(no subject)

[dakegra]

Sooo, the Jobcentre. Or 'Jobcentre Plus', as it appears to be calling itself these days.

Plus what, I'm not entirely sure.

I rolled up at about ten to nine for my 9am appointment, only to discover that they didn't open until 9am anway. Oh well. Queued with everyone else to get in, then queued again to be handed a pack which I was instructed to hand in upstairs.

Oh, and fill this form in, read and sign this one, go upstairs.

Righto.

Upstairs I went, ticked all the little boxes to say that yes, I was able to work, and yes, I was looking for work, and yes, my CV was fine, thankyouverymuch.

Sat around for twenty minutes whilst the staff sorted out their mugs of tea, had a bit of a chat, then spoke to a nice lady about my claim. She photocopied various things, we discussed what I had to do to be eligible for the money (do at least three things a week to look for work), chatted about how I'd done more than those three things whilst sat waiting this morning, signed various documents and trundled out.

Realised that my sign-on time is monday at 2:30pm, which is hugely inconvenient in terms of picking LB up from school, so phoned back to ask for an earlier/different appointment.

Hmm. *that* went down well.

I now have to turn up earlier on monday and see if they have any other appointments that day.

Could I not, perhaps, arrange this by phone?

No.

So I could turn up at 9am only to find out the only available appointment is at noon?

Yes.

Could you not check to see if there is another one that day? What happens if I turn up at 9am only to find out that there are *no* other appointments?

*sigh*

Someone give us a job?

Comments

[ciciaye.livejournal.com]

Just wait till they start nagging you about 'Help with your CV' and/or 'Interview Technique Practice' in a 'everyone unemployed must be completely thick' sort of way...

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

My time is just before lunch... They're all thinking with their bellies at that time...

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

how hard can it be to change an appointment? It was like I was asking for the spleen of their firstborn

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

This.

It only gets worse from here.

Pick two jobs from the job points every time you sign and show your advisor, even though they're all jobs in pawn shops/Greggs/Phones4U/Falkirk. Do pointless courses for the terminally stupid. Get bollocked for not considering a job that is four buses away and starts at 5.30AM. Sit around and wait two hours while the person whose appointment was ten minutes before yours finally stops kicking off. After three months, come in on a completely different day at a completely inconvenient time and get bollocked for not having a job yet. Three months after that, bye bye money as you have a partner but they want you to come along anyway.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

The cvnts who work there are former long-term unemployed themselves. The only pleasure they get is in making it even worse for you.

[ciciaye.livejournal.com]

Do pointless courses for the terminally stupid

On the bus to work yesterday I met someone I used to work with, a lovely lady who used to be the accountant where I work but left due to stress. Now claiming JSA, I think, and hasn't found a job over a year later, she's been asked to go a place in the city centre that does courses for people claiming JSA. She seems to be keeping an open mind, but it sounds like they were asking her things like 'Are your Maths and English okay?' Yes, of course they are, she was an accountant!
It reminds me of the times I've been advised to go on 'computer literacy' courses, which would invariably be full of stuff I learnt a good fifteen years ago or so.
The trouble is, they're trained to deal with the terminally stupid, and often have little comprehension that anyone unemployed has plenty of brains/experience/skills already.

[lebeautemps.livejournal.com]

They wanted to give me a basic literacy test, despite acknowledging that I have two degrees. I saw other people in there getting left in the lurch - a cheque issued with a small spelling mistake in the payee..."That will take two weeks to re-do" said the Job Centre Booth Lady. "Two weeks?" said the claimant. "But how am I supposed to feed my children/live in the meantime?" "Not my problem" said JCB Lady.
How prevalent is depression with the unemployed? How much of that is just how infuriating and humiliating the system is? I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. OK, I would. Its worse than amoebic dysentry, FFS.

[caitirin.livejournal.com]

The trouble is, they're trained to deal with the terminally stupid, and often have little comprehension that anyone unemployed has plenty of brains/experience/skills already.

Seriously! Gawd that sounds SO annoying!

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Oh, they don't like change!

[jugglebug.livejournal.com]

job centre staff cannot cope with much that doesn't fin on the flowchart.
When I graduated with no means of supporting myself for 2 months before my job started I had a whale of a time.
"Do you have any qualifications?"

erm yes I am a qualified dentist.

headless chicken mode...

Now if I had said 3 gcse's grade f then I would have fitted in somewhere, but I didnt

[missprinty.livejournal.com]

But, but, but sign-in times are set in stone, surely you knew that! Or rather, you wish that the jobe centre plus (the plus is despair, surely) employee were set in stone, or maybe several tons of concrete under a new flyover.

Particularly memorable was the chap who interviewed me with one hand down his pants the whole time. Leaning back on the two back legs of his chair, the better for me to see it. I was aghast, actually too shocked for words, thus rendered about as articulate as the average claimant. He had a real seventies moustache, and would have fitted well into "Life on Mars"