For anyone who has ever been inside one of these Godforsaken hell holes. The familiar air of apathy, the abuse, the snarly attitudes by job advisors and the pointless bearacracy that delays vital benefit to some of the most vulnerable people in modern society. Topic is about the experiences of jobcentres. It could be a good experience or a bad experience. For me, yesterday should have been a routine trip to sign on. INstead it became an operatic investigation complete with apathy and beuracracy. I ended up walking out after they terminated my benefits. Just a matter of time before I end up homeless. Then I will be a liability to the Tax payer and the council will have to spend millions to give me shelter, accomadation etc. With Jobcentre's like this, who needs a bloody recession.
I had the misfortune of visiting one a while ago.. I've been self employed most of my working life and haven't really paid tax or N.I. (joke, honest guv *cough*). I got some work out of town where they needed my NI number and so the jobcentre (or 'jobcentre plus' where you have very little contact with humans) told me to bring a load of ID. Took it down and then they told me they weren't in the business of giving out NI numbers despite the NI people and the jobcentre on the phone telling me they did.. Cue 3 hours of beauracracy and being watched by the security guards they feel the need to put in there and eventually they sorted it out without a smile.. And I got offered Heroin on the front steps on my way out by a rough looking gent, right opposite the police station. Nice.
Due to not filling out jobsearch booklet thingy correctly. It wasn't novelesque, so to speak. A decision will be made, no doubt they will be bias toward the jobcentre. Therefore, they will terminate benefits. Better find a job quick or else I will find myself on the streets.
very sorry to hear that J0hn. Might be worth getting in touch with the Citizen's Advice Bureau, they can help with benefits issues. Hope things work out for you.
Thanks for the advice. I will go on Tuesday to the CAB. Will have to get their early though. I hope it don't rain, because I will/may have all the years in the rain.
I hope you get it sorted J0hn. CAB sounds like a good idea. The Job Centre sucks big time My other half is out of work again & I'm really hoping he gets a job soon - he ended up unemployed for 2 years last time & they pretty much sucked all the life out of him ..... If it's possible their system has got even worse than it was...his 2nd payment was authorised by him signing on....and then promptly cancelled by the tax credits system update :banghead: telling them they had cancelled his working tax credit (so his JSA could be upped to include that amount ) ...and no-one noticed until we pointed out that we hadn't had a payment a week later ...then of course there's the housing benefit which still hasn't been processed even though he's been out of work for a month now...good job we managed to borrow this month's rent otherwise we'd be really stuck...DH had to make a second trip all the way to the council offices on the other side of the county so they could actually photocopy the right pages of our tenancy...as the numpty who did it the first time only did the first & last pages & we got a letter 2 days later saying we needed to get our landlord to fill out a form proving what our rent is & the dates of our tenancy...all of which are on page 2 of our tenancy :cuss::cuss:...they will be getting a rather nasty letter and a bill for his petrol & parking expenses grrrrrrr.
Tosh, refusal to complete might get you trouble, otherwise they'll help you complete it. Not haveing any proof of looking for work is usualy the bit most people have trouble with, mainly because they haven't.
the last time i went to the job centre(about 10 months ago) a young girl wrapped in what looked like bakeing foil but was actualy a tracksuit, started having an argument with an older looking man. the girls sharp looking eyebrows and greasy ponytail had warned me not to even consider making eye contact with her or even let my face point towards hers. so keeping my back to them i could hear that this man owed this young girls dad money for drugs? the job centre was busy and this young man was laughing off the girls threats,trying to save face. what happened next was the girl pulled a knife or to be honest what looked like a potato peeler frm her space age glitter suit,and tryed to stab the older man in the head and arms several times. lucky for the man one of the office workers threatend to stick the knife/peeler up her a*~se. the girl fled and i left and took a job with a friend on a building site(nightmare). ive learned in glasgow ....no one can hear you scream!
Iv'e had mixed experiences with the Jobcentre. Been years since I was last there, but back then I went to a disability employment adviser, so wasnt the same sort of 'signing on' process as you JOhn. Originally when I went there I seen a youngish lady who was an absolute dragon, I used to dread going in to see her. Later on it changed to one of the nicest old ladies you could possibly meet! I used to like sitting in the waiting room, was one of the best places for people watching! Direct eye contact with some of them was a definate no no. But you'd see folk sleeping on the seats, arguments, lots of prams and track suits! It was like a regular meet up for some of them, and they were on first name terms with the security guard.
The jobcentre is like this: It is like inmates of some victorian prison, standing in long qeaues for their meal. Apathy is all around, soaked into the pine wood flooring, stuck on the plain magnolia walls, which is decorated with cheesy grins of jobcentre workers. It makes you laugh, but it is like sucking on a lemon and trying to imagine honey. The jobcentre staff have no sense of humanity, yet it is people like us keeping them in wages. Just wait when the shoe is on the other foot, they start to realise. Perhaps a fall from grace is just what the staff need. Most of the time they are licking the jam off of the jammy dodgers and flying paper airplanes around the office. THe security sometimes do a juggling act and then you have the tide of unemployed. Just wait till next decade when recession hits us. Even you will be coming to a jobcentre near you Brace yourselves, since June, 60,000 people have already lost their jobs. Unemployment is rising. But we still love Labour. Good news, phoned someone I never thought I would see again. They are sending something through the post for the next week or so. Just goes to show, in the depths of Hellish suburbia, God can be seen wearing a black leather jacket standing outside in the coldest of weathers, for you.
I know of an alleged Job Centre conspiracy. Basically a daft Irish bloke I know was ranting about the various scams involved at the job centre amongst which he claimed that they keep it intentionally far too warm in there you make you uncomfortable. So next time I'm signing on I clocked a thermometer next to one of the abandon-all-hope phones and it read 24c. I then noticed that behind all the staff desks there are water-coolers every few yards. So I mentioned to the bloke that it was "a bit warm" and he laughed it off claiming it was actually unusually cold and he felt like he could do with a coat. Apart from all that yeah the JC is a shit hole that rewards bad behaviour. The amount of time I've seen shouty fishwife moms and kids claiming to have been kicked out getting emergency grants handed to them really fucks me off. It's not all prole derived mind you, I once sat next to a postgrad who refused to consider any work other than a bank and the people seemed to be fine with this. 2 tips mind you 1-If your engaged in any sort of training they will leave you alone, so claim to be doing some evening course or something. 2-Whatever you do don't get put on the new deal. I begged my way onto the new deal after being told that god himself will make you a job or some shit like that, but in reality it's just boot camp for the unemployable. They make you sign more often and you have to apply to anything they ask you, on the spot in most cases.
Sadly, I worked for JCP for a year. Most miserable time of my life the staff are equally rude to each other like they are to their customers. I ended up quitting as it brought on depression due to me being bullied. I'm now at the Citizen's Advice Bureau and it's the best job in the world. Anybody need advice on JCP or CAB give me a shout and i'll be more than happy to help
