(From this article on the Guardian website; these are my responses which I also posted on their comments page)
Responsibility. How I hate that word. It's as worthless as the word hero. It's bandied about all the time and used as a way to dismiss opinion and avoid discussion. People are expected to take responsibility for their lives, we are told in some sub-seklf help claptrap fashion. How can people not take responsibility for their lives - they are living them!
What they mean is that people should shut up and get any old job that pays money to George Osbourne so our 'responsible' government of crooks and liars can continue to exploit us.
We need to do away with the loaded language of our times, speak plainly and start building a better future away from this kind of exploitation.
I'm out of work, so therefore I'm irresponsible - especially so if I refuse to take any old job advertised in the jobcentre, no matter how unsuitable, or how miserable it makes me. What price a life? Doesn't matter, I have to be 'responsbile' while means 'paying your way' - another trite catchprhase of the age.
Fuck this. Offer me something meaningful and rewarding to do that betters society and my community, where Im making a real difference for my fellow progressively minded compassionate human beings. Pay me a decent wage for it so that I can pay a good rate of tax and have money left over to put into the economy through the private sector.
That's responsibility. But it seems responsibility is a one way street - it's not the job of the jobcentre/government to help me achieve that goal, that would be a happy by product of looking for work. Hence the expression 'the world doesn't owe you a living'. Well if that's true I don't owe the world anything back.
People on the dole stand on their own two feet in eactly the same way as people earning a wage. the only difference is the source of that income. In fact it could be argued that, by virtue of the pittance the dole pays (and pays under extreme suffrance), the unemployed are standing much more firmly. They have to pay the buills and buy food and clothing etc exactly the same as someone who is waged, but because that money comes from the state (the money comes from sources such as VAT and indirect income taxation paid via the benefit claimant when they spend their money or even when they bank it) somehow the unempliyed are irresponsible. Nonsense. Utter nonsense.
Time to get rid of these outdated puritan values and excise the last vestiges of religious thinking from our morality. The state pays me beneift, I spend that benefit in exactly the same way to meet my needs as the employed, and it goes back into the system. So the real crime, in the western world, is that I'm not wealth generating. So bloody what? I'm a human being, not a banker.
People don't live on their own two feet since the industrialised capitalist machine took over. Division of labour means that everyone, except the most exceptional, skilled or fortunate, are unable to live completely self sufficiently. Even then they would still need to find their own medicine and energy needs. How many working people make their own clothes, medicines, food and supply their own energy to meet the demands of the modern world?
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Friday, 18 March 2011
Signing On
Today was the first time I signed on properly (i have claimed prior).
Got to the reception where I had to hand over my signing booklet to someone that proceeded to give it to one of the signing on advisers. That seemed to be his entire role in the building; concierge to the unemployed. His duties also included telling people to use the job points while they are made to wait.
As part of my agreement i look on the JC website every day, there's nothing their job points can provide, they use the same source. They also don't work properly. Touch screens that are unresponsive coupled with a useless database and location search make them a complete chore. This is coupled with the already crap information jobcentre adverts provide.
When I sit down to sign the adviser doesn't consult my jobsearch or look at my CV, both of which I was told to bring. What's the point then? If i have to engage in these redundant activities, at least check. However I really obkect to havng to show my CV; seriously, it's a private document that only those to whom I give consent are allowed to look. There's fuck all on it, so what's the point. All it does is say i've been claiming ESA due to my inability to cope with the world. WIN!
The Jobseekers Agreement seems solely designed to foist pointless activities on the claimant under the assumption that, because the unemployed are lazy scroungers, they should be held to higher standards than anyone else. Seriously this is ridciuous: people assume that because you don't havge a job the alternative to you obviously spending your days glued to daytime tv you should ring every business, write to every business and comb the yellow pages thoroughly each day every day. Anything else is assumed to be not enough effort. This is absurd; who in paid employment operates that way.
It's a ridiculous standard and not only is it unrealistic is entirely impractical: employers don't want to be bombarded with calls and letters from the same people just because, each time they sign, the adviser tells them to do it. No wonder there's so much competition for each job. Is there not a better way of doing things?
Take a job in Tescos for instance; take two applicants one of whom wants the job muych more than the other (fuck knows why, but that's their decision). Why does the jovcentre exist on the assumption that both should be compelled to apply? Why not give the one vacancy to the one persont that wants it, then help the other do what he guenuinely wants to do likeiwse?
