Poll - Have you ever been on the dole?

[thunderlizard]

I got Income Support in the technical 8-week gap between finishing school and starting university. In my home town we know the system like the back of our hand.

[VectraMan]

Sorry if we already covered this, but what is your plan B? Is it still going?

Not too dissimilar to the plan A really: writing software for money, but for an ongoing share of the sales rather than an hourly rate. The money's dried up of late, but there's reasons to be optimistic.

[EternalOptimist]

ten years after leaving the military. to bring up daughter as a single dad. There is only one person in history who fiddled better than me and that was a guy called Nero

[Doggy Styles]

June to September 1979 after leaving college.

April 1989 to January 1991 after going dolally tap.

June/July 1993 after redundancy.

April 1994 to November 1994, sacked after one week.

October 2002 to February 2004 after contract ended & nowt turned up, but I never signed on for that one.

I remember one agent got his secretary to ask if I'd been in gaol for one of those hiatuses.

Did you tell them about being stuck on that deserty planet, mixing it with the wigged human?

[Aman]

Yes, the most significant period was a large part of 2001. I could have signed on earlier than I did, rather than completely exhuasting the warchest.

I'm not in a good location now, agents can't seem to find London though, which is my preferred area where I've undertaken many of the contracts I have snf ejrtr I sm mody likely to mstch s role.
I've paid a disguting amount on telephone bills, calling agents frequently for comms work in London, then I don't hear from them for years (literally) until they happen to have something I'm not matched to the location I spent so much time explaining I was trying to get away from.

The Jobcentre wouldn't undertake a SOC search for jobs in London on their database. There are more live jobs with one SOC (eg 2132) in London than there are in all fields in my town.
Most of their jobs are incorrectly SOC coded anyway.

With the low paid short-term high-cost and trades tulip that they come up with on their local searches, (eg 'Tester'<£10 ph, use own non-expensed vehicle, supply own tools, test equipment and PPE) one would think they want repeat "customers".

The DWP guy I signed on with last time was more helpful, he was an IT contractor.

It's inevitable that I end up on the dole again if I stay here but I have care responsibilities now. Dad is 84, partially sighted, various other ailments and unable to manage on his own. His girlfriend went into a home due to Dementia (Alzheimers) so I think he would be a lot more depressed if I wasn't around.

Mind you, I'm not a contractor by choice, I was railroaded into it by pushy agents when I would have preferred a permanent role. I still would.

[conned tractor]

Applied for it when I finished a period of study - study was funded by a stipend and some savings which meant we had to scrape by for a couple of years, but managed.

Was told I could not claim the no means tested part as I had not paid any NI for the previous two years - the 14 previous years contributions did not count.

Was also told I could not claim the means tested part as my wife, who at the time eared £8000/ yr working two days earned enough for both of us and our one duaghter to live on. Our mortgage and council tax payments were almost that - lucky we bought when we did.

Fortunately I found a job within a couple of months, but it was hard going and quite worrying for a while.

Yet my neighbour has worked around 2-3 weeks, I think, in the last 10 years I have lived next door.

[NotAllThere]

Just before going to university, I signed on for a few weeks. Similarly, just after university until I found a job.

[Sysman]

Once after being made redundant as a permie, the crap you got from the staff at the dole office was enough to put me off ever going back into one.

For student holiday jobs I quickly realised that the ones available through the dole office paid substantially better than the ones advertised in the local press.

I used to budget for 2 days traipsing between the dole and social security offices and then they'd find something for me. Once I'd found a decent spot I got repeats for successive hols.

The dole also kept me going during the Easter before finals, when I stayed at college and swotted.

[Sysman]

Once after being made redundant as a permie, the crap you got from the staff at the dole office was enough to put me off ever going back into one.

Aye, they treated it like their own money.

I wonder how many folks reacted to that hostility by trying to claim every last penny, and perhaps more.

[Sysman]

Feck me, the dole office never ever found me anything.

One job I found through them turned out to be a nightmare & the other was fixing fruitmachines for 10 months on min wage (which, it must be admitted, was a good deal better than nowt).

I think you came across them a bit later than me. By the time I finished college it was getting dire.

Then there was the "Ah you've got a degree, off upstairs to the Personal Executive Recruitment (PER) lot", and they refused to consider me for a manual job.

One week later I was receiving reduced dole 'cos I lived with the parents, and now the parents expected me to pay for my board and lodging, I was effectively on 50p a week. Back to the dole office demanding to have a go at anything to get me out of that. That worked, and my first proper job came a few months later. Going from weekly + overtime paid in cash to monthly fixed salary through the bank was a grind, and I swiftly fell into the "50p overdrawn once in the quarter, that'll be full bank charges for the whole quarter" trap.

It took the useless numbskulls in PER over a year to enquire if I was still looking... I don't think I could be bothered answering.