HMV and Sympathy

Retail results for Christmas are underwhelming and the high street is on it's knees. This week HMV, which has long been in trouble, and Blockbusters have gone into administration. I suspect that the former, at least, will survive. Ironically the eponymous video GAME retailer, itself in trouble almost this time last year, is considering buying them out. Even more ironically last time I was in town HMV - two doors down from what was Gamestation (now fully rebranded by their parent company GAME) - were advertising their superior trade in offers for video games. How the mighty have fallen?

For several months HMV has been in the danger zone, yet you wouldn't know it to look at them. Their shops gave no indication of problems; nothing was reduced in price, the shelves were not empty and they were even trading in any old cd/dvd for a £ a piece in some bizarre bid to capitalise on the second hand market. End result, they had a bargain rack full of second hand tat no one in their right mind was ever going to buy (certainly not with a CEX round the corner). Their stock was, in fact still is, highly expensive as brand new merchandise goes. Even their second hand video games were dear.

The problem with these shops isn't down to just one thing: it isn't just the recession, though that certainly has exacerbated things. it isn't just the relentless march of the supermarkets, unfettered by regulation or planning considerations or even the will of residents nearby. It isn't just the online market, as many of these shops, certainly HMV, also trade online.

For me the real core of the issue is the inflexibility of head office. The senior people, who no doubt see themselves as experienced retail gurus, think they know what works. They think that what might work in store x, which might be somewhere affluent, will work everywhere. They are not interested in selling stuff off cheap or doing deals with customers. Everything is cross referenced on their computers and if the network says that if a brand new dvd is £15 then come hell or high water that's the price it WILL be sold at. Of course this is then easily undermined by online sales and second hand stores (like the aforementioned and grubby CEX). These people are more interested in making a buck no matter the cost. Sadly it's not them that will pay the price, it's the staff.

Ultimately this period of closures is really just a temporary phase; it's a period of readjustment while bigger players and powers reshuffle the order of the high street. It will further homogenise the makeup of high streets as big players become bigger like the current supermarket chains. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesco has a hand in buying out HMV. 

What we need, and where the answer lies, is in fact the reverse: smaller shops. Independent businesses that give colour to individual high streets and communities. Places that couldn't exist on a bigger scale catering to what the people around them want. Instead of what is frankly an awful shopping experience (unless you like listening to Lady GaGa and are only interested in 'chart' dvd's at premium prices) an independent music or dvd shop would exist to cater to the surrounding market. Not tracking the top 10 nor pandering to trends or fads (like HMV does with it's selection of 'cool' autobiographies and books about bands or banksy). We need to say no to the encroaching big players before we lose everything. Sure I can buy dvd's from Tesco, as well as even books and video games, but Tesco know fuck all about what i want to watch listen to or play and have no real means to properly sell stuff, other than as a loss leader. I don't read Jamie Oliver books, nor do I want to buy Downton Abbey dvd's.

Tea and Sympathy?

That was not as painful as I had anticipated.

But before I got there, and even until I spoke to the person I was to see, the manager, it was terrifying. I stood at the door for a few seconds before entering and felt like i was going to puke up my own beating heart. Even when I stepped inside I could still hear the ominous tones of my favourite adviser, from within the churhc hall itself, fortunately out of sight. I imagined him sat on the stage as some grand overseer, playing pandemonium on a church organ and conducting the affairs of the few jobseekers (presumably) within. 

There was about 5 people in the place, which meant there was no room at all for me, never mind the possibility of having a private discussion. They were sat around laptops connected to the web (so the place at least has Internet access). I couldn't really see what they were browsing, I thought they might all be mind linked to Universal Jobmatch. Once again the environment was totally unsuitable, there's no privacy, no room to do things properly. 

My contact was not present at the time; she had taken another customer to a cafe to speak to them privately as they were having a difficult time, I would discover. At this point I'm starting to really get frustrated now; I'm extremely stressed and the one person that wasn't my awful adviser who was there to help didn't know when she'd be back and couldn't process my bus ticket. Things are not off to a promising start. Fortunately the manager was quick to return. 

I get her to refund my bus ticket, wanting to get that out the way and she offers to take me to the cafe she'd just been to as she agrees there's zero privacy (there's barely room to swing an unemployed cat). While not ideal it's a lot better than that place - and I can be somewhere that awful adviser isn't.