Because it costs money.
Anyway I signed on. In the process I checked with the adviser to make sure they had the right bank details (they did) and discoverd that the first 3 days of your claim are known as Waiting Days. More importantly you can't claim money for these days. No reason why. When i got home I rang the JSA people and found that doesn't apply to me (in spite of what the adviser said, typical) because this is a rapid reclaim from ESA which had already been subkect to waiting days. Some bollocks like that.
Another ridiculous policy from our lords and masters. All stick, no carrot.
Got to the reception where I had to hand over my signing booklet to someone that proceeded to give it to one of the signing on advisers. That seemed to be his entire role in the building; concierge to the unemployed. His duties also included telling people to use the job points while they are made to wait.
As part of my agreement i look on the JC website every day, there's nothing their job points can provide, they use the same source. They also don't work properly. Touch screens that are unresponsive coupled with a useless database and location search make them a complete chore. This is coupled with the already crap information jobcentre adverts provide.
When I sit down to sign the adviser doesn't consult my jobsearch or look at my CV, both of which I was told to bring. What's the point then? If i have to engage in these redundant activities, at least check. However I really obkect to havng to show my CV; seriously, it's a private document that only those to whom I give consent are allowed to look. There's fuck all on it, so what's the point. All it does is say i've been claiming ESA due to my inability to cope with the world. WIN!
The Jobseekers Agreement seems solely designed to foist pointless activities on the claimant under the assumption that, because the unemployed are lazy scroungers, they should be held to higher standards than anyone else. Seriously this is ridciuous: people assume that because you don't havge a job the alternative to you obviously spending your days glued to daytime tv you should ring every business, write to every business and comb the yellow pages thoroughly each day every day. Anything else is assumed to be not enough effort. This is absurd; who in paid employment operates that way.
It's a ridiculous standard and not only is it unrealistic is entirely impractical: employers don't want to be bombarded with calls and letters from the same people just because, each time they sign, the adviser tells them to do it. No wonder there's so much competition for each job. Is there not a better way of doing things?
Take a job in Tescos for instance; take two applicants one of whom wants the job muych more than the other (fuck knows why, but that's their decision). Why does the jovcentre exist on the assumption that both should be compelled to apply? Why not give the one vacancy to the one persont that wants it, then help the other do what he guenuinely wants to do likeiwse?
Because it costs money.
Anyway I signed on. In the process I checked with the adviser to make sure they had the right bank details (they did) and discoverd that the first 3 days of your claim are known as Waiting Days. More importantly you can't claim money for these days. No reason why. When i got home I rang the JSA people and found that doesn't apply to me (in spite of what the adviser said, typical) because this is a rapid reclaim from ESA which had already been subkect to waiting days. Some bollocks like that.
Another ridiculous policy from our lords and masters. All stick, no carrot.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Fuelled by the Daily Fail
I've often wondered how Daily Mail readers function; programmed as they are with such contradictions, as satirised by the brilliant Daily Mail Island.
In Star Trek, ships are powered at warp speed by the collision of matter and antimatter.
In the mind of the Daily Mail reader, it's the collision of matter and doesn't matter that provides energy that keeps them going. Otherwise they'd simply fall down, or start shooting people with guns.
In Star Trek, ships are powered at warp speed by the collision of matter and antimatter.
In the mind of the Daily Mail reader, it's the collision of matter and doesn't matter that provides energy that keeps them going. Otherwise they'd simply fall down, or start shooting people with guns.
The Work Ethic
What a load of bullshit.
We are put on this earth (by shapeshifting lizards, obviously) for our allotted time, during which no one else is going to live our lives for us. So if I have to participate in the great capitalist charade, under the thumb of hypocrits, then at least give me the choice to do something intrinsically good and meaningful with my time.
Call centres don't count.
What is this bollocks about a work ethic - especially when perpetuated by the robber barons that are the greatest spongers in our society. To have moneyed politicians, members of a shady and privileged aristocracy and corporate fraudsters tell me I have to be a good citizen and 'do my bit', or, 'pay my way', or, 'work hard' I think they can fuck off. Especially when they pay themselves nice fat bonuses for running failed banks!
