Professional at all times...
Yes, it was the last in the series of my favourite televisual trainwreck, the Fairy Jobmother. I'm sure, in these relentlessly tough economic times, she'll be back.
I've made my feelings clear about the show and this final episode clung to that formula I've come to know and hate. There was one difference though, the lady with mental health issues. What can I say; why was she even allowed on the show? Clearly not ready - and yet compelled to wander the streets of Southend with a big sign saying 'I want a job'. Good grief, it's sickening how low Channel 4 will stoop these days. She couldn't cope and left the proceedings part way through, never to be heard from again, not even during the epilogue. Erased out of existence. I also thought that Hayley's attitude could have been better: she's not giving up, she's not having a wobble - she's not well, and that isn't a crime nor is it some symptom of a lacking character or a lack of moral fortitude.
So in conclusion, what else can I say? Well what I will say is that this episode reinforces the idea that a lack of work breeds fecklessness and indolence. Even Sue had to correct Hayley that she, despite her problems, didn't idle her time away. Why continue to protray working in some dull as dishwater minimum wage job (unless that's what you choose to do freely, in which case good luck to you, since choice is what it's all about) as the only valid choice for a decent life?
People have lives; work is only a part of that. Why on earth do we continue to reduce human experience to such bland terms? Just for money? The unemployed (and indeed the employed) could be inspired to be productive in many progressive and elevating ways: art, music, poetry, writing, teaching, crafting. Why are none of these explored? They can elevate culture - they can make money. Yet instead we pay the unemployed a begrudged pittance and then criticise them for not spending every waking moment in such noble activities as cleaning up after other people. That's right Hayley had them using what looked like toothbrushes to clear up graffiti they themselves were not responsible for. Yet working people aren't compelled to participate for the benefit of their community int his way; so what happens if everyone is employed? Who do we get to clear up these messes as it seems we don't care about getting those actually responsible to learn the lesson of clearing up their mess.
I will finish by saying that I'm more convinced than ever that the jobs the clients apply for at the end of the show are clearly not what they seem; whether provided in agreement with Channel 4 or what, I don't know. But the whole thing is staged: jobs that are heavily subscribed by applicants with direct experience (the clients themselves lack). Not only that, but the day afterward they employers all ring straight back to pass on the stage-managed good news, one after the other! How many times have you been contacted the day after an interview to be told the outcome - never mind one after the other in this fashion. So no other candidates to interview, no decision making process. If that isn't clear enough evidence this entire farce is a sham then god help you.
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Friday, 24 June 2011
I hate capitalism
Signing time again. Interestingly, though interestingly not, no problems to report. The stairs remain heavily fortified, but now the Jobcentre is on Twitter. Not a bad idea I suppose, though I wish they'd advertise their jobs properly. Not much to report then.
When I were a lad at school, one popular method of keeping us in line (IE doing our homework) was to warn us thus: 'do you want to end up working in a factory?', as if to suggest that not achieving to the best of our ability would damn us to a life of drudgery. That working in manual labour was to be avoided and scorned. Pretty ridiculous, though I wouldn't want to do that for a living - but those that do shouldn't be made pariahs or paid poorly etc.
How far we have fallen then that the unemployed are then taught the exact opposite.
There is such a moral and emotional aspect to people's view of the unemployed and those on welfare that discussion is impossible. People should be grateful for the opportunity to work in factories, despite being raised to believe the complete opposite. We are taught to aspire to be the best we can be (IE go to university), but when the cold winds of economic fate blow against us we must suddenly reprogram ourselves to the contrary. As if that's even possible.
In 30 years we have gone from aspiring to greatness to an internet age of puritan morality and Victorian workhouse dogma. Unemployment is the fault of the person; a sign of moral weakness. It's not the fault of those in power who refuse to participate in their own game of capitalism buy withholding taxes and undertaking regressive social policy (such as the continued war on drugs). Those least responsible for the economic failings of capitalism and the greed of its high priests are held most accountable; the devil makes work for idle hands and those hands most idle belong to welfare claimants - even if they can't use their hands.
When I were a lad at school, one popular method of keeping us in line (IE doing our homework) was to warn us thus: 'do you want to end up working in a factory?', as if to suggest that not achieving to the best of our ability would damn us to a life of drudgery. That working in manual labour was to be avoided and scorned. Pretty ridiculous, though I wouldn't want to do that for a living - but those that do shouldn't be made pariahs or paid poorly etc.