Ok, that's enough scene setting. She sits down and explains to me some of the reasons, from her perspective (how true any of it is is not for me to decide, I have to give her the benefit of the doubt), why things are the way they are. I'm not initially impressed when, predictably, she defends her colleague saying he's one of the best she's working with, though later she concedes he's a 'by the book' kind of guy - you're not kidding.

The reason they are based in a church is because they don't get any funding. I was under the impression there is an initial fee for each customer that gets referred, perhaps that's just not true or not enough to cover costs. Either way this is why they don't have nice offices and have to resort to using their existing facilities, ie Salvation Army church halls. She even agrees that it's far from ideal. I'm getting a small insight into the Work Programme from someone who, I think it's fair to say, isn't 100% happy with how it's working. 

She tells me that they get no help from the Government and an interesting scenario is mentioned: people that are on the Programme that move out of the area are still expected to comply with the Programme - with the people to whom they were referred. There is no transfer system; apparently she's having to stay in touch with people that have moved to the other end of the country and dish out expenses for people getting help now living a couple of hundred miles away in another town altogether! The programme is so ill conceived that it just doesn't accommodate the providers at all. I'm not unsympathetic, since it's us that have to bear the brunt of this massive mess, but I do wonder what they were thinking when they agreed to this contract in the first place? Were they lied to? I don't ask, it didn't seem pertinent and I doubt she'd be in a position to help.

Ultimately she agrees to contact me over the phone once a month, conceding that travelling to such an unsuitable environment isn't in my best interests. Again, now that I'm on ESA, she can be more helpful. It's ridiculous; the government tout this scheme as flexible and completely open to how the provider wants to help their customer. Clearly that's bollocks, complete bollocks: if you're on JSA they have to do certain things (though what those are remains unknown, I hope I never find out). She even admits to having to deal with lots of terrified customers and says she works in another capacity to allay those fears in vulnerable people. In fact when the customer she saw before me was in such a state that dfealing with them in the church hall was also out of the question. 

This is a more positive outcome and to be fair she does seem to be more understanding and genuinely helpful than the person previously. There's no point me going over that situation to her so the best thing is to hope for a new start. How long this will last depends on the ESA process. Again there is nothing the Work Programme can do to help in that regard; they have no medical training of any kind. They cannot refer me to anyone that might be able to help with the issues I face so again that falls back into the purview of my GP. Again this disconnected situation remains, but I don't suppose that's her fault. Again it confirms just how poorly put together and ideologically motivated, at the expense of real help, the Work Programme is. If even the organisations that run it as providers can't get funding to do it properly - and one can certainly question why they are even running it if that's the case - then what hope do the rest of us have. All we can do is make the best of a bad situation.

How I View The Work Programme

Dread, it seems to pervade my life in dealing with this new order. Dreading appointments, dreading being given appointments, dreading travelling to appointments, dreading having to wait an hour in the cold for the next bus home after the appointment, dreading whether my benefit will be stopped, dreading whether i have to do this or that. This is what the DWP brings out in me and it's completely beyond their remit of help and assistance.

I don't feel I can deal with the Salvation Army any more, but I have to. 

The problem is that appointments with my adviser, all 2 of them, do not comprise a meeting of equals in an atmosphere of support and compassion. They consist of suspicion and expectation; they are punitive. It seems beyond them to ask "is this person suffering? does this person need proper help? what can we do?". Instead it's "you are making excuses, why?", it seeks to chastise. 

When I speak to my adviser I don't feel I can be honest and open. He has demonstrated that he isn't interested; when I told him what I was interested in it was thrown back in my face and I was told "that's a long term career goal - we need to focus on your short term career goals". These are terms used without definition but with the assumption their meaning is obvious. In fact short term goals is code for "we are only interested in what your JSAg says, and nothing you can say will change that".He demonstrated he wasn't capable by telling me that his organisation has no training or capability to deal with health matters, whatever they may be. I was told (not asked) that I should have a support worker present, but that's only because it protects him from being held liable by me for anything I might say. However they have to deal with people on ESA (like me, now) that thus have issues.

