Why are we the unemployed people?

The UK Government has said that their think tank has got the numbers wrong for the people that have spent more than 1 year out of work.  It seems they have lost the skills needed to be in a working environment.

As a long term (and I do mean long term) unemployed worker, I agree with this point.  I do not have the skills for employment.  I am "sociably unworkable" to a point where I will now panic over getting a job and have that voice in the back of my mind that I am always doing the wrong thing.  It is not being pro active nor is it being confident in who I am.  It is the fact of being in a working frame of mind to basically live up to the employer and not feeling a failure.  Having this in my mind is as worrying as me going for a job within itself.

So many years ago I attended a program to get me skills for the workplace.  I gained two qualifications.  My confidence went up when I got it.  But I needed another and had to wait 6 months to go back to get that, do the study and make myself get that exam pass for the NVQ.  I got it and tried to look for work.  Nothing happened.  Spent a year looking.  Nothing.  That was in 2001.  By 2002 I was back on this training scheme looking again at advancing myself further in knowledge.  It was then I was sort of made to leave.*  No matter how hard I tried, I could not find a job from that.  In the end I found a job stacking shelves.  But as I did not have the right skills I was dismissed after 2 months.  I could not hold a job.

And you know what?  I still think that.  No matter how many times I go on schemes to help me look for work, write letters or look on the internet at new job leads, I can not find work.  I have gotten to a point where I feel as though any job is not right for me.  My confidence has hit rock bottom.  And I know many others out there will also feel the same way.  And this is by no means a uncommon thing.  There will be many who get into this rut of going to the DWP and then to a place that tells you where to find work.  Basically this "Best" which was bought by "Interserve" is doing the job the DWP do.  This is something that has made unemployed people feel let down by.  Another company being paid to do the job the DWP can already do.

The unemployed do not want to be told how to look for work.  We know we can do that.  But now we have to get other people to tell us what to do now that are not in the civil servant sector?

So we have 3.53% getting work.  It should be 5% but we don't have that from the Government.  So what do we do now?  If these are failing to get unemployed people like me into work, what chance have we got to gain full term and long term employment?  The far right blame the influx of "immigrants" like the Polish and eastern Europeans.  But they are getting away from their own country that has worse prospects than the UK itself.

So what can we do?  We have been failed not only by the coalition  and Mark Hoban MP for employment and pensions has said it isn't.  We don't want spin, we want full, unabashed truth.



*the company "Best" that I was not good enough to be in their training programs and wanted me removed.  Snobbery in a training scheme?  Surely not.

DWP, decisions and the 3 year ban

So today when going to the DWP to say I have done nothing in the last two weeks I enquired about the sanction and if it was lifted.

It is not.

In fact I have another two weeks of nothing and with £35 in my bank and a telephone and internet bill to pay I have as much chance of winning the lottery than getting it back.

So, I will have to put in a appeal. And this is where the problem lies:

The decision of my sanction is done by someone who is not even in this area. It is done in some place like Aberdeen or Glasgow. It is in Scotland, not England as to who the decision is made for to remove their entitlement for money to live on. And as of last week (maybe this week) you can now be sanctioned for no money for 3 years

Three years? THREE YEARS! What happens is they have no employment skills? What happens if someone gets a bit ratty with the DWP and think "Sod it, they are not giving me money so why bother going to sign on." By day 50 and a sanction leads to another and another you could be receiving no money at all for 36 months

Has the coalition Government of the UK gone ape shit or something?

How can they justify themselves with this if you have no qualifications and all you are capable of is sweeping a works floor as your employment prospects are zero. They have made university cost £9,000pa and expect you to work if you need to get a job. Not only would you not end up with no money if the job in your area states that your qualification of brain surgeon is no needed anywhere so you have no relevant skills and the mantra of the school leaver would be him saying all day is
"Do you want fries with that?

Someone said to me that this could be the spark that starts the fire to cause problems for the unemployed.

I do home Cameron and his upper class idiots who are all millionaires will reconsider the position they are putting the unemployed in. At the last count, there are 2.5 million of us. All potential voters and all can vote either in the ballot box or with their feet to cause the same problems that caused the London Riots in 2011.

The days are getting darker for the unemployed and those that are incapable of working.
Dark days indeed.

So for arguing with them they seem to have stopped my money. Now it is one month suspension instead of two.