How far we have fallen then that the unemployed are then taught the exact opposite.
There is such a moral and emotional aspect to people's view of the unemployed and those on welfare that discussion is impossible. People should be grateful for the opportunity to work in factories, despite being raised to believe the complete opposite. We are taught to aspire to be the best we can be (IE go to university), but when the cold winds of economic fate blow against us we must suddenly reprogram ourselves to the contrary. As if that's even possible.
In 30 years we have gone from aspiring to greatness to an internet age of puritan morality and Victorian workhouse dogma. Unemployment is the fault of the person; a sign of moral weakness. It's not the fault of those in power who refuse to participate in their own game of capitalism buy withholding taxes and undertaking regressive social policy (such as the continued war on drugs). Those least responsible for the economic failings of capitalism and the greed of its high priests are held most accountable; the devil makes work for idle hands and those hands most idle belong to welfare claimants - even if they can't use their hands.
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
The Church of Jobology
This post will be a work in progress, for now I want to make this first point in response to the third (and I presume final) episode in the televisual bullshitathon that is the Fairy Jobmother. That point is this: watching Taylor interact with that group of damaged young people/young adults was like watching a scientologist. I bet there'd be mileage in sending Derren Brown in to debunk this as he would NLP.
To ask the question 'how does being unemployed make you feel' seems an innocuous or perhaps even obvious question, but it's deeply pernicious. Not surprisingly none answered as I would, which is to say that I don't really have a problem with it (beyond the propaganda war that brainwashes people into believing that the unemployed are scum with idle hands motivated by the devil). Of course there are issues with being unemployed, but there are issues with most life circumstances. Quite why I should feel bad about myself for being unemployed is beyond me. It's a product of capitalist western society.
So of course the candidates all respond the same 'it makes me feel crap, i can't provide for me bairn' or 'i can't have the nice things the magazines and tv shows tell me i should have'. This is bullshit. It's the sort of knock 'em down psychology cults use ffs. Of course some will think that an extreme reaction, but i think it's extreme to film a conversation with a young man and tease out of him the most deeply personal revelations to an audience of complete strangers, including his sexuality! Where the hell is Taylor qualified to deal with that? (Of coruse behind the scenes there's probably a ton of vetting and setting up of such scenes, she's not a counsellor and they aren't going to chance their arm that the young lad might secretly be self harming or barely able to stop from suicide, for instance.)
She tells us, repeatedly, that the unemployed aren't doing enough; that there are jobs out there if only we'd just make the effort. Then she says 'ooh I know it's hard luv'. That's a mixed message and it hints at the show's fake self help premise. If it's hard then why does the show not portray this? Instead we are shown nothing about the actual reality of finding work or dealing with the harsh labyrinth of despair that is the JC+ and the difficulty some damaged kids have in dealing with the reality of their life experience, which has nothing to do with working and paying taxes!
To ask the question 'how does being unemployed make you feel' seems an innocuous or perhaps even obvious question, but it's deeply pernicious. Not surprisingly none answered as I would, which is to say that I don't really have a problem with it (beyond the propaganda war that brainwashes people into believing that the unemployed are scum with idle hands motivated by the devil). Of course there are issues with being unemployed, but there are issues with most life circumstances. Quite why I should feel bad about myself for being unemployed is beyond me. It's a product of capitalist western society.
So of course the candidates all respond the same 'it makes me feel crap, i can't provide for me bairn' or 'i can't have the nice things the magazines and tv shows tell me i should have'. This is bullshit. It's the sort of knock 'em down psychology cults use ffs. Of course some will think that an extreme reaction, but i think it's extreme to film a conversation with a young man and tease out of him the most deeply personal revelations to an audience of complete strangers, including his sexuality! Where the hell is Taylor qualified to deal with that? (Of coruse behind the scenes there's probably a ton of vetting and setting up of such scenes, she's not a counsellor and they aren't going to chance their arm that the young lad might secretly be self harming or barely able to stop from suicide, for instance.)
She tells us, repeatedly, that the unemployed aren't doing enough; that there are jobs out there if only we'd just make the effort. Then she says 'ooh I know it's hard luv'. That's a mixed message and it hints at the show's fake self help premise. If it's hard then why does the show not portray this? Instead we are shown nothing about the actual reality of finding work or dealing with the harsh labyrinth of despair that is the JC+ and the difficulty some damaged kids have in dealing with the reality of their life experience, which has nothing to do with working and paying taxes!
