Inside an over 50s DWP session

[Orbunal]

It's just as dispiriting as it sounds. We watch a PowerPoint that tells us that we all have really valuable skills that employers are really keen to make use of. Except if that were true there would be nobody in the room, because we wouldn't be signing on at the DWP.

As the presentation goes on it becomes clear that we are Schrödinger's job seekers - simultaneously steering the UK back from the brink of underemployment ("YOU are the fastest growing sector of people seeking work") while also lazy as fuck ("35 years national insurance is the minimum, it doesn't mean you can just sit around ").

The question of Carer's Allowance comes up, and there's a long segue about how nobody really understands the figures for that.

We're told that employers have to be flexible now, to accommodate our needs, but the person giving the talk also states that she herself has to work 9-5 inflexibly. She does a little laugh at this point. She's having trouble getting the mouse to click - she's previously told us that her fingers don't work so well due to inflammation and nerve damage. It's not looking hopeful in terms of employer flexibility.

A woman injects herself with insulin.

The guy behind me is breathing quite raggedly. He asks if there is such a thing as a male menopause. He is told nice try, but there is not, there's no get out clause here.

We get told about computer skills programmes. A 63 yo woman who has osteoarthritis says she has already been on one, that it lasted 13 weeks and they had a different tutor every two weeks so all she learnt was how to switch on and type "www". Our facilitator says that yes, it's all tailored.

The entire thing lasts for two hours.

At one point the mask slips. Our stakeholding trainer tells us that the government wants us all working until we are 67 so we just have to get on with it. We knew that anyway so there's no relief.

I walk away at the end desperately trying to shake the taste and feel of it off me. I have been struggling with suicidal thoughts for a long time. I don't want them to overwhelm me. I'm doing other things, any things I can, to stop them. This session, this absolute abomination, is the lowest I've felt in a while. The hopelessness and futility and degradation is seeping into my bones and mind. None of this makes sense and none of it will ever be any good.

@Orbunal

Well, that sounds abysmal & utterly depressing.

Don't let the bastards grind you down!!

I'm trying not to! But it's really hard.

They call it the "50+ MOT".

FFS.

If you are having suicidal thoughts, please call the Samaritans now, and see your GP ASAP.

Working is absolutely not the be and end all of life, you have so much more value than as a worker/tax payer.

Take care.

Crumbs, is this what I have to look forward to? I am over fifty but signed off to study and not having to 'actively' seek employment. Not sure for how much longer though, I will soon have had my six weeks of counselling (that's not touched the sides and I haven't even brought the biggest, horriblest issue I need to face to the surface yet!) and no doubt be assessed by someone, not a Doctor, but who will deem me fit for work.
Have you tried the interview processes nowadays, Christ on a bike it's like jumping through 20 billion flaming hoops walking the walk and talking the talk like a car saleswoman on drugs. Bloody soul destroying.

@Orbunal
Just wanted to say that you're not alone. I'm in a similar position but not had to sit through this yet.

Your post is beautifully written.

Do say more about the other things you are doing, if it would help to share them.

Please reach out for help if you're feeling especially low tonight. X

@Boopydoo I'm also having counselling that hasn't touched the sides. Like you I'm aware that it will end soon so it feels there's no point in bringing up the Massive Thing now. I'm sorry you're experiencing similar. I feel so lost. I hope that you are not quite so lost.

@humidityisrising I'm sorry you're here too. It's shit isn't it.

So sorry to hear you had this horrible experience. Some courses seem to be designed to simultaneously bore, frustrate and annoy, with a mix of talking down and stating the obvious!

Six sessions isn't enough for too many years of trauma. I wonder who makes those decisions, six sessions and that will fix them. Takes at least three sessions to just feel like you know the counsellor. Who can afford to then pay for private sessions?

I suspect I am numb, and just navigating around a busy life of seeing to others that need me, just staying busy and keep on ignoring it all.

Qwell https://www.qwell.io/ is a good place to go if you need urgent support.

OP you are a brilliant writer. I'm so sorry you were subjected to that. What a shitshow.