So as I sit watching BBC4 program about stars in the night sky "We are all stardust". But it is amazing that we are galactic dust but end up getting annoyed by a withholding of money

Was I annoyed?



Yes I am

But as of yet I have had no confirmation in the stopping. So what can I do? I have a chance of a job but it seems no money to feed myself. As a type II diabetic this puts me in a problem which physically I can not be in. I wonder what will happen?

Only time will tell.

So another time with Interserve. Not only was their "meeting" over running as I was supposed to be seen at 9.30am today, but was kept waiting while they all come through and got on with their work. And on their reception sheet for who is seeing whom, it seems the original person was double booked or they put my name in with the last person I saw and not amended it.

So I am stood there after they all come down and go to their desks while reception got full. They all come down and by 9.35am they were ready to start 5 minutes late (which is similar to the last time I was there, they had over run also).

So with that I waited. 9.45am came and I was starting to get annoyed with all of this waiting. The person I was supposed to have seen asked if I was in the area to the receptionist. She confirmed it and carried on with being a receptionist. All this adviser did was to stand in the doorway and look at the receptionist. But as others came in including the mail she had her hands full. It was as though she had some form of telepathy and was able to communicate to others while the adviser stood there acting like a door. Then he turned and walked away to go and talk to others.

So while the receptionist was dealing with other clients and answering the phone, the adviser went off to somewhere else in the building and could not be located.

SERIOUSLY WTF!
If I was their employer I would have that person sacked for not doing their job right. Who walks off to another part of the building and can not be located.

So by 9.50am I had enough. I signed out after telling another adviser to get them to re arrange another appointment.

So when I get back home I get a call.
"Be in for 9am tomorrow Friday 21"

So this could be fun. Lets see what excuses they give.

So that was fun as that interview with Inguis/Best/Interserve went south as it could be



So two weeks ago I should have seen the adviser. She had booked a holiday and left the rest in the lurch. Not only go away for 2 days but fail to notify clients that she was away for a few days.

So with that another appointment booked and off I went.

So yesterday with Interserve my brother went there. Again they failed to notify clients that the person was on holiday for 3 weeks. Maybe it was a short rush holiday but it seems it was spoken to with my brother but it seems to have gone ahead anyway. So a waste of time for him going there. It sort of makes you think that having a company that deals with unemployed people that wasting time is a good thing for them. How making them spend money on buses (of which they are reimbursed double as they pay to get there themselves and paid money for bus fare back along with original bus fare and whatever is left over).

So I go there today and it seems the adviser is running over time. My appointment is 10am. I get seen at 10.20am. So I spent 20 minutes looking at other people go before me. IF there is a half hour slot then stick to that half hour. Don't eat into my allotted time slot for to see them. Either deal with it quickly of finish it another time. This is what they call in traffic management as a shunt effect. A car brakes and sets off the others to brake. It goes like a shock wave down the lane and then causes cars to stop for ages. So when a car 1 mile away is in a jam and then finds it has been for nothing they get angry. Well it is the same here
I get called by the adviser and already I have had enough. I was on the point of leaving with waiting for over 20 minutes in a reception area where if you get more than 6 people in it becomes crowded. So with that I waited. Wasting time as i were.

So when I sat down I get asked that proverbial question "What have you been doing to look for work?" And I say what I have done. Apparently not applying for work over a period of two weeks where there is no real work to do is as bad as me leaving a turd on the throne of the UK. So then I am asked where is my CV? Is it not on the computer? I asked of which the reply was no. I asked why was it not on the server and the answer was that it was not on her machine as it was on someones other machine. Well, could you not have asked for it? After all you have said you did take over other peoples work load so would it not be too difficult to ask if they have a copy of the CV on their files?

Apparently, she had not thought of that. Incompetence I say. It is good to assume you have taken over said caseload and ask for relevant information so you have something to work with. But no, this is not what happened.

Then she says minimum wage. Work on that. Great if you want to work in a shop somewhere that may make you pay out more than you do in travel. Basically it like working for free... No wait, Paying them to work is more like it. All money for rent, food, electric on meters (which cost more than standard meters). All that is done when unemployed. Then you have council tax to pay. More rent to pay the landlord as you are now working. And still you have to work. On minimum wage you are working on the borderline of being unemployed. To get out of the trap you need to be earning at least 20-30 pence more than the £6.08 per hour. At least you are getting something in return and it is not zero hour rate.

