It worked! Unemployed engineer who resorted to sandwich board advertisement by motorway lands a job

By Andrew Levy

An unemployed Briton who resorted to standing at a busy motorway junction advertising for work on a sandwich board has secured a job.

Engineer Jason Fruen, 39, took the drastic action after being made redundant five months ago.

Every day from 5.30am, the father-of-one had been standing for four hours at Junction 9 of the M60 by the huge Trafford Park industrial estate in Manchester, wearing a hoarding advertising his quest.

After his plight was publicised, Mr Fruen received a call inviting him to attend an interview with a firm in Trafford Park. And now his desperate attempts have paid off.

Fast track: Jason Fruen advertises his skills on a sandwich board beside the M60

'I've actually had a company offer me a position. I've had to have an interview and they've offered me a position,' Mr Fruen told BBC Radio 5 Live.

After losing his job as a maintenance engineer last September, he spent just one day there with his sandwich board before he was given a temporary job by the boss of a local company.

‘The guy told me frankly that he didn’t actually have a vacant position but that anyone prepared to do what I was doing deserved a chance,’ said Mr Fruen.

‘He was good enough to give me two and a half months work but last week he said he’d have to let me go.’

So, with a seven-year-old daughter, Cleo, who lives with her mother, and a £627-a-month mortgage to pay on his three-bedroom semi in nearby Little Hulton, he picked up his sandwich board again.

Bad old days: A jobseeker adopts the same strategy in New York during the Great Depression

'In September I was made redundant and I got some seasonal work, a company in Manchester... They give me some work to get me through the Christmas period. That finished on last Friday.

'I got that job using this board and I've used it again.'

Mr Fruen will finalise the terms and conditions of his new job on Monday.

'I think we're going to see a lot more people adopting this way of looking for work,' he said.

'I've still got a mortgage to pay, that's why I was out there doing it. I've still got the cost of living and my bills to pay and I needed a job to do it.'

Mr Fruen's reminder of today's recession had echoes of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

His unashamed stunt is similar to the pre-war unemployed who desperately walked the streets of American cities with signs around their necks appealing for work.

Mr Fruen said the weekly visit to the JobCentre would be nowhere near enough to get himself back into work.

Fast approaching the age of 40, he decided that more drastic action was needed – that he would have to hit the road.

‘People have told me what I’m doing goes back to the 1930s but I hadn’t realised,’ he said. ‘My idea was just to advertise myself to as many people as possible. It’s one
of those needs must things.

‘There are jobs out there but the problem is there’s 50 or 60 people going for each one.’

Often seen waving back to motorists who sound their horns in support, Mr Fruen said yesterday: ‘I’m full of beans every morning and there are little things that keep you going.

‘People toot their horns and give me thumbs up signs and someone came over this morning and gave me a pot of tea and a sandwich.’

He added: ‘I’ve never been one to sign on. It’s just a discipline that I’ve got. And anyway Jobseeker’s Allowance of £60 or £70 a week is no good when you’ve got a mortgage.’

Mr Fruen's attitude has struck a chord with British Chambers of Commerce spokesman Sam Turvey.

He said yesterday: ‘British businesses and workers are having to show a real fighting spirit during this recession.’

Mr Fruen left school at 16 and went to work for a recycling firm where he was given one day off a week and studied for a City & Guilds in engineering.

He has subsequently worked for various firms and had a spell self-employed. Over the past seven years he has maintained high-speed packing machinery, earning more than £20,000 a year.

When he was made redundant last year he had two jobs lined up, again looking after packing machinery, but failed the medicals because he is slightly asthmatic and the job involves working with chemicals.

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Facebook Won't Let You Remove Dead Relative's Page, Per "Policy"

By Ben Popken

UPDATE: Facebook Agrees To Take Down Dead Relative's Page. Facebook thinks it knows better than the sister of the deceased journalist Bill Bemister about what to do with his Facebook page. Stephanie Bemister sent them a copy of his death certificate and asked it get taken down for privacy and respect purposes. Unlike every other single social networking site she dealt with, Facebook said no. They have a better idea. Stephanie's letter inside...

Dear Ben,

It is great that organizations such as yours have such an impact for consumers. Please accept my heartfelt thanks for all you do.

I have a problem which has not been mentioned so far and I have to say I am heartbroken, angry and am lost for words.

My brother, William Bemister, died very suddenly mid November. He lived in Oxford, England. I went to the UK to hold a service for my brother who was divorced and lived on his own. However, if anyone believed he was just another single, and lonely middle-aged man with no friends or family to speak of, this was far from the truth. He was a successful Nazi hunter, Emmy award winning investigative journalist with thousands of contacts all over the world. He was about to start filming his next documentary, 'Admissible Evidence.'

He had a Facebook page. The day before he died he promised me he would accept me on his friends list. We spoke on the phone two, three times a week. And were very close even though thousands of miles apart. Also on his friends list were my two daughters, his nieces. He only knew, personally, three other women, the rest of his friends were strangers he met through Facebook Oxford links.

The dilemma I had was that he had posted a lot of personal information such as phone number, company website, email address. If you have ever lost someone you will appreciate that when someone dies you need to have this information removed quickly for several reasons: for security purposes, to stop strangers incessantly phoning and emailing the deceased and the worst of all, the sheer grief of dealing with hundreds of people who believe he is still alive and need to be informed of his death. It just made sense to remove his membership.

I emailed their 'privacy' division, attached a copy of his death certificate and asked them politely to remove his membership. Facebook refused with the following comment:

"Per our policy for deceased users, we have memorialized this person's account. This removes certain more sensitive information and sets privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or find the person in search. The Wall remains so that friends and family can leave posts in remembrance."

Facebook is the only group social site that has refused to remove his membership. I am sickened by them. My two daughters are heartbroken as his face still remains on their own member's page. They will not delete him off their own pages or we will never know when or how his site will be deleted. There are strangers in his membership list who can write whatever they wish on his Wall and I, his next of kin and sister, cannot even view his page. It is horrible. How can Facebook be so insensitive to the wishes of a deceased member's family? I have never in my life felt so betrayed, angry and sickened.

What do they think they are doing? What if a teen dies for example. Parents are rarely invited onto their child's friends' list. Can you imagine what a parent would feel if they received such an inexplicable email from this company?

I have spoken to a number of advocate groups. They all say the same thing. They have never heard of such a thing, think it's disgraceful and suggest I would probably have more luck writing to Mark Zuckerberg a personal letter. If this issue is not common now, it will become a serious problem in the future as Internet users find that they have no rights over deceased family members.

Please help.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Bemister
Seattle, WA

Wow. Sounds like something a company that thinks it owns its users' content would do. While the policy is surely a well-intentioned "default" move, if the family requests for it to be taken down that request should be honored. If Stephanie is the estate's executor, it's not just ethics, but the law.

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