So after being inexplicably referred for what is termed an 'intervention' (though I gather all signing appointments anyway are considered such) and waiting extremely nervously for two weeks I get to attend said 'intervention', in place of my normal signing time. This all started because last time the, rather petulant, adviser decided that, because the jobs he called up on his screen were beyond my experience, I needed this intervention. Although it seemed beyond his ability to explain this rather than resort to passive aggressive behaviour, after ignoring tht I'd presented him with a jobsearch in full compliance with my JSAg.
The JCP do not work well when you 'buck' (as they would doubtless see it) their way of doing things. Conversely if you accede to those processes you can, like wu wei, do well - or at least better. Anywho the appointment was relatively painless, mainly for that reason. As a happy coincidence my next signing time coincides with the royal arranged marriage and so I have been 'excused'. Unfortunately I had (or so it felt - dealing with the DWP is like a constant bartering for your very soul) to agree to see their Disability Adviser, though not the same person (and certainly not as bad I hope). So now I have the stress of awaiting a phone call to book me in for yet another visit to the bloody jobcentre. I shall tell her I don't intend to come in before the 13th (my next signing date) and only when I sign.
I'm going to enjoy the next couple of bank holiday weekends and the time inbetween as a holiday and damn the consequences. I doubt she will like that - it goes back to what I said above. They won't understand why I would, in their eyes, be unwilling to receive their benison of help. Too bad, the weather's getting nice, it's Easter (and although not christian I find Easter a pleasingly introspective time), and at least baldie's wedding is another excuse to de-stress. A blessed month away from the bloody DWP is to be welcomed as a fortuitous gift and not squandered on more pointless attendance.
So the appointment didn't really cover much. The problem with the JCP is their inflexibility and their inability to see individual circumstances for what they are. Everyone's different, but they simply see a list of vacancies and assume that a) there are lots of jobs going and b) why aren't i applying for all of them. Well because not every vacancy is suitable - particularly if the employer sets standards I can't meet, such as a level of experience or knowledge (such as software I don't own, have never used and couldn't afford). Last time I asked about training (for the now-pointless ECDL) I was warned that attending would disqualify my claim for JSA. I agreed to apply for a job through an agency, which I don't want. A 6 week office job through an agency I know are a waste of time - like most of these agency jobs. 6 weeks of work I'm not interested in just to appease Gideon Osbourne, 6 weeks of experience for a career I don't want, probably followed by hassle restarting my claim. Not once is there a discussion of help to get a career I might want to do. Instead it's about making your CV look good, or getting 'experience'.
This system is just designed to fail.
Friday, 15 April 2011
Thursday, 7 April 2011
Daytime TV
Hands up who hates Jeremy Kyle!
A sea of hands appears from the masses.
Yes this man, as we all know, and has been discussed ad infitum, is a seething mass of contradiction and bile. A truly appalling hate monkey.
What interests me is the hypocrisy of it all. His show is deeply cynical as it's marketed toward those that he, on an individual basis, uses as targets for his particularly loathsome brand of friendly fire.
What separates the audience (at home and in the studio) from the 'guest' (a hell of a euphemism)? Aren't they the same people? Who stands up in the audience to add to the chorus of studio disapproval if not the same people that appear to receive Mr Kyle's (and his Punch and Judy therapist colleague) help?
It seems to me that the audience of this show are being conditioned to sublimate their own self loathing at a specific target, so as to feel better about their own lives. After all these people have time to watch daytime TV! Here's Dave who regularly cheats on his bedraggled 17yo girlfriend (specifically, the mother of his child), isn't he worse than you. So now you, the unemployed scum watching this rancid soap opera, have an enemy, and as Bill Hicks once said, everyone has to have an enemy. The unemployed are taught to hate each other and ultimately themselves. The Kyle circus allows that to happen with approval and safety by sharing his opinion we can feel validated that we are on the correct side of the moral fence. But it offers no help to the problem of unemployment, social division and the massive issue of wealth distribution this country endures. Nor does it ultimately offer any help to Dave who, having been wound up by Kyle and his audience, will feel more inclined to take his frustration out on his girlfriend again.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
There is a massively pernicious issue with unemployment: society portrays them as feckless and lazy. All too ready and eager to wake up when it's double figures o'clock and crack open a can of lager in time for the afternoon repeat of Kyle's awful show. Then the government and it's Worklessness (it's not even a word ffs!) Tsars (the quasi religious that believe all work is good for the soul, if only people could be disciplined to accept crap wages, long hours and unfulfilling conditions), are justified in condemning their lifestyle. But since the unemployed receive a pittance in handouts to live on what else are they meant to do: catch a taxi to the West End to soak up an opera or a visit to a museum?
