Life on the bench: in my dressing gown

[suityou01]

Not yet...

Will be January now I reckon. The entire SY01 clan will keep everything firmly crossed and be thinking of you over the season's festivities.

[Coalman]

Good Luck RC.

Hope it all happens quickly and not whilst you're on the cruise!

[Pogle]

OH good luck - will keep everything crossed

[RichardCranium]

Hope it all happens quickly and not whilst you're on the cruise!

Not likely. That was last spring!

Anyway, since getting back home I've caught up on my email, applied for 8 gigs / jobs and left lots of messages on lots of agency answerphones.

I've also left all the washing, washing up and unpacking to the good lady wife because I have a streaming head cold. Dripping and sneezing and coughing and everything.

But never mind that now. Down to some serious benchee-now-off-duty activity and some real-ale healthy goodness. And not from some pub measuring thingie either!

[NickFitz]

Welcome back RC

Hope you had a good time at Butlins (apart from the cold)

[RichardCranium]

New Year. Same bench. New bums. Same state.

Hey ho. Such is life.

Just four applications so far this year but already two have been rejected.

But more importantly, I have caught up with my job-related email for the first time in ages. Over 500 emails read and actioned or deleted over the past two days. What a task that was!

[RichardCranium]

Signing on day tomorrow.

If they're not impressed with how much gig-seeking I have done since 23/12/2009, I'll kick them in the knackers.

Alternatively, I'll walk up there and find the Job Centre closed "Due to the terrible weather we're supposedly having elsewhere".

[RichardCranium]

The Job Centre was open, sadly.

Today they demanded my B7.

Me: "B7? Wossat?"

Cow: "The form you should have been filling in and bringing when you sign on."

Me: "What - this one [details of job seeking]?"

Cow: "No, the B7. <sigh> The B7 is the one that says how many hours you worked last fortnight."

Me: "But I'm not working."

Cow: "The computer says you are being deducted £30 per week from your claim because you are working one day per week."

Apparently, because my wife is in full-time education I should have been getting the joint payment of more like £100 per week but someone cocked up at their end. And apparently, according the index-linked-pensioned cow, it's my fault it has gone unnoticed because it's my claim and I should have checked. Apparently they should have been asking for this form every time I signed on, so she was not at all happy that I had not been providing it.

- - - - -

She then gave me a letter and said "That's for you". It is dated 31/12/2009 and should have been posted but instead was put in my file. It is an instruction me to go to a Back To Work session tomorrow.

Me: "I can't. It clashes with a nurse's appointment tomorrow that the doctor arranged before Christmas so he can determine whether to change my medication; he suspects kidney damage."

Cow: "You will have to change the medical appointment. When you claim JSA you do so on the condition that you are available for work. We can instruct you to go to these things or we will stop your benefits."

- - - - -

Cow: "So, what have you been doing to find work?"

Me: "Here's the record of what I have been doing over Xmas & New Year. I think I've been quite a good boy."

I point out the printed off spreadsheet that I had handed over with my JSA signing book.

Cow: "Now of these jobs you have applied for, which ones do you think you will be offered?"

Me: "Your confidence in me is admirable, but I have been applying for lots of jobs without success. So I am not so confident as to say I will even get an interview, let alone an offer."

Cow: "Well, there's enough of them down here. You ought to be offered at least one. Take this one, this looks like an agency. So you have registered with an agency then. Haven't they found you any work?"

Me: "291 agencies actually, at the last count."

Cow: "So why haven't you found work?"

Me: "I work in IT. There are lots of other people applying for the same roles and there are lots of people out of work."

Cow: "Even so, you should have found work by now. Are you sure you are really trying?"

I thought 21 job applications over Xmas & New Year was quite admirable, myself.

- - - - -

Needless to say, she's one of the career civil servants on the staff.

[Olly]

I like your thread and have been reading it for a while.
Do you mind answering a question....
You've been hunting for a role for a while now, why don't you take something at a lower rate?

I looked for a while for £400+ a day jobs and took something for £100 a day just keep things ticking over and hopefully learn some new skills. Granted it did interfere with job hunting a bit but not overly and I always found time to check jobserve et al twice a day at the gig and send off CVs.

[Zippy]

Oh lordy RC. I wish I could say I was surprised. The useless article clearly doesn't have a clue.
She'll be the one they all hate in the office, the one that bustles around in a self-important manner, bullying people into chipping in to collections and saying things like 'do you think that skirt really suits you dear?'

Bitch.