When speaking I feel that not only do I have to guard myself and watch what I say, lest it trigger some unforeseen bureaucratic consequence, for example saying what is on my JSAg and then finding that's all they are prepared to even consider. I have to anticipate what the adviser is thinking and I have to consider that, because he isn't acting in my best interests, he is working against me. Normally that would sound like rampant paranoia, but the Work Programme is not motivated by getting me into a better and self sufficient place in life with a good career (or whatever), it's about pursuing targets and making money. So as I talk to him I know that, in his mind, that's how he's processing our interaction. That in terms sets me on the defencive with the consequence that I am accused of...being guarded - as if that is only ever a  bad thing. Of course it's not; life is complex and interaction, as this proves, is not always without ulterior motives. Consequently one must have some form of defence mechanism, but even that is not safe from their attention.

I do not believe these people are acting in my best interests, obviously, but more than that I don't believe that can ever change. I think the advisers, being merely part of the system, cannot change their programming. It would be like asking a predator to stop eating meat. Now I have my appointment on Monday and I will have to, I'm assuming, explain myself. I have no doubt that my adviser, having presumably received wind of my complaint, will have said that I'm lazy and that I make excuses.

Therein lies the problem: that will be the default conclusion, because, as I've explained, that's systemically how the Work Programme operates. They claim to have even spoken to the Work Psychologist (which I'm not convinced about, but I have to assume it's true) so they know that there are issues there, yet they are ignored. They tell me that "you're on JSA, we can't help you", that my issues are simply ignored while they wear their 'JSA goggles'. They cannot operate under a paradigm that presumes the customer isn't lying, skiving, or that their problems aren't anything that can't be solved by them applying for jobs on my behalf. At best it subscribes to ridiculous arbeit macht frei notions that only benefit the money makers. 

Watch this video diary from a young graduate, having studied genetics I gather, posted by the Guardian. At the outset he sounds positive; he regards his first experience well. But from that moment on it turns around completely and he soon seems to lose hope. There is a follow up video where he talks about ending up with a diagnosis of, if not akin to, clinical depression! This is a scientist; a person that's studied. Why is he not out curing cancer? Nope, instead the profiteering bureaucracy hired by the government is only interested in 'short term goals'. It will be as much a success, in their eyes, as curing cancer if he ends up stacking shelves like the rest of the country's graduates in some pound shop.

Positive Outcome or Positive Image?

On Twitter, using the Work Programme hashtag, you'll often find various providers advertising their success stories. This is just such a one, from Serco, who are one of the bigger sharks in this swimming pool. 

I can't verify or dispute any aspect of this story. Nor would I seek to denigrate what the subject involved has achieved. That's not the point of this post. If she feels she has been helped and is moving forward then good luck to her. I don't know any of these people involved, nor have I ever dealt with Serco, but I just cannot help but get a negative vibe from reading it.

So we have someone that's been out of work for a while and has apparently got low confidence and self esteem. That's something the Work Programme is very quick to say about its customers. What worries me is that becomes an easy trigger for them; just decide someone needs 'confidence bulding' and you can call in all the weird devices or procedures and bring them to bear. Of course this helps in the process of making them money. 

Perhaps that's just too cynical, but we have a government hell bent on selling the NHS to the likes of Serco. Is it then surprising for the government to cede authority over people's emotional and mental well being? I am extremely wary about the Work Programme being used in this way. Are these advisers trained to help people, or do they just roll their eyes at the bedraggled in the way Hayley Taylor did in her first TV outing on Benefit Busters, when dealing with a single mother on the A4E back to work programme supposedly helping her deal with her massive debts (or the woman she decided had alcohol dependency issues without showing much in the way of compassion nor expertise).

I am greatly concerned about this, and about facing this. These providers are working for profit. They are chasing targets and so they are motivated to get results - but not necessarily in the customer's best interests. Like the government you will be expected to 'be well' by a certain period, or you will likely be seen as faking it or making excuses - in my case 'putting up barrirers'. This doesn't help people, and it certainly wouldn't help me.

"she was very nervous, lacked confidence and struggled to maintain eye contact. She knew she wanted a career in care but had no idea how to pursue her dream."

Could it be that dealing with an complicated cumbersome and overbearing bureacracy has helped create this state of being? Could it be that dealing with the Work Programme exacerbates this? Why is a career in care, something fundamental to a decent society, regarded as a 'dream' as if it were pie in the sky?

"After attending one-to-one support for confidence building with her adviser Rebecca, she then attended a pre employment training session associated with a career in Health and Social Care, as well as application support and interview advice. As a result, Jackie secured a 13-week paid placement as Trainee Health and Social Care Assistant and is delighted with the opportunity."