Nothing changes in Britain; the Sheriff of Nottingham never left office.
These people would like to tell you that work is good for the soul; the panacea to all your problems. It's the same argument that compels Tommy to sit in a foxhole in Afghanistan fighting the wars of failed presidents and prime ministers. Where is the glory in this? Do they zealots shooting at them care about their 'hard work', do the Afghani's trying to live their lives inbetween care?
Does the poor fella here trying to find a job think that the rich boys in Westminster or the Square Mile, care that he does find a job (beyond that tax they can take from the pittance he'll get paid?
He'd love any job, apparently. I don't doubt that's true and I'm sure he would take or do anything. But why are people put into a situation where they are so financially desperate or so culturally deprived that they are willing to accept anything - even when the likelihood of them earning a wage that can support them (without recourse to further benefits) is minimal. I'm sure deep down, like everyone, he as aspirations (we live in a society that programs people to want, after all), talents, hopes, goals, dreams, aptitudes and skills. Yet these are never tapped. Why? £££.
Why are we not investing in these people in this way, in people's lives? Why only focus on getting them into any job no matter the cost? Why is that so important? I say it's counter productive. It's easy to say 'go apply to Tescos or lose your JSA' but how does that help society? All it does is inflate Tescos which leads to the rise of big business (at the expense of small business, and therefore of community) creating a cycle - business expands, more jobs. Do we want a nation of shelf stackers? Do we want a nation of people educated only to that level? What's next, St. Tesco's Comprehensive School? A place where peopel are not educated in culture, science, art as well as the fundamentals (price tagging, removing unwanted items from bagging areas), but taught only enough to get these mcJobs!
This is counter productive to society in the long term, and the long term is all that matters. Britain is a wealthy place, don't be fooled by all this deficit nonsense. This debt serves political interests, particularly tory workhouse ideology. If the will was behind the sentiment it would be paid off overnight with at least a proper tightening of the tax rules.
Instead we make people feel the only way they can participate and be welcomed into society is if they are willing to do anything for anything for as little as employers are willing to pay. After all, as Chris Rock says, the minimum wage is the emoployer's way of saying "if I could, I'd pay you less". Unless you are prepared to slog your guts out 24/7 then you aren't working hard enough, and if you are you need to look at your neighbour and say "why aren't you doing more?" Divide and rule, boys and girls; want what your don't have and judge those that have what you want and find them wanting. That's why we have a benefit fraud 'hotline' but not a tax fraud hotline.
I believe we should treat people as individuals and help them into whatever career they want, especially if that career is genuinely helpful and productive and, if possible, elevates society. Why aren't we moving forward? Instead we are stagnating; this is what gives rise to the bitterness in society where people on the NMW look down their nose at people on JSA, which is a wholly ridiculous position.
I believe there is work that can be done that's productive and meaningful; it must be very rewarding to help people for a living, for example. But we can't even get that right, and if someone signed on saying they'd like to train as a social worker or a counsellor for young out of work people, they'd get sent to their local Tescos at best.
We are put on this earth (by shapeshifting lizards, obviously) for our allotted time, during which no one else is going to live our lives for us. So if I have to participate in the great capitalist charade, under the thumb of hypocrits, then at least give me the choice to do something intrinsically good and meaningful with my time.
Call centres don't count.
What is this bollocks about a work ethic - especially when perpetuated by the robber barons that are the greatest spongers in our society. To have moneyed politicians, members of a shady and privileged aristocracy and corporate fraudsters tell me I have to be a good citizen and 'do my bit', or, 'pay my way', or, 'work hard' I think they can fuck off. Especially when they pay themselves nice fat bonuses for running failed banks!
Nothing changes in Britain; the Sheriff of Nottingham never left office.
These people would like to tell you that work is good for the soul; the panacea to all your problems. It's the same argument that compels Tommy to sit in a foxhole in Afghanistan fighting the wars of failed presidents and prime ministers. Where is the glory in this? Do they zealots shooting at them care about their 'hard work', do the Afghani's trying to live their lives inbetween care?
Does the poor fella here trying to find a job think that the rich boys in Westminster or the Square Mile, care that he does find a job (beyond that tax they can take from the pittance he'll get paid?