Thursday, 16 June 2011
The Fairy Jobmatron
On the Guardian site, after the first show of this ridiculous woman's second series I posted this. It's not grammatically sound and I don't really know why I didn't port it over to this blog, but that link presents my vitriol against this ludicrous TV 'show' in all it's grammatically challenged glory.
The second show now confirms to me that Hayley Taylor, in full David Brent guise, is neither an expert in unemployment nor in human contact. How someone can flit from scolding hard faced cow offering tough love as a patronising salve to confidante and councillor in the same camera frame I do not know. I'd be inclined to describe her as almost schizoprhenic. One minute she's giving her 'clients' (in the Hannibal Lecter sense of the word) the willies by talking about how the government plan to make them all work for their benefits while require they still attend their jobsearch responsibilities, then, after one poor girl starts crying, pretends to be here to help with a bit of hand holding. At best it's pop psychology, at worst it's irresponsible ignorance of client emotional issues (which, if you're dealing with the long term unemployed, is probably an important skill).
After that public relations disaster we learn that one of the 'clients' is homeless and, right at the start of their two week 'course' in jobseeking gets a 6 month JSA sanction. The exact reasons why are not explained at all, but what's worse is that this situation, leaving someone penniless and homeless for 6 months, is swept under the carpet very quickly - even the lad himself soon settles into the course routine and his troubles are all but forgotten. He is simply advised to make a claim for hardship payments (JSA less 40% with no guarantee of the claim going through).
What's disturbing here isn't that this isn't believable - in fact this is exactly the sort of thing that's happening right now - but that the case was all but dismissed. I'm highly suspicious not just of how Taylor handled the lad's case, but whether it was real in the first place. Firstly, if that was me I'd be climbing the fucking walls! No money for six months, nowhere to live! So I'm a little suspicious of the lad's (no disrespect to him) albeit shellshocked reaction - it was almost as if it were expected. But worst of all was Taylor's complete ineptitude: here's a very real crisis of the sort very real jobseekers have to face. All she did, aside from present her perennial look of 'well what do you expect, I'm a hard faced cow', was to ring the JC and then hand him the phone to deal with it! No discussion at all. Then he's left to apply for hardship and still attend the course.
Hold on! Isn't this situation and absolutel priority above Taylor's ridicuylous TV career? Why isn't she, if she believes in helping people, pulling out all the stops to get some kind of reprieve or help for the lad? At least that way he can properly focus on the course which otherwise he can't possibly be expected to do, having to worry about where his next meal or bed for the night is going to be found.
Not even a direction to the nearest CAB, posthaste, to get them on the case! Extraordinary.
The rest of the show moves through the predictable, glib and superficial routine established in episode 1. There are some ups and downs. The inevitable clash of personalities - all the more tedious given that ALL such instances are the sole fault of Taylor's bullish attitude. A facile and harmless release of laughter is turned into an episode of officious and pedantic recrimination, blown out of all proportion (ironically! :D). We get the usual 'me time' moment where Taylor is inexplicably invited into one of the client's houses to discuss their patently obvious issues (a young couple, both out of work, with the responsibility of a young child, the mother of whom is emotionally vulnerable).
Sometimes I wonder if this show isn't some kind of sick joke by jaded media types at channel 4, having a laugh, Shirley Ghostman style, at the unemployed.
The last hurdle Taylor's acolytes must surpass before their inexplicable and inevitable workplace interviews (jobs miraculously acquired without explanation from a dwindling marketplace with no explanation of how they were sourced) is to stand in front of the local Church Elders in their sunday best. A tribunal of local bigwigs: mayors, business mavens, i'm sure there's a pastor in there somehwere, and of course...Taylor. The clients, in their best thrift store 'interview clothes' (following a scene where Taylor vets their clothing like some kind of DWP Gok Wan - that'll boost their confidence then!) are presented, one by one, like some bizarre deb ball, to plead their case to society. All of whom say the exact same thing 'I feel i've got something to offer' and all of whom are accepted by the tribunal with grace. Even the young mum manages to get through without a nervous breakdown, how cute. All thanks to Taylor's coaching - of which we see precisely nothing. No exercises in CBT, no therapy or counselling sessions are shown. I guess Taylor must be really good! It's all so convincing.