Why don't we invest in utilising the skills of the unemployed and not worry about paying them handouts. Why not let them express their skills, such as art or music or (in my case) writing, while unemployed? In fact, introduce a Citizen's Wage and then let people contribute their creative works to, perhaps, a central database that people can access or purchase from to pay for itself. Thereby the artists contribute to the culture of our society (which we can export via the interweb).
So many possibilities, yet this stupid capitalist government wants to do nothing else but kick the ladder from beneath them, having reached the top.
A sea of hands appears from the masses.
Yes this man, as we all know, and has been discussed ad infitum, is a seething mass of contradiction and bile. A truly appalling hate monkey.
What interests me is the hypocrisy of it all. His show is deeply cynical as it's marketed toward those that he, on an individual basis, uses as targets for his particularly loathsome brand of friendly fire.
What separates the audience (at home and in the studio) from the 'guest' (a hell of a euphemism)? Aren't they the same people? Who stands up in the audience to add to the chorus of studio disapproval if not the same people that appear to receive Mr Kyle's (and his Punch and Judy therapist colleague) help?
It seems to me that the audience of this show are being conditioned to sublimate their own self loathing at a specific target, so as to feel better about their own lives. After all these people have time to watch daytime TV! Here's Dave who regularly cheats on his bedraggled 17yo girlfriend (specifically, the mother of his child), isn't he worse than you. So now you, the unemployed scum watching this rancid soap opera, have an enemy, and as Bill Hicks once said, everyone has to have an enemy. The unemployed are taught to hate each other and ultimately themselves. The Kyle circus allows that to happen with approval and safety by sharing his opinion we can feel validated that we are on the correct side of the moral fence. But it offers no help to the problem of unemployment, social division and the massive issue of wealth distribution this country endures. Nor does it ultimately offer any help to Dave who, having been wound up by Kyle and his audience, will feel more inclined to take his frustration out on his girlfriend again.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
There is a massively pernicious issue with unemployment: society portrays them as feckless and lazy. All too ready and eager to wake up when it's double figures o'clock and crack open a can of lager in time for the afternoon repeat of Kyle's awful show. Then the government and it's Worklessness (it's not even a word ffs!) Tsars (the quasi religious that believe all work is good for the soul, if only people could be disciplined to accept crap wages, long hours and unfulfilling conditions), are justified in condemning their lifestyle. But since the unemployed receive a pittance in handouts to live on what else are they meant to do: catch a taxi to the West End to soak up an opera or a visit to a museum?
Why don't we invest in utilising the skills of the unemployed and not worry about paying them handouts. Why not let them express their skills, such as art or music or (in my case) writing, while unemployed? In fact, introduce a Citizen's Wage and then let people contribute their creative works to, perhaps, a central database that people can access or purchase from to pay for itself. Thereby the artists contribute to the culture of our society (which we can export via the interweb).
So many possibilities, yet this stupid capitalist government wants to do nothing else but kick the ladder from beneath them, having reached the top.
Saturday, 2 April 2011
I Have No Words
There is little I can add to the revulsion most decent human beings (where they can be found in these increasingly intolerant times) will feel at this.
How have we come to this?
How does taking someone's ONLY source of income away for 6 months help them do anything but sink into a spiral and fall into the event horizon of criminality? What sense does this make?
Is it even saving money?
People in such dire straits will have to turn to the increasingly beleagured CAB for help. Do our DWP overlords not think that will cost the public purse as well? Of course it will.
However even their support is being financially curtailed by the Coalition that abused the democratic process last May. A government without a mandate steals the election and deprives the country.
Pushing people ever closer to criminality helps the country how exactly?
How have we come to this?
How does taking someone's ONLY source of income away for 6 months help them do anything but sink into a spiral and fall into the event horizon of criminality? What sense does this make?
Is it even saving money?
People in such dire straits will have to turn to the increasingly beleagured CAB for help. Do our DWP overlords not think that will cost the public purse as well? Of course it will.