He'd love any job, apparently. I don't doubt that's true and I'm sure he would take or do anything. But why are people put into a situation where they are so financially desperate or so culturally deprived that they are willing to accept anything - even when the likelihood of them earning a wage that can support them (without recourse to further benefits) is minimal. I'm sure deep down, like everyone, he as aspirations (we live in a society that programs people to want, after all), talents, hopes, goals, dreams, aptitudes and skills. Yet these are never tapped. Why? £££.
Why are we not investing in these people in this way, in people's lives? Why only focus on getting them into any job no matter the cost? Why is that so important? I say it's counter productive. It's easy to say 'go apply to Tescos or lose your JSA' but how does that help society? All it does is inflate Tescos which leads to the rise of big business (at the expense of small business, and therefore of community) creating a cycle - business expands, more jobs. Do we want a nation of shelf stackers? Do we want a nation of people educated only to that level? What's next, St. Tesco's Comprehensive School? A place where peopel are not educated in culture, science, art as well as the fundamentals (price tagging, removing unwanted items from bagging areas), but taught only enough to get these mcJobs!
This is counter productive to society in the long term, and the long term is all that matters. Britain is a wealthy place, don't be fooled by all this deficit nonsense. This debt serves political interests, particularly tory workhouse ideology. If the will was behind the sentiment it would be paid off overnight with at least a proper tightening of the tax rules.
Instead we make people feel the only way they can participate and be welcomed into society is if they are willing to do anything for anything for as little as employers are willing to pay. After all, as Chris Rock says, the minimum wage is the emoployer's way of saying "if I could, I'd pay you less". Unless you are prepared to slog your guts out 24/7 then you aren't working hard enough, and if you are you need to look at your neighbour and say "why aren't you doing more?" Divide and rule, boys and girls; want what your don't have and judge those that have what you want and find them wanting. That's why we have a benefit fraud 'hotline' but not a tax fraud hotline.
I believe we should treat people as individuals and help them into whatever career they want, especially if that career is genuinely helpful and productive and, if possible, elevates society. Why aren't we moving forward? Instead we are stagnating; this is what gives rise to the bitterness in society where people on the NMW look down their nose at people on JSA, which is a wholly ridiculous position.
I believe there is work that can be done that's productive and meaningful; it must be very rewarding to help people for a living, for example. But we can't even get that right, and if someone signed on saying they'd like to train as a social worker or a counsellor for young out of work people, they'd get sent to their local Tescos at best.
Saturday, 5 March 2011
The Scounger's Contract
Also known as the Jobseeker's Agreement, the beating heart of the unemployment system. These are the rules the Jobcentre sets out that must be fulfilled, each fortnight (at first), in order to procure what the CAB calls a 'subsistence income'. In return for doing what you don't have any say in, the state gives you £65 a week.
And you don't have any say in it. It's not an agreement in any ethical sense of the word, unless you consider the choice to go without £65 a week a viable one. I didn't have any say in mine and having looked at it, I wish I did. I'm sure you could try and argue the point but I'm guessing that would be more trouble than it's worth, and I think there are certain requirements that are beyond negotiation.
The problem with the jobcentre is that it's their way or the highway. There is no agreement, no discussion nor any freedom to manuouvre. THey don't, indeed they can't, care. They aren't there to help you find work - they are there to administer this contract and if you fall foul of it your money is immediately stopped for a period. Is this how to help people back to work? There's no training, education, skill provision or anything other than 'here's a list of jobs that people have given us (often badly explained or copy and pasted - stolen - from other sites), apply for them or else'. Everyone that signs on when I sign will then have to apply just the same for all these jobs. End result increased competition for the same few jobs with no effort to moderate the process. Stupid.
My agreement tells me that I must use the local papers each week, use the internet every day (i look at the JC+ website, which is rubbish, every day anyway), and that I must write to and phone two employers a week. What's the point of that? Companies have websites, why waste time making me do something that I can't prove anyway. Letters will be filed in the bin along with the hundreds of other letters from everyone else that's in my position (including people with way more experience than I). Phone calls are just a waste of the employer's time and people looking for staff will direct you to their website.
