Posts Tagged ‘oxfam’
New job
I went to my new job today for the first time at DJ News, Crookes. It’s a newsagent, as you may have guessed – an excellent choice for me as I love newspapers. It’s a very nice environment to work in, even if I am selling cigarettes. The job has a number of differences from Oxfam but otherwise it is mostly the same thing: selling things and being friendly, both of which are important. In terms of the work the main difference is the intensive start up involving organising the delivered papers, and I also have to keep a closer eye on the stock. Once this period is over however it becomes quieter and as normal. The nice thing is that there is a lot greater chance of getting to know regulars in such a small shop. The other differences from Oxfam that I am very happy with are the fact I am allowed to read the papers which is great as I can get different viewpoints from the different prints, the important point being that I keep them uncreased and saleable. Oxfam is very strict about not reading or similar on the till in order to guard against shoplifting which is a serious issue. DJ News is a lot smaller. The idea of all of this is mainly to contribute to University, and have a bit more money myself.
This also means that I have very limited time for Oxfam as it is not open on a Sunday. I have to do it after DJs, so that is finishing at 12, going home for lunch and then arriving at Oxfam at 1. The day is then 6:30 in the morning to 5:45 approx in the evening, which makes for a very long day on a Saturday, and I have no choice unless I give up one to do this all through term time (in the holiday I can move Oxfam to a different day). It seems somehow wrong to give up a voluntary job for work I don’t *need* to do for myself. But, that is the way it goes. I’m sure I’ll get used to it 
I also have a huge e-mail backlog. What a fun day I will have tomorrow.
General prejudice or tribalism?
In Oxfam today I was charged with supervising a new(ish) volunteer on the till, which was needed for my experience with unusual stuff such as Oxfam Unwrapped and he got into a conversation with a regular customer that I was listening to. Apparently she had recognised his accent and they got talking about where they both came from in Durham, sharing memories etc. So far, so good. However, then they moved on to discuss Sheffield where the new volunteer is at University, and at this point things started to go downhill. The customer said that a friend of hers involved in the security services(?) had said that Sheffield was sinking into underground terrorism that the vast majority of people had no idea about. He had told her that the best advice was to “get out now”. While I thought it was probably pointless rumours (I heard “sex gangs” mentioned amongst other things) as terrorist cells are likely to be in every major city by now, I didn’t exactly think anything of it.
However, the conversation then changed. The customer (who had already lowered her voice to begin this section of the conversation about terrorism in Sheffield) then inferred a sweeping generalisation about followers of Islam, noting that ‘they’ had now got a Mosque in the centre of Sheffield (it’s a very impressive building that has been put up recently) and that this was going to make things worse. She moved on to say that this would apparently never happen in Durham, because the locals ‘wouldn’t stand for it’ because Christianity, being a vital part of the community, was important for tourism and that it would kill the area. This conversation was shocking. Terrorism is appaling and it makes sense to be concerned (even if I personally am not really too worried), but suggesting a link with the entiriety of Islam? I was sickened.
This is where I come to the title of this post in an attempt to question the reasons behind this event. This person was, as I said, a regular: she had made provisions to repair some specialised donations (sending some expensive dolls to a dolls’ hospital), really helping Oxfam – this made it more surprising to me. The point I am trying to get at is that based on her comments about Durham I am unsure of whether she is against Islam or Islamic people (bunching together religion and ethinicity) moving to live in Britain. The former would be prejudice or ignorance as she is making the assumption that all or the majority of Muslims support Islam as this is simply not true, and the latter I could excuse as tribalism, simply wanting to maintain the area’s current population and not allow other groups in. I have begun to observe the latter a lot more in recent times, meaning you have people who are totally not racist or religiously intolerant but who want to keep the communities seperate. “Sure, great religion – go live over there, and we can have the occasional visits to each other” would be a summing up of their point of view.
How on earth can we tackle this view? One can understand and accept actual negativity caused by job losses and language barriers, but multiculturalism is important. We must make it work as a society, otherwise war will always rear its head.
On a side note, SilentFlame is donating to charity at last. I forgot to take the £30 I had ready in to Oxfam today though.
Oxfam
I signed up for a voluntary job at Oxfam on Tuesday and have just
arrived back from my first session, and it was great! I brought and
application with a couple of references and then got started almost
immeadiately. First, I was shown round the rather large shop in
Broomhill, Sheffield, and I was given a health and safety induction.
My first job, along with another boy who had joined, was to take a
large group of donated items downstairs using the old fashioned
industrial lift. We carried them in but it was a bit of a sqeeze – the
other boy Tom decided to take the stairs while I manned the lift. It
was rather difficult to get the doors shut with all the stuff present
but I did it, and then travelled down into the basement, where the hub
of the operation was located. This did not go smoothly – I hit the
button, waited until I felt I’d stopped, and opened the door to a
brick wall. Eventually however I arrived and we began sorting the
stuff.
Shortly afterwards I was introduced to the till and how to work it. I
then operated this for some time with someone keeping an eye on me,
and eventually was left to it for about an hour, serving customers.
Then I signed off the morning shift, counted and organised the money,
and then left. I can’t wait until next week!