| Why Employment Isn’t Just About a Paycheck Lately, I’ve found myself having the same conversation again and again. It never starts formally. It’s usually in passing, sometimes over a cuppa, sometimes by message, sometimes while leaning on a gate or standing in a half-cleared garden. And yet, despite how casual it begins, it almost always leaves a much heavier aftertaste than you’d expect. It usually starts with me saying I’m looking for help. Real help. Not just another body to fill a slot, but someone with practical sense, lived experience, and a grounded understanding of outdoor work. Someone who can read a space, anticipate what needs doing, and take pride in a job done properly. The kind of person who would actually strengthen the business rather than just clock hours. And more often than not, the people who fit that description best are also the people I simply can’t employ. Not because they don’t want to work. In fact, that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. Many people who claim benefits don’t want to be idle or invisible. They want to feel useful. They want to contribute something tangible, stay active, have a reason to get up in the morning, and feel that their skills and experience still have value. For many, work isn’t just about money — it’s about dignity. The problem is that “starting again” doesn’t feel like a fresh start to them. It feels like standing still while someone holds a razor blade against their throat. One wrong move and everything they’ve fought to stabilise can be cut away. The moment our conversation turns from the abstract idea of work to the practicalities — contracts, hours, pay, reliability — the reality of the system looms large. For some people, particularly those tied to disability support or housing vulnerability, taking a job isn’t a gentle step back into employment. It’s a cliff edge. They don’t just risk earning less in the short term. They risk losing the housing priority they’ve waited years for. They risk council tax exemptions that make day-to-day survival possible. They risk support payments that recognise the reality of living with long-term health issues. They risk being pulled back into constant assessments, form-filling, and appointments, all to prove again and again that their situation hasn’t magically improved. And once those protections are gone, there’s often no clear route back. From my side of the fence, this is hard to make peace with. I’m working long hours, taking financial risks, trying to grow something slowly and responsibly. I’m navigating rising costs, unpredictable workloads, and the pressure that comes with stepping into employer mode. I’m doing what we’re encouraged to do: creating work, offering fair pay, and building a business that treats people decently. Yet the system quietly communicates a different message. It tells some of the most capable, reliable, and grounded people I know that accepting my offer could leave them worse off than before. Not just financially, but emotionally and practically too. What makes this especially uncomfortable is that these decisions aren’t lazy or cynical. They’re rational. If you’re responsible for children, if you’ve been waiting years for stable housing, if your health fluctuates in ways that don’t fit neat tick boxes, why would you gamble everything on part-time or insecure work, even when it’s offered with genuine care and good intentions? Saying no isn’t a rejection of work itself — it’s self-preservation. And yet, it still leaves a knot in the stomach. While the welfare system is designed to protect people from risk, it doesn’t eliminate it. It simply relocates it. The uncertainty doesn’t disappear; it gets transferred onto small business owners, sole traders, and anyone trying to build something from the ground up. We carry the frustration of unfilled roles. We absorb the emotional weight of these conversations. We wrestle with a quiet resentment we don’t particularly like about ourselves. There’s a sense of being the mug who’s playing by the rules, while also feeling guilty for even thinking that thought. It’s an uncomfortable place to sit. What strikes me most is how effectively this setup pits people against one another. Employers begin to feel bitter. Claimants feel trapped and defensive. Both sides feel misunderstood, judged, and unheard. Meanwhile, the structure that created these conditions stays largely out of view, as if it’s just the natural order of things rather than a set of choices that could be re-examined. This isn’t about blaming people who rely on support. It’s also not about pretending there aren’t real costs and responsibilities involved in running a welfare system. It’s about acknowledging that somewhere along the line, something has become misaligned. When people who genuinely want to contribute are effectively locked out of doing so, and those trying to offer meaningful work are quietly discouraged, something isn’t working as intended. I don’t have a neat solution to offer. I’m not a policy expert, and I don’t pretend to see the whole picture. I just know that these conversations keep happening, quietly and repeatedly, across the country. In kitchens. In workshops. In gardens. In small businesses that are trying, imperfectly, to grow. Each time they happen, a little more goodwill drains away. Not in a dramatic way, but in small, almost invisible increments. And that, perhaps, is the most worrying part of all. |
A Deeper Look
Earthly Comforts 