I'm sure some will think I'm just lazy, but the fact is it's just busy work. There is nothing provided to back up what I have to do. There's no effort to even meet the jobseeker halfway. You do all that's required of you or your money is stopped. That threat is explicit, it's implicit and, like the sword of damocles, it's constantly abocve your head - and they make sure you know it. Can you imagine working in such a toxic environment? In fact, if you do work it would take a hell of a lot for an employer to legally be able to just sack you on the spot. Not so if you're on welfare. One transgression, however minor, is all it takes for the most severe of penalites - the only penalty - to apply.
But I've got health issues. My state of mind is not the state of mind of a hale and healthy jobseeker, but that is the point the jobcentre works from. Every claimant is assumed to be well enough to work - because if they weren't they'd be legitimately claiming ESA of course! That's the logic right there, the fact you are on the sick - plus the fact I failed my WCA - means that I'm not ill and that I don't have problems. Of course no human being transitions from ill to well overnight, like crossing a border.
A fucked up state of mind (though, again, not as fucked up as some, thankfully, though it's not a compeition nor should it become one) means that, for me (and I can only speak for me), things like the Jobseeker's Agreement are more fraught and difficult. Ringing up, writing to, doing this and doing that carries more baggage than it normally should. It feels like I'm being chased by that great big stone that nearly crushed Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark, only there's no way out and I'm slowing down (and it's speeding up). There's an inertia to claiming that increases the longer you sign on that increases the pressure from the system; they start to believe more and more that you are a lazy sod and the conditionality becomes more demanding. Yet there's no interest in helping me with my problems, nor with helping me fidn the right kind of work. I have to tread a fine line in pushing this aspect in case it affects my claim, even though I have a letter from my GP saying 'take it easy'.
There's just no support, nor it seems any interest in offering any. Rules is rules is the rule that rules with the jobcentre and it's a one size fits all approach under constant pain of sanction (ie no more money).
And you don't have any say in it. It's not an agreement in any ethical sense of the word, unless you consider the choice to go without £65 a week a viable one. I didn't have any say in mine and having looked at it, I wish I did. I'm sure you could try and argue the point but I'm guessing that would be more trouble than it's worth, and I think there are certain requirements that are beyond negotiation.
The problem with the jobcentre is that it's their way or the highway. There is no agreement, no discussion nor any freedom to manuouvre. THey don't, indeed they can't, care. They aren't there to help you find work - they are there to administer this contract and if you fall foul of it your money is immediately stopped for a period. Is this how to help people back to work? There's no training, education, skill provision or anything other than 'here's a list of jobs that people have given us (often badly explained or copy and pasted - stolen - from other sites), apply for them or else'. Everyone that signs on when I sign will then have to apply just the same for all these jobs. End result increased competition for the same few jobs with no effort to moderate the process. Stupid.
My agreement tells me that I must use the local papers each week, use the internet every day (i look at the JC+ website, which is rubbish, every day anyway), and that I must write to and phone two employers a week. What's the point of that? Companies have websites, why waste time making me do something that I can't prove anyway. Letters will be filed in the bin along with the hundreds of other letters from everyone else that's in my position (including people with way more experience than I). Phone calls are just a waste of the employer's time and people looking for staff will direct you to their website.
I'm sure some will think I'm just lazy, but the fact is it's just busy work. There is nothing provided to back up what I have to do. There's no effort to even meet the jobseeker halfway. You do all that's required of you or your money is stopped. That threat is explicit, it's implicit and, like the sword of damocles, it's constantly abocve your head - and they make sure you know it. Can you imagine working in such a toxic environment? In fact, if you do work it would take a hell of a lot for an employer to legally be able to just sack you on the spot. Not so if you're on welfare. One transgression, however minor, is all it takes for the most severe of penalites - the only penalty - to apply.
But I've got health issues. My state of mind is not the state of mind of a hale and healthy jobseeker, but that is the point the jobcentre works from. Every claimant is assumed to be well enough to work - because if they weren't they'd be legitimately claiming ESA of course! That's the logic right there, the fact you are on the sick - plus the fact I failed my WCA - means that I'm not ill and that I don't have problems. Of course no human being transitions from ill to well overnight, like crossing a border.