Then the jobs appear! Vacancies in the local area, such as part time cleaner, apprentice joiner, washer upper in a hotel, are sourced by Taylor without explanation as to where or how. Not once do we even see the clients do any actual job searching. No discussion of how to effectively search or deal with the ridiculous DWP jobsearch engine.
Here's where the show gets utterly bizarre: the jobs, one for each client, are portioned out so that 2 clients apply for each job. This includes the homeless lad who, more than anyone else, needs an income. Nowhere are they encouraged to each apply for all the jobs, to incrase their chances - as is standard DWP policy! Instead the aforementioned is given the most difficult job: the apprentice joiner which has the stiffest competion (80 applicants).
Then we get to see them turn up for their interviews - dressed immaculately in clothes I can only assume the production team forked out for as they weren't the Taylor-approved attire they could afford on JSA. That's not mentioned either. From a back room, Taylor gets to listen in to the interview, turning to camera and offering praise when the client does EXACTLY what she wants them to (handshake offered too high? You don't deserve the job!), or making acerbic criticisms behind their back if they get a little nervous or flustered. It's ghastly and in fact quite nasty.
The final, predictable, end to this charade is that all (except one, Tim, a 50 year old former lab technician and small business owner, the most experienced candidate of all and the most quiet), found work. This isn't surprising, the rest were half Tim's age, even though he comported himself perfectly well during the interviews (to be fair, they all did - though they weren't applying for particularly expert or specialist jobs). Surprise, surprise as to who gets to be an apprentice joiner.
Honestly the show is a joke. As the credits roll we are given a glib status report, though there's no mention of what happens when his apprenticeship ends, or how much he gets paid during (or the standard of the other 80 applicants). I guess so long as it lasts more than 6 months he'll do fine!
The second show now confirms to me that Hayley Taylor, in full David Brent guise, is neither an expert in unemployment nor in human contact. How someone can flit from scolding hard faced cow offering tough love as a patronising salve to confidante and councillor in the same camera frame I do not know. I'd be inclined to describe her as almost schizoprhenic. One minute she's giving her 'clients' (in the Hannibal Lecter sense of the word) the willies by talking about how the government plan to make them all work for their benefits while require they still attend their jobsearch responsibilities, then, after one poor girl starts crying, pretends to be here to help with a bit of hand holding. At best it's pop psychology, at worst it's irresponsible ignorance of client emotional issues (which, if you're dealing with the long term unemployed, is probably an important skill).
After that public relations disaster we learn that one of the 'clients' is homeless and, right at the start of their two week 'course' in jobseeking gets a 6 month JSA sanction. The exact reasons why are not explained at all, but what's worse is that this situation, leaving someone penniless and homeless for 6 months, is swept under the carpet very quickly - even the lad himself soon settles into the course routine and his troubles are all but forgotten. He is simply advised to make a claim for hardship payments (JSA less 40% with no guarantee of the claim going through).
What's disturbing here isn't that this isn't believable - in fact this is exactly the sort of thing that's happening right now - but that the case was all but dismissed. I'm highly suspicious not just of how Taylor handled the lad's case, but whether it was real in the first place. Firstly, if that was me I'd be climbing the fucking walls! No money for six months, nowhere to live! So I'm a little suspicious of the lad's (no disrespect to him) albeit shellshocked reaction - it was almost as if it were expected. But worst of all was Taylor's complete ineptitude: here's a very real crisis of the sort very real jobseekers have to face. All she did, aside from present her perennial look of 'well what do you expect, I'm a hard faced cow', was to ring the JC and then hand him the phone to deal with it! No discussion at all. Then he's left to apply for hardship and still attend the course.
Hold on! Isn't this situation and absolutel priority above Taylor's ridicuylous TV career? Why isn't she, if she believes in helping people, pulling out all the stops to get some kind of reprieve or help for the lad? At least that way he can properly focus on the course which otherwise he can't possibly be expected to do, having to worry about where his next meal or bed for the night is going to be found.
Not even a direction to the nearest CAB, posthaste, to get them on the case! Extraordinary.
