My complaint:
From the very first phone call I had with my assigned case worker she was standoffish, condescending, rude, and aggressive towards me. No matter how much I tried to work with her, this attitude never ceased. Dealing with her was one of the most emotionally and psychologically draining experiences I have had with a Government agency. She’s a very rude, jaded individual that seems to think everyone that contacts Alberta Works is just human garbage that doesn’t deserve any respect. At least, that’s the impression she gave me, and has never done anything to change that impression.
So after dealing with her awful attitude towards me, not to mention the anxiety, stress, and depression she consistently added to my life, I was forwarded to the Calgary Employment HUB component of Alberta Works. I was assigned a career worker, and at first it seemed much better. He seemed genuinely interested in helping me get my feet on the ground, and get things sorted. He seemed a bit flustered and maybe a little swamped, but genuinely interested in helping me. We created a service plan, which was somehow supposed to help me get a job I guess? But really, it was just a list of things I am already doing anyway.
On top of that, communication with this gentleman has been atrocious; he gives you half the information you need, then expects you to read his mind on what to do next. An example of this was him telling me a particular resume wasn’t good enough, then expected me to change it. When requesting what precisely was bad about it, he claimed he already told me what to do to change it on the phone, and he may even believe he DID in fact tell me that, but no such instruction was ever given. He seems to communicate in these odd half-thoughts without giving you all the information you need.
Dealing with this organization has been a nightmare from the first; they do not serve Albertans. They psychologically torture, insult, degrade, and disrespected me from the first, and for what? To fill their quota of people kicked off their services?
There is so much more I could get into; but the general gist is that this organization’s case workers are insulting, disrespectful, aggressive, rude, and treat their clients like human garbage. I am an IT technician with over 20 years of working in the industry, I am awake at 6am every day job hunting, and only in the past 10 or so years have I even accessed this organizations services over the course of my 40 year life. Yet I am a horrible, lazy person, with no motivation to do anything apparently.
The prejudice, disrespect, and toxic attitudes are just breathtakingly horrible. This whole organization needs to be eliminated and replaced.
Suggested solution:
Unfortunately, I'm not sure they can. It seems to me that Alberta Works is toxic and rotten from the core based on all my previous experiences with these individuals.
At a bare minimum, ALL of their case workers should have sensitivity and respect training. Their out-dated policies and practices updated for the modern job market. There are so many problems with this organization, they need to be reassessed and rebuilt from the ground up.
