Here I Go Again…
I have never been in a more depressing building and now I'm visiting for a second time. I walk in and it’s exactly the same, the dreary décor, the depressed people both claimants and staff. The job-centre. A place I was hoping never to have to visit again but temp jobs don’t always turn into permanent ones. This not being my first venture into the realm of the unemployed I know the drill. Fill out the never ending form online that asks the same questions in five different ways. And god forbid you should save the form half complete — because you've lost the will to live — to go back another day only for the website to tell you there’s an error. Try use a different browser, nope, better off using an entirely different computer.
After finally making it through the form the response is actually fairly quick, a text with a date and time of the initial interview. Sounds straight forward, however my experience has been nothing but faff. The first time they kept trying to say I wasn't entitled to job-seekers and this time they tried to tell me I was eligible for and entirely different benefit. I received a voice-mail ten minutes before my appointment telling me to phone the people who deal with this new benefit, I phone and they tell me to fill in the form online. So I calmly get off the phone trying not to bludgeon myself to death with it and start filling out the form. Four questions in a notice pops up saying I am not eligible for this new benefit. Well that’s it I'm ready to throw myself out the window.
Swearing at my computer I make the decision to sprint to the job-centre — luckily only down the street — in the hopes that they know what’s going on. Now I should point out that though most of the job advisors in there seem useless and will only ever tell you to apply for anything, there are a few who genuinely want to help. I've been lucky enough to get one, Cath, she was my job advisor the first time and I'm lucky to get her again. She was the first person I saw as I dash in vehemently annoyed, I tell her all and she immediately springs into action.
Now it’s just me, the job forms and a weekly meeting with Cath to hand them in — like a child with awful homework. I'm not the type of person who subscribes to the ‘apply or anything’ attitude, I want to have a career not a job. I don’t see the point in applying for jobs I know I don’t want or won’t get, I know the type of jobs I want to go for and focus on them. The job-centre doesn't like this, it seems to me that they just want us to take any job so they don’t have to deal with us. How is that attitude going to help anyone? It’s not, and I understand the job-centre is another institution with limited funding and severely understaffed. But surely it would benefit everyone to take the time and help get people into jobs that suit their skills and experience rather than shoving them into anything. Clearly I'm mistaken in thinking that the job-centre is there to help people.
So now as an under 25 I receive £57.90 a week in job-seekers, this is what they expect young adults to be able to live on. I don’t know anyone who can live on this little, I certainly can’t. I'm also technically homeless therefore I can not get any other benefits. So now I appear to be at a standstill, not being able to get a place of my own, struggling to find work and not being able to support myself. My independence seems to be slipping away.
But every hideously dark cloud has a silver lining, I've never had this much time to do what I love. Writing. I have the time now to post two blogs a week, work on my scripts and novels and dedicate real time to it. It’s not making me money but it’s making my happy and I know one day it will make me money. And maybe on that day I’ll stop being so cynical about the world — but probably not.