The rest of the show moves through the predictable, glib and superficial routine established in episode 1. There are some ups and downs. The inevitable clash of personalities - all the more tedious given that ALL such instances are the sole fault of Taylor's bullish attitude. A facile and harmless release of laughter is turned into an episode of officious and pedantic recrimination, blown out of all proportion (ironically! :D). We get the usual 'me time' moment where Taylor is inexplicably invited into one of the client's houses to discuss their patently obvious issues (a young couple, both out of work, with the responsibility of a young child, the mother of whom is emotionally vulnerable).
Sometimes I wonder if this show isn't some kind of sick joke by jaded media types at channel 4, having a laugh, Shirley Ghostman style, at the unemployed.
The last hurdle Taylor's acolytes must surpass before their inexplicable and inevitable workplace interviews (jobs miraculously acquired without explanation from a dwindling marketplace with no explanation of how they were sourced) is to stand in front of the local Church Elders in their sunday best. A tribunal of local bigwigs: mayors, business mavens, i'm sure there's a pastor in there somehwere, and of course...Taylor. The clients, in their best thrift store 'interview clothes' (following a scene where Taylor vets their clothing like some kind of DWP Gok Wan - that'll boost their confidence then!) are presented, one by one, like some bizarre deb ball, to plead their case to society. All of whom say the exact same thing 'I feel i've got something to offer' and all of whom are accepted by the tribunal with grace. Even the young mum manages to get through without a nervous breakdown, how cute. All thanks to Taylor's coaching - of which we see precisely nothing. No exercises in CBT, no therapy or counselling sessions are shown. I guess Taylor must be really good! It's all so convincing.
Then the jobs appear! Vacancies in the local area, such as part time cleaner, apprentice joiner, washer upper in a hotel, are sourced by Taylor without explanation as to where or how. Not once do we even see the clients do any actual job searching. No discussion of how to effectively search or deal with the ridiculous DWP jobsearch engine.
Here's where the show gets utterly bizarre: the jobs, one for each client, are portioned out so that 2 clients apply for each job. This includes the homeless lad who, more than anyone else, needs an income. Nowhere are they encouraged to each apply for all the jobs, to incrase their chances - as is standard DWP policy! Instead the aforementioned is given the most difficult job: the apprentice joiner which has the stiffest competion (80 applicants).
Then we get to see them turn up for their interviews - dressed immaculately in clothes I can only assume the production team forked out for as they weren't the Taylor-approved attire they could afford on JSA. That's not mentioned either. From a back room, Taylor gets to listen in to the interview, turning to camera and offering praise when the client does EXACTLY what she wants them to (handshake offered too high? You don't deserve the job!), or making acerbic criticisms behind their back if they get a little nervous or flustered. It's ghastly and in fact quite nasty.
The final, predictable, end to this charade is that all (except one, Tim, a 50 year old former lab technician and small business owner, the most experienced candidate of all and the most quiet), found work. This isn't surprising, the rest were half Tim's age, even though he comported himself perfectly well during the interviews (to be fair, they all did - though they weren't applying for particularly expert or specialist jobs). Surprise, surprise as to who gets to be an apprentice joiner.
Honestly the show is a joke. As the credits roll we are given a glib status report, though there's no mention of what happens when his apprenticeship ends, or how much he gets paid during (or the standard of the other 80 applicants). I guess so long as it lasts more than 6 months he'll do fine!
Monday, 13 June 2011
Wallflower
(A song for Lech Walessa by Peter Gabriel).
Five years ago I visited my father in hospital to see him on life support with Pneumonia. When I came back, I heard three local twats shouting abuse at me as they walked by. They didn't know where I'd been; maybe it would have made a difference to their attitude. It's been five years since I discovered there are some where I live that think I'm an alien in a place I'd lived since before they were born. An alien in the sense of being the local oddball - I'm guessing; I've never had the chance to discuss their perceptions with them of course. I'm a figure of fun deserving of mildly cruel nicknames and ridicule. They tell you how to behave, behave as their guest.
Today I visited the GP to help sort out my pursuit for an Asperger's Diagnosis. A convoluted process that will take time. I also explained the stress of dealing with the jobcentre and of the panic attack I had. He said he'd write the Jobcentre a letter. Well that's fine, but what good can it do? The system is the system and unfortunately doctors just don't understand it anymore than JC advisers understand anxiety. Anxiety caused in part by abuse from the ignorant. Now we are facing more ignorance: government ignorance. The colour of anxiety is the same; it is the colour of desperation soon to breed anger.