Sounds great, and if it's working in her best interests then fantastic, but I, again, just can't help being cynical. What does the confidence building constitute? Was the adviser trained in these matters? Is she a properly accredited therapist or counsellor? If so, how does that square with being a Work Programme adviser? It's my experience that such people are not trained in health matters, and were quite happy to admit as much (even though they know full well their remit includes dealing with people that have health problems).

This troubles me greatly: can we really expect to be helped by people working from as biased a standpoint as the Work Programme? It sounds Orwellian to me; confidence building is an easy phrase to use. It's not hard work to just decide to traduce the sum of a person's experiences and issues as requiring 'confidence building'. Then you just stick them on a simple course no doubt full of Fairy Jobmother happy clapper urban guru bollocks, tell them to 'think positively' and everything's hunky dorey. But just as Rebecca the adviser could be dealing with someone who is little more than a bit down in the dumps, she could be dealing with someone that has a history of abuse and trauma. How would she know? Worse, would that be seen as the customer deliberately impeding their 'journey' into work? Care works at it's own pace and cannot be coerced nor compelled by government initiatives or right wing ideology.

"provider continues to offer regular in-work support over the telephone and face-to-face through the Training department within the Adult and Social Care team."

Regular support over the phone? How on earth can that be considered support? Or is it just the adviser keeping tabs on the person to make sure - however covertly - she stays in work for the prescribed time period at least. 6 months of that and they get paid. How on earth do you properly care for someone, which is really what this comes down to (and is something that's in short supply these days), through a phone call - and just who or what is the 'Adult and Social Care Team'? Again it seems very very scary to think that these organisations, which are not like the NHS - a state funded health service not motivated (or shouldn't be) for profit, are giving this kind of service. Doubtless if one questions the efficacy and motivation of such people, as I'm doing right now, one is branded a shirker and is again accused of 'putting up barriers'. That to my mind is reason enough to call it into question.

Personally speaking I'm more than happy to be seen by trained objective professionals from the NHS. I'm not quite so thrilled at the prospect of being serviced by the private sector because of the motivations involved. Are these people answerable in the same way as state social services or NHS care? 

In the end the subject of the article is reportedly doing well so I can't assume otherwise. Maybe this is just one of those cases where the Work Programme has genuinely helped someone - it would be irresponsible and ignorant to assume that no one is being helped. But the statistics say that only a tiny percentage, way less than would be helped by default, are being helped. It's impossible to judge the true nature of this outcome until a few months down the line: will she have found a full career doing something she wants to do, or was it only ever a few months 'experience' dressed up by Serco so this kind of article sells a positive image?

The Cat's Mother

She rang me today. Who's that, your fancy woman? No such luck, I refer of course to the Salvation Army head honcho I will be seeing on Monday. As you can imagine I am looking forward to this appointment wholeheartedly. I can't wait to have a one way conversation with an organisation that doesn't understand, seems institutionally unable to help, and insists on using completely inappropriate facilities. If I'm extra lucky then bully boy adviser, who works at the same venue on the same day, will also be there (I'm not actually sure that isn't going to be the case, but if it is then I'll not be staying). Isn't sarcasm great.

She called to ask me if I was ok with her manager not also being present. Er, what? I don't remember that being part of the deal, Lord Vader! Perhaps then it's just as well he won't be. I saw no point in changing the appointment or arguing the toss either way. 

Maybe I should be more positive about this. Perhaps I will be lucky and this person will actually be more helpful, more compassionate and more able to assist. I simply don't believe it, I'm afraid. What I've seen so far - and they have had 9 months to be helpful - tells me otherwise. As I type the above words about being more compassionate etc I just find myself laughing with a sense of resigned internal despair. It feels like saying 'maybe today I'll win the lottery'. I just don't see it.

The whole programme seems so institutionally inept that I cannot see any good coming from this. The best these providers seem to be able to offer is a facility to spam my CV to whomever they like, or to send me to application form training. My problem isn't one of literacy or a lack of imagination, it's based around the way my mind seems to work. There's about as much chance of them understanding this as there is of the sky turning green. People take one look, hear me talk without slurring my words (too much) or having a massive schizoid episode, and assume that there are NO problems, never mind issues they can't possibly understand.

