Selling My Soul

Hold the press! The kindly people from the JobCentre have revoked their decision to offer me absolutely no money at all while I search diligently for a job and have instead decided to award me the incomprehensible sum of 88p per week.

While it is awfully kind of them to reconsider my economic position in society all the way from their offices in Scotland, this now means that I have to provide proof of my job searching activities and go to the JobCentre every other week to sign on in order to claim my 88p. I'm going to say it again out of sheer disbelief.... 88p.

Please, please keep your money and preferably shove it somewhere unmentionable. Or at least give it to a more useful, less time-wasting cause. This is absolute bureaucracy gone mad and I refuse to participate in it. All it means is that I am now the government's female dog and must adhere to their ridiculous laws in order to get my bone... and a measly old bone it is too.

I have just got back from Berlin, a city that was not so long ago divided by a wall and whose inhabitants (at least in the East) were often forced into conspiring with the secret police in order to get their daily bread. Have I essentially just sold my right to live a free and private life for the price of a loaf of bread? I don't want to get carried away with comparisons here but I'm a historian (or so they told me at university) and so I like to make historical connections between our present day and past occurrences. It was Pasha in Doctor Zhivago who claimed "the private life is dead in Russia". Perhaps the private life here is dying? How many national databases share our private information every day? How many people sell their privacy for 88p?

While I don't have to be a part of this, I refuse to be. Ironic really, considering the fact that I am blogging my life to the world, but at least that is of my own choosing. And plus, I like to think it is my own minute political stand. Better ring the JobCentre now and tell them I choose not to sell my soul for 88p and I really haven't found them the least bit helpful. After all, I am the one who has just secured myself work experience at Time Out Magazine. I can't wait to get some more experience. It may be unpaid but even they are offering me travel expenses and £2 for my lunch each day... I might even be able to afford some sandwich fillings for my bread now.

No Job, No Benefits...No Nothin'

I'm not really sure whether this is positive or negative factor on my life as a whole but I have been refused Job Seeker's Allowance. After putting myself through two rather un-fun trips to sign on at my local Job Centre Plus and diligently noting down the ways in which I had been searching for jobs to prove that I should be allowed the benefit, it has all come to, well, nothing. 

I have to admit it did seem stupid writing down all the jobs I had applied for and going along to the centre like a naughty child who now has to keep a record of all their homework. The lady I showed it to didn't even look at it properly and decided to pick out the one job that I was not proud of applying for.... sales assistant at Victoria's Secret. (I couldn't resist the call of discounted undies). I hadn't even received the letter telling me whether or not they were going to give me the Allowance. Well, they're not, the stingy buggers, because apparently I earn wayyy too much. Now I do see where they are coming from. My waitressing jobs can sometimes earn me around £52 a week, the amount the government claims we need to live, but they don't always. In the off months I can get far less than that. Should I just quit my job and re-claim? That's hardly an honest way to live and plus I know that I would just get bored bored bored without some kind of work distraction. If the government aren't going to help me, I shall just have to keep trying to help myself. And by this I do not mean pickpocketing the wealthy iPad users on the tube.

I did not get the internship I wanted. I got a nice reply from the internship agency saying that the interviewer enjoyed meeting me and said that I would be a great addition to anyone's team, however, they needed someone to work 5 days a week. Huh? I do not recall mentioning I couldn't work full time? What followed was a series of emails to clear up the mistake. The astute interviewer had got me 'confused' with another candidate. Fantastic. So when I thought we were getting on really well and all having a laugh together, actually it turns out he was probably just flirting with his co-worker and getting distracted from the real task at hand. The more I interview, the more enraged I feel  at the way I am treated. Needless to say, I no longer want to work for them anyway. So ha. 

Before I revert completely to my childish self, I will offer some words of hope. I have had work with a wonderful new start-up website over the last few days (earning real money... insane, I know) and made some great contacts in the travel journalism industry. I'm also off to do some travel of my own in Berlin over the next few days so I'll say ta-ra for now, or auf wiedersehen as they say over there, and with any luck I'll return with a head full of inspiration and a belly full of beer and sausages. Here's hoping.   

  

A Delightful Trip to the Local Jobcentre Plus

It seems that life is determined to take me full circle. Having started this blog with a post about the Jobseeker's Allowance, I can now confirm that I have taken the almighty step into my local 'sign on a die a bit' centre. This decision was not taken lightly - after looking for work for around eight months I finally decided that I probably deserved to be earning some kind of governmental benefit purely out of pity. So there we are, I have officially signed on. Well, that is if my application goes through. Because I have been doing part time work I'm not sure if it will - but the rules say that you can claim if you work less than 16 hours a week and are searching for full time work, which I am I am I am!

The centre itself was somewhat like a book. Do NOT judge it by it's cover. I have to say I was a bit nervous about the whole deal. Strangely, what popped into my head first was what to wear. How do I appear not so bedraggled that I am mistaken for one of the drunks who regularly collects their dole, yet not so smart that I seem well-off and get robbed on my way out? Decisions. In the end I went for a jeans and pumps option which seemed to do nicely as I'm still very much alive and the security guard didn't throw me out.

Once I'd passed an angry looking drunk man smoking a strangely pungent roll-up on my way in I suddenly realised that I wasn't actually in a hell hole. Quite the opposite in fact. The room looked new and clean and it was quiet yet weirdly, very weirdly, friendly. I signed in and plonked myself down on a comfy sofa, feeling rather better than I had ten minutes ago. The butterflies flew off and I waited calmly to be seen.

While sitting and waiting for twenty minutes however, the cracks began to appear. Firstly, the over-abundance of security guards became a bit of an alarm bell. In a room about twenty by eight  metres big, there were at least ten guards. They were all very friendly looking but I couldn't help wondering why quite so many of them were needed. Then, as I was ushered into a small office room to meet my advisor I was faced by a one inch thick pane of what I can only presume was bullet-proof glass. As I passed my documents through the tiny slit in the window and signed a million forms I imagined how many angry jobseekers there were. I felt like I was in a prison at visiting hours. Angry as I was, I wasn't about to shoot 'em up.

Finally, when asked what kind of jobs I was looking for I have to admit I felt darned stupid answering 'editorial assistant roles in journalism or publishing'. Apparently, that job spec isn't even on the national Jobseekers Plus computer system. Timidly I added, 'or PA/secretarial roles' to downplay the 'I'm a posh twat with a degree' side of my application. After being handed a flyer about a local job fair where I was told I could apply for roles at Greg's the bakery, I left the centre as hurriedly as possible with some sense of my pride intact. Not that I mind working in a shop, I just applied to a job in the new Westfield, only, I could have found out that gem of a work opportunity on my own thanks.

So I haven't moved far from square one... it's all snakes and ladders really and I was never much good at that game. I am waiting for hear back from an interview I had with a small publishing company for an internship. It would be amazing, nay spectacularly amazing if I got the job. I'll keep you posted.