He doesn't want to sign me onto the sick. That's understandable - who wants to be sick? But it's not motivated out of well meaning in the purest sense, but only in the financial sense. That is, people want what's best for you through the lens of capitalism. If I sign onto the sick my chances of securing work are lessened, while work is the great panacea to a man's weaknesses: his vices, including idleness, fecklessness, worklessness.
So he doesn't help me out of a sense of what's best for me as a human being living on this beautiful world. But as a cog in the relentless wheel of capitalism. He is concerned for my economic worth, not my human worth. That is the greatest tragedy of the sick. We regard sickness benefit as a second class life and why should we? If someone can't work, even for a time while they get the support they need to straighten out, cope and move forward, why should that be less of a life? But it is only thought of as such because people are paid such a pittance on benefits that they can't do much (excepting health related restrictions).
What a stupid way to look at life.
Five years ago I visited my father in hospital to see him on life support with Pneumonia. When I came back, I heard three local twats shouting abuse at me as they walked by. They didn't know where I'd been; maybe it would have made a difference to their attitude. It's been five years since I discovered there are some where I live that think I'm an alien in a place I'd lived since before they were born. An alien in the sense of being the local oddball - I'm guessing; I've never had the chance to discuss their perceptions with them of course. I'm a figure of fun deserving of mildly cruel nicknames and ridicule. They tell you how to behave, behave as their guest.
Today I visited the GP to help sort out my pursuit for an Asperger's Diagnosis. A convoluted process that will take time. I also explained the stress of dealing with the jobcentre and of the panic attack I had. He said he'd write the Jobcentre a letter. Well that's fine, but what good can it do? The system is the system and unfortunately doctors just don't understand it anymore than JC advisers understand anxiety. Anxiety caused in part by abuse from the ignorant. Now we are facing more ignorance: government ignorance. The colour of anxiety is the same; it is the colour of desperation soon to breed anger.
He doesn't want to sign me onto the sick. That's understandable - who wants to be sick? But it's not motivated out of well meaning in the purest sense, but only in the financial sense. That is, people want what's best for you through the lens of capitalism. If I sign onto the sick my chances of securing work are lessened, while work is the great panacea to a man's weaknesses: his vices, including idleness, fecklessness, worklessness.
So he doesn't help me out of a sense of what's best for me as a human being living on this beautiful world. But as a cog in the relentless wheel of capitalism. He is concerned for my economic worth, not my human worth. That is the greatest tragedy of the sick. We regard sickness benefit as a second class life and why should we? If someone can't work, even for a time while they get the support they need to straighten out, cope and move forward, why should that be less of a life? But it is only thought of as such because people are paid such a pittance on benefits that they can't do much (excepting health related restrictions).
What a stupid way to look at life.
Friday, 10 June 2011
Lucky Break
Once again into the breach dear friends.
Actually things didn't turn out too bad at all. The person I saw, after some typical faffing (up the stairs, down the stairs - two security people are required to facilitate one ascension of the stairs), was reasonably helpful and actually took the liberty of taking a copy f the bus timetable for future reference. Such common sense is shocking!
I signed on with minimal fuss, despite feeling compelled to apply for a management job I neither want (i have no desire to run a health food shop) nor can do; it's responsibility I don't crave at all and I can't see how the JC can penalise me for not wanting it.
If only they'd have booked the appointment (I still have to have to see the special adviser at the start of July) properly to begin with. The JC is it's own worst enemy.
Interestingly I overheard another adviser commenting on the rapid reclaim process, which is to say that, apparently, it no longer exists. If this is true and I'm guessing it is that would be disastrous. Given how long it can take to process a new claim, this process, where needed (perhaps you signed off, started a job, but it fizzled out), is 100% necessary. I see absolutely no worth in removing it at all. Watch out.
Actually things didn't turn out too bad at all. The person I saw, after some typical faffing (up the stairs, down the stairs - two security people are required to facilitate one ascension of the stairs), was reasonably helpful and actually took the liberty of taking a copy f the bus timetable for future reference. Such common sense is shocking!
I signed on with minimal fuss, despite feeling compelled to apply for a management job I neither want (i have no desire to run a health food shop) nor can do; it's responsibility I don't crave at all and I can't see how the JC can penalise me for not wanting it.