I only attended one, it was to get insight into the recruitment process the DWP uses to become a Work Coach. After waiting an hour because their equipment wouldn't work, our two-hour course was condensed into one hour with just a chat, no presentation slides to look at and nothing in much depth at all lol.
One bit was helpful, to be told that your personal statement about yourself gets a first check over by AI. Fine, I passed that test twice over, next up is situational judgement tests, fine, managed to pass them twice too but the one thing they didn't do was give realistic examples of what the recorded interview questions would be like. So I ran with an example of what they thought, wrote copious notes in preparation and the questions were nothing like that ! In between applying twice I saw my work coach, and they said to me well at least now you know the interview questions, to which I said well surely they aren't going to ask the same ones again, it can't be that simple!

They had no clue, admitted they wouldn't be able to get a job that way, it was all too complicated but they didn't really understand the process at all. Maybe next time they run a course like that they really ought to get someone who has actually been through the process to talk us through it! Second time around for me was another disaster, I just go into panic, faced with a screen and a timer for two minutes counting down, the question to the left, but I get so caught up in the countdown clock I can't make sense of the question as I can't stop staring at the clock!

@Orbunal was your course one you had to attend? I spent the hour waiting for them to sort out the equipment in disbelief at how unorganised a government office could be and how I could actually be at home sitting at my laptop getting some other worthwhile study done.

I've not worked for years, because I was a full-time carer for my disabled son on pitiful carer's allowance. I never worked because the rules over the hours you can and the money you are allowed to earn are so confusing whilst on carer's allowance, yet I have saved the government an absolute fortune in comparison to what his assisted living placement is now costing the nation. It's a mind-blowing amount for his accommodation, with a huge carer bill on top.

Seeing the news recently, I am so glad I didn't work in those 20 years, seeing as thousands of carer's are now being told they got too much money and have to pay it back.

Wow. I forgot I'd written this thread. I came across it because with Burnham's DWP plans in the news I was chatting with ds2 earlier today about my 50plus MOT and I googled around it.

I hope everyone is doing ok. I was pretty low back then (!) but I'm doing better now. I actually shortly after got a bit of voluntary work in an area I'd always been interested in. I remember telling my DWP "coach" about it and her scoffing at me and telling me to apply for cleaning jobs. Shortly after that my GP signed me off sick, I had an assessment and was placed on LCWRA so at least I didn't have to deal with the job centre any more, and I spent the additional money I got for being in the LCWRA category on long term counselling.

The voluntary work gradually morphed into contractor work, which I'm still doing, along with being self employed doing similar things. It's a little precarious and my tax position is a nightmare to work out but essentially I'm getting paid for doing something I love and I'm so, so grateful. I'm also working a lot less for the same money I got as a full time employee. I use the extra time to do creative courses for MH service users at our local university which has been absolutely enriching.

I hope you all managed to find your way too. If you didn't, it's because things are set up so that you don't. I see that really clearly now. The initiatives and training are just there to waste your time and make you feel like crap about yourself. If you even make it out alive you're winning.

I'm where I am now despite the job centre's efforts to punish me for losing my job in my fifties. I got lucky with the organisation I now contract for being willing to take a punt on me, the same organisation that the DWP laughed at me for approaching. I still feel sad, reading through this thread, that me and you others went through what we did.

Very best of wishes to you all and anyone else reading this experiencing similar. Don't listen to them. You're worth more than they tell you you are. We all are worth more than that.

I didn't comment on your thread at the time but a wonderful update & wise words, all the best to you.

I didn’t realise this was an old thread until I’d got to the end of the comments.

Honestly though, that op would be a killer first page of a novel!

Never mind contracting, you should be a writer. (Seriously.)

A few years ago I had to go tone that was all about researching skills on how to find a job.. I said to the work coach that some of the websites he recommended was not very useful at all and I had found a few that were much better. I was quiet when talking to him and he said he was surprised finding someone that liked research. He noted down the websites that I recommended and in his notes he told me he would mention that I had been very helpful. He actually said that a few claimants would be better at running the seminar than the work coaches.