly stringent rules governing their employees, particularly within the fields of Education and Social Care, and one of them would be having a permanent address where you can recieve correspondence etc

 

Your problem was telling them that you had no fixed abode, which is interpreted as being homeless, However, you do have a fixed abode which is your boat, it is the boat whioch is mobile, not you. All you really had to tell them was that your contact address had changed and find someone who was willing to receive your mail and either pass it on to you or arrange for you to collect it at regular intervals. You may have to list it as a C/O address but that would be no different to someone boarding in a room someone elses house.

 

I hope that you are able to resolve this one as soon as possible by meeting your employers requirements. I know several people who work for the Local Authority (including Teachers) and live on a boat which they move around. They do not have any problems with their employer because they have a correspondence address.

[blackrose]

I have only just read this thread so I apologise in advance if otheres have already made the same points and I have missed them (some of the contributions are very long!)

 

Judging from the letter you posted from your employers, I would guess that you either work for the Local Authority T.O.P. or a Voluntary Organization primarily funded by them. If this is the case I can understand their difficulty (I worked for local Government for more than 25 years) They are required to have fairly stringent rules governing their employees, particularly within the fields of Education and Social Care, and one of them would be having a permanent address where you can recieve correspondence etc

 

Your problem was telling them that you had no fixed abode, which is interpreted as being homeless, However, you do have a fixed abode which is your boat, it is the boat whioch is mobile, not you. All you really had to tell them was that your contact address had changed and find someone who was willing to receive your mail and either pass it on to you or arrange for you to collect it at regular intervals. You may have to list it as a C/O address but that would be no different to someone boarding in a room someone elses house.

 

I hope that you are able to resolve this one as soon as possible by meeting your employers requirements. I know several people who work for the Local Authority (including Teachers) and live on a boat which they move around. They do not have any problems with their employer because they have a correspondence address.

 

No need for apologies, it's what I and most of my neighbours do & I made a similar suggestion earlier, but I was chastised for this dishonest practice...

 

Unfortunately Tired Old Pirate has no friends who live on land in concrete or brick buildings with postcodes - hard to believe on this overcrowded island I know.

Edited May 18, 2007 by blackrose

[flatplane8]

I'll side step the idealogical discussions, as I can see both sides (have a consulting job with a US company, but live on a boat) and its up to individuals how much they want to tilt at windmills.

 

I use my sisters address, but if that hadn't worked out I was thinking of using these people here http://www.mbe.uk.com/076/index.asp who will enable you to have a land based address to satisfy all those who can't cope without one.

[tired old pirate]

Actually it weeds out the potential problem employees before they become emplyees

A good point, and I think I will learn at interview to ask my next potential employer about their attitude to where I live at interview. Will limit my employment options but it will assist me to weed out the potential problem employers before I become their employee. If they want compliant sheep I'm probably working in the wrong place. Will get an honest job that is more suited to someone with my 'problems'

[carlt]

Actually it weeds out the potential problem employees before they become emplyees

Every sector of society has its 'potential problem employees'. Only an ill informed bigot would single out one sector and tar them all with the same brush.

 

Once upon a time you could do it with race, sex, age and disability. A true bigot can always move on to the next minority and make generalisations.

[Lady Muck]

I don't think you need to limit your employment options at all. You could consider renting a mailbox somewhere? There are ways and means, you don't need to make life difficult for yourself by being as honest as you have been, life is difficult enough anyway, IMO theres nothing wrong with being economical with the truth.

[carlt]

Excellent thinking

 

Now can I have the name of this company so that I never accidentally make the mistake of doing business with you?

Hear hear (though it might boost his business with the BNP)

 

IMO theres nothing wrong with being economical with the truth.

 

There is if you require a CRB check. You will get found out and if you don't then the system is still flawed despite the tightening up, since Soham.

[blackrose]

I don't think you need to limit your employment options at all. You could consider renting a mailbox somewhere? There are ways and means, you don't need to make life difficult for yourself by being as honest as you have been, life is difficult enough anyway, IMO theres nothing wrong with being economical with the truth.

 

I think it's an identity thing. Some people like being victims, it gives them a sense of purpose.

 

(Sorry tired old pirate, it's nothing personal, you've every right to live your life as you wish, but that's just what I think).

Edited May 18, 2007 by blackrose

[tired old pirate]

I think it's an identity thing. Some people like being victims, it gives them a sense of purpose.

 

(Sorry tired old pirate, it's nothing personal, you've every right to live your life as you wish, but that's just what I think).

 

bloody hell your right I've just realised why my whole life is shagged. Next time anyone is passing please piss in my diesel tank or stack pipe as it will cheer me up no end

 

nothing personal?!