If only they'd have booked the appointment (I still have to have to see the special adviser at the start of July) properly to begin with. The JC is it's own worst enemy.
Interestingly I overheard another adviser commenting on the rapid reclaim process, which is to say that, apparently, it no longer exists. If this is true and I'm guessing it is that would be disastrous. Given how long it can take to process a new claim, this process, where needed (perhaps you signed off, started a job, but it fizzled out), is 100% necessary. I see absolutely no worth in removing it at all. Watch out.
Thursday, 9 June 2011
Addendum
Just rang the jobcentre about tomorrow. I thought that was the best thing to do. No point messing them around, despite being booked an appointment at a time I can't attend. Can't take the chance of turning up late and being left high and dry as regards money. They've booked me a normal signing for 9-50am wherein I will book a fresh appointment with the 'special adviser'.
That's assuming I don't get dicked around tomorrow morning instead. Maybe it's my anxiety based paranoia talking but I can't help wondering if they will.
Everytime I sign on, and this is the crux of what makes the experience so exquisitely awful, is the knowledge that yet again you must prove your worth. It's like a neverending round of the X Factor - you thought you were safe last week Mr Plums, but no, you've got to bring it this week as well - and this week it's Temp Agency Week!
All the effort you made before, no matter how many jobsearch activities or applications (mainly the former tbh) you did when last you signed don't count. Your effort has reset and you must wow the judges afresh. Not only that, but by this point your pittance has reached bingo fuel and you NEED that money. So all it takes is for the adviser to look over the jobsearch record a moment too long, ask one too many questions about what 'this' activity is or who 'that' person you spoke to is, and it's stress factor 10 again! One little thing you forgot to do and all the rest of it will count for nothing and BOOM no money for you.
(Now this doesn't sound right to me, but that seems to be how they operate. I don't know if legally they are allowed to do that - but, as they say in the ghostbusting business, who are you going to call?)
Remember: don't have nightmares.
That's assuming I don't get dicked around tomorrow morning instead. Maybe it's my anxiety based paranoia talking but I can't help wondering if they will.
Everytime I sign on, and this is the crux of what makes the experience so exquisitely awful, is the knowledge that yet again you must prove your worth. It's like a neverending round of the X Factor - you thought you were safe last week Mr Plums, but no, you've got to bring it this week as well - and this week it's Temp Agency Week!
All the effort you made before, no matter how many jobsearch activities or applications (mainly the former tbh) you did when last you signed don't count. Your effort has reset and you must wow the judges afresh. Not only that, but by this point your pittance has reached bingo fuel and you NEED that money. So all it takes is for the adviser to look over the jobsearch record a moment too long, ask one too many questions about what 'this' activity is or who 'that' person you spoke to is, and it's stress factor 10 again! One little thing you forgot to do and all the rest of it will count for nothing and BOOM no money for you.
(Now this doesn't sound right to me, but that seems to be how they operate. I don't know if legally they are allowed to do that - but, as they say in the ghostbusting business, who are you going to call?)
Remember: don't have nightmares.
The Crack in the Window
Do you wear glasses? I do.
If you do, do you ever get those moments when you have something on the lens, a smear or a scratch or a speck, but it's so close you can't see it yet it obscures your vision. You can feel your eye trying to work around it. That's living in our society.
We know things aren't right.
Our sensibilities cannot correctly perceive the crack in the window, but we know it's there. We know it's there because, but for the ruling elite, consensus would agree its existence and a new pane of glass would be fitted. Fixing those cracks is not in the interests of the government. They are as alien to our experience as that crack is to that window.
Last night i heard Digby Jones, champion of 'Britain PLC' (what a way to traduce a nation), defend tax dodging by taking the act of personal gratuity, tipping, and accusing those that partake in that act as consenting to the same act. I find that reprehensible. But then Jones has form after witnessing him, almost gangland style, verbally 'execute' two unemployed young blokes on Panorama simply for being out of work. In some remote urban location, dressed in an overcoat, I half expected Vinnie Jones to pop out from behind Digby's vast maggot monied girth to shoot the two before disposing the bodies in the canal.