So now after that it went south and in the end she felt as though my attitude was not good for employers. So if you went to an interview and waited for 20 minutes, wouldn't you be angry or a bit off edge?
Now she does not want me on her caseload and it has gone to the manager. Fine. Waiting around or not being told when the person is on holiday or not available is fine. Turning up and finding out the non availability of a adviser you are booked to see or run late is really bad manners.

So much for them making me feel welcome.

So over this weekend I get a letter from the DWP stating the "rules" of looking for work.

If I do not do what is told for me to do on this Best/Interserve thing I will have 2 weeks of unemployment deducted. Do something they consider wrong again and it is 4 weeks. Now a leap from 2 weeks up to 4 is not all that much. It seems fair. But a third time and it becomes 26 weeks. THAT IS 6 MONTHS.

So they want you to sign on to get benefits and to get housing paid for. But with you not getting money you end up in debt. That debt will need to be paid for. Only thing to do is to get work on the side as getting benefits while not getting any money is better than living on the streets.

So is it conform of be homeless?

No. Your housing payments are made as long as you sign on. By working minimum wage you then have to pay tax to local council and full benefits if you rent your abode. This does not include food, gas, electric, clothing ETC. If by then you have paid all of that and you are not on a pre payment meter for your provider which costs more than standard tariffs, then you are only better off by £10 per week.

Some people think it is better to be unemployed than to have this type of work and hardly any income at the end for all bills.

The minimum wage in the UK is £6.08 for over the age of 21. Depending on the area you live on the north/south divide then you are either better or worse off than someone doing the same job in a different part of the country.

Is it worth working if you can not have a bit more spending money? And even now it is crunch time with the economy stalling.

What are we to do now?

Some time back I went out on a day trip to find work. I bought a £4.20 day ticket and set off round Pontefract and the five towns area. I even managed to get to Huddersfield which is 20 miles away from Pontefract and the five towns area. Going through Leeds, Morley and parts of Bradford just to see if there is any work anywhere.
I found none and it took a good chunk out of my money allocated to me to find work. I spent the best part of that two weeks with hardly any money to do anything useful, let alone travel to a job interview.



Some days I think about just doing nothing as it is better than actively seeking if spending money more than I have is worth the effort.

The inner thoughts of unemployment

So here I am. Unemployed and in my 40's. This is the way things are in the UK now. The DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) has sub contracted in a way their work load for helping people to find work to outside companies. One of which I attend. The one I attend is run by Best Training. This was bought by Interserve, a large company that does loads of jobs in areas such as cleaning, Aviation and defense contracts including overseas work. Since they have bought out Best Interserve has updated the computers that were basically beyond the joke. It took 5 minutes to load on page from Directgov website. You can look for work and it would take a half hour just to apply for one job. This created despondency in the computer use. It was a running joke for some. Some of these people who really wanted to work for an employer had given up looking. It was as though Best wanted to keep them.
So Interserve update their computers to make it run better. About time. This takeover would net the owners of Best if they cashed in their share of about £2M sterling. They get a healthy profit and their workers get job insecurity. Now that is all well and good but their own computers that they use for diary and appointments is to my adviser at best is "rubbish". For months I went every fortnight after declaring that I had done no work paid or unpaid in the last two weeks. 45 minutes later and less than 600 yards down the road I turn up there. It was a mutual thing that I was happy with.
Now they have changed me over to another person. I was supposed to have a meeting next Tuesday (August 14). That has been put back to Wednesday a week later to August 22nd. This means I have had no contact with Best/Interserve for nearly a month. These are the ones that report to the DWP if I have done enough to look for work. It seems they are the ones not fulfilling their obligation in helping the unemployed looking to get into work by changing times.
Which leads me onto my brother. The changed the times with him from Fridays to Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It was not a concise date that he was being allowed to go in for. So he missed one day and then they report this to the DWP and money is stopped. It is their fault they can not put a time and date correctly in place that is a set standard. Yeah right, says I composing a double negative that is supposed to not exist. They mess up times and not be concise about their allocations and if you miss you suffer with no money.
It is not our failings in the UK that someone decides not to put a standard appointment time down so you have a concise habit and a routine. It is those that have jobs who work with inferior machines of which one of their people said that they have to see clients, upload their Curriculum Vitae from a scanner that is slower than a snail on Valium, bypass the firewall and edit all documents while spending their day dealing with people. Even that person is wanting to get a decent job. If they want a job better than finding people work, what chance do we have on the unemployment line?