A fucked up state of mind (though, again, not as fucked up as some, thankfully, though it's not a compeition nor should it become one) means that, for me (and I can only speak for me), things like the Jobseeker's Agreement are more fraught and difficult. Ringing up, writing to, doing this and doing that carries more baggage than it normally should. It feels like I'm being chased by that great big stone that nearly crushed Indy in Raiders of the Lost Ark, only there's no way out and I'm slowing down (and it's speeding up). There's an inertia to claiming that increases the longer you sign on that increases the pressure from the system; they start to believe more and more that you are a lazy sod and the conditionality becomes more demanding. Yet there's no interest in helping me with my problems, nor with helping me fidn the right kind of work. I have to tread a fine line in pushing this aspect in case it affects my claim, even though I have a letter from my GP saying 'take it easy'.
There's just no support, nor it seems any interest in offering any. Rules is rules is the rule that rules with the jobcentre and it's a one size fits all approach under constant pain of sanction (ie no more money).
Friday, 4 March 2011
Signing On
Yesterday I made a new claim for JSA, after my ESA ran out in January. Despite being told I should claim immediately, I couldn't cope with going on JSA straight away. Turns out that wasn't an option anyway; the JC website says you must wait at least 1 calendar month. Good job the decision, which came completely out the blue, to terminate my claim (tribunal, I failed the WCA of course) left me with at least a few quid to live on. Not that this woeful welfare system gives a damn.
So today I had my interview at the jobcentre wherein the jobseeker's agreement with the claimant is finalised. Agreement is really the wrong word since it's either a choice to agree to the DWP terms or starve. Even though claimants can and do make every effort to record their 'activities' (of which there must be three per week) the JC still insist that a) you look on their 'job points' when you step into the building (don't bother) and b) that the adviser, when signing you on, looks through the same list on the computer. This is on top of you, the claimant looking on their website (the same list again) at home, daily anyway.
You also have to set out three (the magic number it seems, perhaps there's some ancient mysticism at work that powers the DWP) types of work to apply for. You can't say you'd look for or consider anything. The categories of work are the usual rubbish. It's all motivated by some urge to compel the unemployed into work as soon as possible, whatever the cost. There's no interest in offering training or support to meet individual needs to help them be the best they can be in order to benefit society to the fullest and paying taxes back that way (usually at a higher rate than the Working Tax Credit supported NMW, which seems rather self defeating).
The problem I have (other than being a lazy scrounger) is that I have an anxiety disorder. That's the reason for my ESA claim. The stupid system we have puts me in the position of having to negotiate a search for work, to abide by the rules for JSA, while staving off attempts at being bullied into unsuitable work. Of course the right wing propaganda machine currently in ascendance, thanks to the rabid moralising of the Work and Pensions Secretary, thinks all work is suitable and that work is the great panacea. It's the puritan work ethic. How is someone that has to sacrifice everything that makes them who they are, that gives meaning to their life, going to benefit because they have to work 10 hours a day and a further 2 commuting. What's the point of that? A job at what cost.
I got no sleep last night I've been so stressed out. The beta blockers prescribed me by my GP haven't really helped, and I'm not comfortable with such medication anyway (don't get me wrong I've done what he asked). All this morning and last night my head has been so screwed up. Anxiety problems coupled with what I believe to be a cognitive defect (I'm trying to get tested for Aspergers, or something similar, which is very very difficult), mean i not just focus on stressful issues, like dealing with the jobcentre, but dwelling on them to the point of tunnel vision. The rest of the world just seems unreal during such experiences. The jobcentre doesn't understand this, the system can't deal with this and so it's either pass the dreaded and dreadful ATOS WCA (which would require rigor mortis, it seems), or claim JSA with the implication you can and will do any old job and that your problems are no barrier to this (otherwise you would need to claim ESA again).
There needs to be a third way. I would happily remain on ESA if it meant foregoing the extra you get for passing the WCA - staying at the assessment rate, which also happens to be the same you get on JSA anyway. The idea is that people on ESA get targeted and focused support (at least that's the idea). That sounds much better for someone like me, but in order to reach it you need a far greater, and far more demonstrable, level of problem. For me that's not the case, and there are plenty of others with such levels, far worse than I, who are still not passing the WCA. This system fails at every turn and the fear of being left with no income (which is the consequence of falling foul of our welfare rules) is just terrifying
I'm not here to elicit sympathy or to make myself out to be more ill than I am, but everyone's problems are serious to themselves regardless. It's never objective. I find that I just cannot relate to this society, and this world. Life seems fraught and strange to me. People will say 'life is hard' regardless of whether their actual experience. We have a society where people aren't interested, perhaps not able, in engaging with others in an emotionally mature way. Instead we dismiss one another in a way that's little better than a put down. For instance you might get told when signing on that 'other people manage' in relation to problems such as hypoglycemia (which I have and which means i have to moderate my food intake, regardless of what the conditions of a job and allotted break times might be). But they don't tell you how or offer any means to do so. That way they can set themselves apart from you and they give you permission to fulfil the stereotypes that they have in their head about you as a 'scrounger' - or whatever.