Tomorrow I have to attend a JC+ appointment on what is otherwise my normal signing day with a special adviser having been unemployed for a few months now. The appointment was booked behind my back on a system that has the flexibility of a brick. No consideration of the fact I cannot actually get there until 30 mins later without spending 3 hours sitting on a park bench in a very very empty town. At least if there was a cinema i'd have something to do. There is nothing. Of course they will tell me that I could have spent that time 'jobsearching' - how? They won't say; it's a convenient catch all phrase they use to shift blame.
I could turn up late and possibly get sanctioned, leaving me with £60 to live on...forever. Of course I could turn up and everything could be fine. Or they could kick up a fuss and hit my stress buttons. These days, dealing with the jobcentre (which is why i was on ESA before, dealing with these useless fuckers) is an exercise in anxiety.
I can't deal with their bullshit. My cup is full. I've had their crap before. I signed on a few years back and had problems with the same people who'd promised they could help fund a passport (for identification purposes in our post-911 everyone's a terrorist world). I even had the job centre manager called over one time because it was taking a while to get the form signed properly (it has to be signed by someone qualified, and that someone's wife had just walked out on him). She then proceeded to stand there and berate me, in the open plan environment, for signing on.
"This is a legal document!" She raved "Signing this is an act of fraud because there are loads of jobs, i could get you labouring work without the need for a CSCS card so you are signing that document fraudulently!"
I shit thee not. I had to listen to her accuse me of fraud while doing nothing to back up her bullshit. No jobs were offered at all. I have never committed benefit fraud (or any other kind) in my life. But these people don't care.
In the end they didn't bother to fund a passport. I was told they'd only refund me and that I'd have to fork out the £80 myself. Of course I didn't have it so they didn't bother - as if I would trust them anyway.
If you do, do you ever get those moments when you have something on the lens, a smear or a scratch or a speck, but it's so close you can't see it yet it obscures your vision. You can feel your eye trying to work around it. That's living in our society.
We know things aren't right.
Our sensibilities cannot correctly perceive the crack in the window, but we know it's there. We know it's there because, but for the ruling elite, consensus would agree its existence and a new pane of glass would be fitted. Fixing those cracks is not in the interests of the government. They are as alien to our experience as that crack is to that window.
Last night i heard Digby Jones, champion of 'Britain PLC' (what a way to traduce a nation), defend tax dodging by taking the act of personal gratuity, tipping, and accusing those that partake in that act as consenting to the same act. I find that reprehensible. But then Jones has form after witnessing him, almost gangland style, verbally 'execute' two unemployed young blokes on Panorama simply for being out of work. In some remote urban location, dressed in an overcoat, I half expected Vinnie Jones to pop out from behind Digby's vast maggot monied girth to shoot the two before disposing the bodies in the canal.
Tomorrow I have to attend a JC+ appointment on what is otherwise my normal signing day with a special adviser having been unemployed for a few months now. The appointment was booked behind my back on a system that has the flexibility of a brick. No consideration of the fact I cannot actually get there until 30 mins later without spending 3 hours sitting on a park bench in a very very empty town. At least if there was a cinema i'd have something to do. There is nothing. Of course they will tell me that I could have spent that time 'jobsearching' - how? They won't say; it's a convenient catch all phrase they use to shift blame.
I could turn up late and possibly get sanctioned, leaving me with £60 to live on...forever. Of course I could turn up and everything could be fine. Or they could kick up a fuss and hit my stress buttons. These days, dealing with the jobcentre (which is why i was on ESA before, dealing with these useless fuckers) is an exercise in anxiety.
I can't deal with their bullshit. My cup is full. I've had their crap before. I signed on a few years back and had problems with the same people who'd promised they could help fund a passport (for identification purposes in our post-911 everyone's a terrorist world). I even had the job centre manager called over one time because it was taking a while to get the form signed properly (it has to be signed by someone qualified, and that someone's wife had just walked out on him). She then proceeded to stand there and berate me, in the open plan environment, for signing on.
"This is a legal document!" She raved "Signing this is an act of fraud because there are loads of jobs, i could get you labouring work without the need for a CSCS card so you are signing that document fraudulently!"
I shit thee not. I had to listen to her accuse me of fraud while doing nothing to back up her bullshit. No jobs were offered at all. I have never committed benefit fraud (or any other kind) in my life. But these people don't care.
In the end they didn't bother to fund a passport. I was told they'd only refund me and that I'd have to fork out the £80 myself. Of course I didn't have it so they didn't bother - as if I would trust them anyway.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)