Month: December 2010

Social services jobs are attractive despite hardships

Annie

Social work jobs are difficult and intense at the best of times, leaving a small amount of room for contemplation of the past, and thereby achieving more perspective on the present. However, Brian Dimmock, a principle lecturer in social work at the university of Gloucester, has carried out a project to change that. Recently the Guardian reported on his project to compile more than 50 face-to-face interviews with a range of people in all types of social worker jobs. The interviewees range from very young workers at the initial stages of their careers to older people, who have been in social services jobs for over 40 years; from students in their first jobs, to managers.

The interviews also include a range of workers from various areas of the country. Dimmock’s research took more than four years, and the interviews are unedited, ranging from 20 to 50 minutes long. The main reasons for carrying out this project seem to be to gauge the mood, or level of job satisfaction, amongst social workers, and to see how they see their own profession. Also, the aim was to test whether progress is being made in social work according to the workers, and to see what has changed in 40 years of support work.

One of the outcomes is that people find that the rise of the management culture can frequently be frustrating, since it is perceived to cause a reduction in face-to-face time with the people they are supposed to be able to help. This is accompanied with frustration at a higher level of bureaucracy: the amount of risk assessments, incident forms and other types of paperwork has increased consistently over the past 40 years. However, there were positives to come from the interviews.

The most noticeable of the findings, according to Dimmock, has been that people in social worker jobs have stayed so positive about their professions, despite the many challenges that they face. The profession does seem to suffer from a perception that, to begin with, one starts off idealistic, and ends up becoming ‘world weary’ as a result of the frustration of not being able to make as much of an impact as one had hoped. However, this does not seem to be the case, judging by the people in social work jobs interviewed in Dimmock’s archive. social services jobs still seem to attract people who are motivated to make a genuine difference to people’s lives, and often as a result of their own life experiences.

Please visit http://www.socialworkandcarejobs.com/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.socialworkandcarejobs.com/

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Using payroll services to deal with your financial interests

Charlie

Life as a contractor can be difficult.  Many workers who are employed like this find themselves stuck in a minefield of bureaucracy, without the time to handle the administration of a Limited Company or working on a short contract.  For those in this position, singing up with a contractor umbrella can be the best thing to do, providing peace of mind and complete security.  Similarly, if you want to receive your income in the most hassle-free way possible, it is often worth speaking to a CIS payroll service.  payroll services like these are used by established contractors, sub-contractors, sole traders and partnerships.

If you are a sub-contractor and would like to register on one of these schemes you need to go to the HMRC website.  You will be given a Unique Taxpayer Reference number that will identify you on the revenue and customs system, and will need to send that, as well as your name and National Insurance number, to the company you are keen to register with.  You will be taxed at 20% on this income at source as long as you have a UTR number.  Those without such a number will have tax deducted at 30%.  Contractors working on this basis must typically find their own work and negotiate their own rates.  They will also be required to send off a tax return at the end of the year in order to claim all of the work relate expenses incurred in the course of the year.  You can offset these expenses against the tax paid at source throughout the year.

The Construction Industry Scheme, or CIS, usually applies to contractors and subcontractors who are in mainstream construction work.  The scheme allows a separate company to take on the role of the contractor in terms of administrative tasks associated with the job.  It was set up by HM Revenue and Customs, which explains why those who want to register must first go to the government body.  Some contractors need a contractor umbrella for a few weeks, whereas others will use their services for a number of years.  They tend to offer a lot of flexibility, not necessitating a fixed contract.

Clearly, a contractor umbrella can offer a number of advantages to those working in the construction industry and other relevant areas.  The security of being on a CIS payroll can provide valuable security to those who lack the time or skills to deal with the administrative tasks that come with this kind of work.  Making the most of payroll services can be one of the easiest ways to give yourself peace of mind when it comes to financial matters.

Please visit http://www.liquidfriday.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.liquidfriday.co.uk/

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Phono amp is the missing link between the vinyl age and digital present

Charlie

For the committed audiophile, especially those dedicated to listening to recordings of early 20th century musicians whose recordings may exclusively be available on vinyl, the shiny silver micro CD system in the corner of most modern living-rooms, possibly purchased at an out of town supermarket, is an offence. Suggesting they listen to CDs on an audio system without phono amp or phono preamp, is like asking Raymond Blanc to subsist on a diet of Pot Noodles. In pursuit of the perfect, most authentic sound, these connoisseurs will spend much time and money on the perfect phono stage while the rest of the world looks on confused at their use of a so-called obsolete technology.

Although nowadays only a minority of people under the age of thirty will have bought a record in their time, the ability to record and reproduce sound was so revolutionary that they remained in popular use in one form or another across the span of century from the 1890s right up to the early 1990s.  Once cheap CD players became as affordable as turntables, digital music reproduction became king, but the enthusiasm of those dedicated to ‘authentic’ music recordings is such that the technology behind and the market for turntables, phono stages and cartridges continues to develop at the top end of the audio system market.

Indeed, many purists continue to use vinyl only, suggesting that digital music systems – CDs, and MP3 downloads – give a clinical and processed sound that is inferior to the records of yesterday. Others may want to continue listening to their record collection without shelling out large amounts of money to purchase duplicates in digital format – and, in any case, many LPs may simply not be available on CD. The evolution of music storage has also seen an evolution in marketing and corporate strategy, and smaller parties are not economically worth updating. Consequently, vinyl editions of these artists are unique and irreplaceable.

This does not mean that vinyl cannot be combined with state-of-the-art modern sound equipment, though. You can secure the best of both worlds, linking your turntable to amplifier and speakers via a phono stage. The job of a phono pre-amp is to amplify the signal from your turntable to make it useful to the main amp; thus a phono amp is an indispensable element of listening to your old LPs on modern equipment, helping to keep the past alive without sanitising it with the vagaries of the new digital technology.

Please visit http://www.whestaudio.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.whestaudio.co.uk/

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