Quit yer bitchin’, lube up and get back to work
February 1st, 2005 at 12:29 pm by Preston Taylor HolmesGerman waitress told “go to work as a prostitute or lose your government benefits.”
What, am I supposed to be outraged here?
Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.
The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.
She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her “profile” and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.
Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.
So the short version: Techie waitress gets the sack, refuses to get in the sack.
When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.
“There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry,” said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. “The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits.”
The waitress needs to shut her mouth – er – open her mouth – and get back to work – and here’s why.
First, prostitution is legal in the socialist republic of Germany. Therefore, there is no difference in working as a waitress in a nightclub or as a poon peddler in a brothel. It doesn’t matter what her moral objections may be, all that matters is what the state says. I wonder if she was paying attention when her blessed government was busy passing laws to legalize brothels. She was probably too busy enjoying some other socialist government benefit to pay attention.
Next, she is not being forced into anything. If she wants her glorious government handout, she has to play by their rules. Unfortunately, those rules may entail polishing a knob or two to keep her unemployment benefits, whatever those are. If she doesn’t want her handout, she doesn’t have to play ball. (bad pun intended)
Lastly, she can always leave the damned country if she doesn’t like the revolving handout system they’ve constructed. All she has to do is make a trip to Mexico, cross the Rio Grande into Arizona and the checks just start rolling in. You don’t even have to be a citizen here to get government benefits! It’s truly the land of milk and honey.
Taking all of these things into account, this young lady should think long and hard about her options. If she’s even remotely attractive, she can probably make a killing in the brothel business. That is, unless there are some kind of price controls in place to keep the cost of rim jobs reasonable. In addition to that, it seems that German sex workers have a pretty good union deal going as well, so she won’t even have to worry about those nights when she doesn’t feel like giving her all and her performance slips a bit. So there’s a pretty big upside to taking the job farming mangoo.
She and the rest of her German cohorts may want to consider that this is the kind of thing that will become more and more common as their European Soviet Socialist Community continues to grow and fester like a boil on the ass-end of the continent. Get ready to bow down to the state, and while you’re down there….
February 1st, 2005 at 1:05 pm
And then, she can video-tape the sessions and make more money on the internet – securing her future so she won’t have to be a whore anymore!
February 1st, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Another excellent angle. That way she won’t still be a glory-hole ragamuffin at age 61.
February 1st, 2005 at 2:58 pm
She’s got so many options, why do people always focus on the negative? So she’s got to suck dick for a living instead of working in an office – what’s the real difference?
Blogrolled you by the way.
February 1st, 2005 at 3:02 pm
I wonder is customers get charged a value-added tax for taking the para-pet for a walk. Usually you can get the VAT refunded if you are visiting the country, would that apply there too? Would you fill out the paperwork?
February 3rd, 2005 at 12:15 am
By now you probably heard the story is a hoax, but those comments made me laugh anyway. And so does your tagline at the top. Pretty smart design overall. Congrats.:grin:
February 3rd, 2005 at 8:11 am
Thanks, August. I had not heard the story was a hoax, but even if it was, it made for great blog fodder. At least the original german sex-workers union story was legit. I just wanted to reference the term “glory hole ragamuffin” one more time, really.