I don't really get why the Work Programme could not have been delivered by people with an understanding of more than just what a CV might look like (and there's no guarantee they can even get that right). It's just the most basic school leaver level career guidance, possibly topped off with some dodgy corporate sales psychology, and a lesson in 'life is for winners kid!'. There's nothing of substance here, except the money these people make. Yet these advisers all think they are cock of the walk; they think that, because they've been filling in action plans and talking in corporatesspeak and doublethink, they are actually experienced in the pure art of helping people. They aren't. Action plans mean nothing if they don't help people. But it's just so easy to compel us to fill them in on pain of sanction (though, unless the rules have changed, one isn't actually forced to sign the plan - something I'm sure would have gone down well with my adviser had we actually got that far!)

Quids In, Kids Out

Some good news. My claim has been approved. So for now at least I can claim ESA. Now I will have to fill in that ESA50 form and send it to them (at the last minute of course), so I should be good until at least the end of February, depending on how long they take in processing that form and getting back to me about an appointment. Last time they wrote back saying you need to book an appointment within a fortnight of receiving the letter, give or take a couple of days. I would assume that hasn't changed. Don't know when the money will clear into my account, hopefully tomorrow as the letter is dated the 3rd, which is last Thursday. 

So thanks to the people that have written nice things in the course of waiting for all of this. I'm glad it got sorted reasonably quickly, though there really has to be a better system than all of this. The benefit (pre assessment) is no different than what you get on JSA; considering ESA is employment support you'd think the two would be more compatible. I guess that's beyond the wit of the King of Universal Credit, who'd rather dream up an entirely new system and inflict that upon people, untested, during the biggest recession in living memory while the economic system dies on its arse.

Speaking of such matters, I notice that today the media is ablaze with the change to child tax credits. Am I the only one that regards such a clumsy change as more an exercise in propaganda. Do people really care that a few rich people (ironically including the Chancellor) claim a benefit they perhaps don't need? Surely so long as everyone is supported that needs help then what's the problem? No, instead it's more political misdirection; the debate doesn't focus on the injustice of a greedy chancellor who could easily have exercised some self control and not claimed what neither he nor his wife needs. It focuses on the usual hate rhetoric. All I've heard on the radio (the BBC, I should say) is the usual 'people spend their tax credits on booze and fags' or 'people shouldn't have kids they can't afgfgord' or 'people have kids so they can milk the system'. That last one is something I simply don't believe: anyone, if such few people exist, that thinks like that needs help. They are emotionally damaged and deserve help and support, not opprobrium and scorn.

This change isn't about fixing the system and it certainly isn't going to pay off the deficit (blah blah blah). It's another way to divide people. It's easy politics: look at the people that get tax credits that earn 50k - they don't need it. But will that money instead go toward helping people such as I've just mentioned? Of course not, such support is concurrently being chopped down with the axe of austerity. Besides which two parents of a kid can earn just under the threshold and still receive the benefit - and I bet there will still be plenty of George Osbourne's claiming CTC under just such situations; I'm sure his wife will put her affairs in order in such a way as to claim the credit that he clearly thought was his due, despite being a millionaire and a highly paid public servant (though given the attitude of the ruling elite you'd be forgiven for thinking they weren't).

The Bulging Mailbox

This is being recorded live! (No it doesn't make sense.)

Just been for my morning constitutional (to quote an old GP of mine): a walk through the mud after breakfast, in the country and the fresh air. What do I find on my doormat waiting for me: 3 brown envelopes and one white envelope. The latter is from ATOS and I've just opened it; they don't waste any time! I've already been given an ESA50 form to return by the end of this month.

This must mean these other three envelopes contain good news about my ESA claim, though I wince as I'm typing. Never get your hopes up, not with the DWP! Though to be fair, in the past, the processing people have always been decent. It's the rest of them that I've had problems with. Let's find out...oh it's like Christmas all over again!

First envelope contains that p45 the ESA form wanted. Hope that's not a problem otherwise why send it to me!

Second envelope tells me my JSA claim has ended. Ok, I knew that.

God my hands are shaking!

Third envelope tells me...my JSA counts as taxable income.

Er, where's my ESA then? How can ATOS have me as an active claimant, or whatever, and yet I don't even know if I am entitled to the benefit for which they are to test my entitlement? This is ridiculous. How can they have access to a claim that doesn't even exist yet? Will I get some more mail tomorrow? Next week? After the end of January? How can they expect me to fill in this form when I don't even have an open claim.

Fucking hell, anxiety overload!