That's what society has become. I'm tired.
So today I had my interview at the jobcentre wherein the jobseeker's agreement with the claimant is finalised. Agreement is really the wrong word since it's either a choice to agree to the DWP terms or starve. Even though claimants can and do make every effort to record their 'activities' (of which there must be three per week) the JC still insist that a) you look on their 'job points' when you step into the building (don't bother) and b) that the adviser, when signing you on, looks through the same list on the computer. This is on top of you, the claimant looking on their website (the same list again) at home, daily anyway.
You also have to set out three (the magic number it seems, perhaps there's some ancient mysticism at work that powers the DWP) types of work to apply for. You can't say you'd look for or consider anything. The categories of work are the usual rubbish. It's all motivated by some urge to compel the unemployed into work as soon as possible, whatever the cost. There's no interest in offering training or support to meet individual needs to help them be the best they can be in order to benefit society to the fullest and paying taxes back that way (usually at a higher rate than the Working Tax Credit supported NMW, which seems rather self defeating).
The problem I have (other than being a lazy scrounger) is that I have an anxiety disorder. That's the reason for my ESA claim. The stupid system we have puts me in the position of having to negotiate a search for work, to abide by the rules for JSA, while staving off attempts at being bullied into unsuitable work. Of course the right wing propaganda machine currently in ascendance, thanks to the rabid moralising of the Work and Pensions Secretary, thinks all work is suitable and that work is the great panacea. It's the puritan work ethic. How is someone that has to sacrifice everything that makes them who they are, that gives meaning to their life, going to benefit because they have to work 10 hours a day and a further 2 commuting. What's the point of that? A job at what cost.
I got no sleep last night I've been so stressed out. The beta blockers prescribed me by my GP haven't really helped, and I'm not comfortable with such medication anyway (don't get me wrong I've done what he asked). All this morning and last night my head has been so screwed up. Anxiety problems coupled with what I believe to be a cognitive defect (I'm trying to get tested for Aspergers, or something similar, which is very very difficult), mean i not just focus on stressful issues, like dealing with the jobcentre, but dwelling on them to the point of tunnel vision. The rest of the world just seems unreal during such experiences. The jobcentre doesn't understand this, the system can't deal with this and so it's either pass the dreaded and dreadful ATOS WCA (which would require rigor mortis, it seems), or claim JSA with the implication you can and will do any old job and that your problems are no barrier to this (otherwise you would need to claim ESA again).
There needs to be a third way. I would happily remain on ESA if it meant foregoing the extra you get for passing the WCA - staying at the assessment rate, which also happens to be the same you get on JSA anyway. The idea is that people on ESA get targeted and focused support (at least that's the idea). That sounds much better for someone like me, but in order to reach it you need a far greater, and far more demonstrable, level of problem. For me that's not the case, and there are plenty of others with such levels, far worse than I, who are still not passing the WCA. This system fails at every turn and the fear of being left with no income (which is the consequence of falling foul of our welfare rules) is just terrifying
I'm not here to elicit sympathy or to make myself out to be more ill than I am, but everyone's problems are serious to themselves regardless. It's never objective. I find that I just cannot relate to this society, and this world. Life seems fraught and strange to me. People will say 'life is hard' regardless of whether their actual experience. We have a society where people aren't interested, perhaps not able, in engaging with others in an emotionally mature way. Instead we dismiss one another in a way that's little better than a put down. For instance you might get told when signing on that 'other people manage' in relation to problems such as hypoglycemia (which I have and which means i have to moderate my food intake, regardless of what the conditions of a job and allotted break times might be). But they don't tell you how or offer any means to do so. That way they can set themselves apart from you and they give you permission to fulfil the stereotypes that they have in their head about you as a 'scrounger' - or whatever.
That's what society has become. I'm tired.
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