However even their support is being financially curtailed by the Coalition that abused the democratic process last May. A government without a mandate steals the election and deprives the country.
Pushing people ever closer to criminality helps the country how exactly?
Friday, 1 April 2011
Jobsearch - Read It!
My second signing appointment today, and my first 'difficult' adviser. I say difficult, there was a hint of an attitude. I'm presenting my jobsearch which he decides to pore over in exquisite detail before signing off as (presumably) acceptable. Next an examination of ALL the jobsearch websites I use (which are listed on the jobsearch I've provided). He whips out his Jobcentre Approved List of Jobsearch Websites and asks me to point to EVERY jobsite on that list I've used. I remind him that it's written on the jobsearch UI've provided that he then decides he couldn't read. Well my handwriting is a little flowery, but I'm not offended if you can't read it; just ask me to clarify anything that's unclear. Nope, I get a politely veiled dig at my writing in that 'i'm nervously but arrogantly chuckling as I say this so it's polite' kind of way.
What's the point of going through my jobsearch if you aren't going to pay any attention to it and then proceed to judge me on what I haven't done, even though what I have done is enough by your own rules?
Then begins a rather tedious search on their system for a job. I wonder if that counts toward my jobsearch as I have to go through it every time I sign on.
The process is pathetic: he calls up an arbitrary list of vacancies without any parameter other than one type of job from the triumvirate of tediousness I have to choose as part of my jobseekers agreement. Among these are included jobs in places that are difficult to get to (a point he ignores because it's no problem at all to rely on a confluence of multiple bus journeys in order to get to work on time during rush hour on a busy arterial route). More importantly all the jobs (except one which was so vaguely advertised we both ignored it) required experience.
Then we get to the meat of it.
I can see him start to question my three job 'areas' - my triumvirate of tediousness. This is ridiculous. I have to pick three job types as part of their rules in order to sign on. They also have to be from their approved list of categories (so Footballer, Astronaut, and Writer - which is what I'm aspiring to - are out of the question). Then when you sign on their arbitrary computer search, which is limited at best, forces them to start questioning those choices. So the end result: you are forced to pick three (no more no less, that's the magic number) and then you are criticised because of labour market conditions viewed through the tiny keyhole that is their jopbsearch. No discussion of training, skills, education, opportunity. Nothing; just an increasing level of bureaucratic frustration at the incongruity of 'you picked this as a category, but all these jobs require ex[perience you don't have - DOES NOT COMPUTE'.
This system is a complete farce. You are made to feel as if all this is your fault; labour market conditions, demands of employers, limited choice of job categories, and the DWP system's total inflexibility in helping people.
How does any of this help anyone find work?
What's the point of going through my jobsearch if you aren't going to pay any attention to it and then proceed to judge me on what I haven't done, even though what I have done is enough by your own rules?
Then begins a rather tedious search on their system for a job. I wonder if that counts toward my jobsearch as I have to go through it every time I sign on.
The process is pathetic: he calls up an arbitrary list of vacancies without any parameter other than one type of job from the triumvirate of tediousness I have to choose as part of my jobseekers agreement. Among these are included jobs in places that are difficult to get to (a point he ignores because it's no problem at all to rely on a confluence of multiple bus journeys in order to get to work on time during rush hour on a busy arterial route). More importantly all the jobs (except one which was so vaguely advertised we both ignored it) required experience.
Then we get to the meat of it.
I can see him start to question my three job 'areas' - my triumvirate of tediousness. This is ridiculous. I have to pick three job types as part of their rules in order to sign on. They also have to be from their approved list of categories (so Footballer, Astronaut, and Writer - which is what I'm aspiring to - are out of the question). Then when you sign on their arbitrary computer search, which is limited at best, forces them to start questioning those choices. So the end result: you are forced to pick three (no more no less, that's the magic number) and then you are criticised because of labour market conditions viewed through the tiny keyhole that is their jopbsearch. No discussion of training, skills, education, opportunity. Nothing; just an increasing level of bureaucratic frustration at the incongruity of 'you picked this as a category, but all these jobs require ex[perience you don't have - DOES NOT COMPUTE'.
This system is a complete farce. You are made to feel as if all this is your fault; labour market conditions, demands of employers, limited choice of job categories, and the DWP system's total inflexibility in helping people.
How does any of this help anyone find work?
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