To feel bloody sorry for some of the people who work in Job Centre

[NurseyWursey]

I had to go into today to discuss why I'm not working at the moment (few of you know, lets not get into that)

The lady who was seeing me said she'd be over in a minute, she was just dealing with another person so I waited. I was close enough to hear the conversation and I've got hawk ears and am nosy

Man: How am I supposed to print cvs out with no f*ckin money

Woman: X you missed your last appointment with us, you'd have money if you'd have come. You know it gets stopped if you don't come

Man: I didn't have any f*ckin money to come

Woman: I can see that you live less than a mile from here, or is there any disabilities or conditions you need to tell me about and I can arrange something for you

Man: no am not a cripple. why the f*ck should i have to walk to you. its too early in the mornin anyway me appointment i need sleep. i need money. you're not helping me

Woman: I'm really sorry X but if you want the money you need to come. You've come today so we can get the money reinstated. In the meantime the library round the corner lets you print for free, could you print some there?

Man: am not goin to no pssin library you stupid cow. wot you think I want to sit in a library for?

At this point he stands up being really abusive, the secretary had to escort him away. When it was my turn she was visibly upset.

:(

How can you help someone who isn't willing to help themselves? I know it's bloody hard when you're skint and emotions run high, and we get volatile especially if we have children to feed, but good grief.

On the plus side she was fab for me and helped me get access to some financial help until I'm ready to work again!
If this woman was you, to you!

He may well have, although no matter how bad I got I don't think I've got it in me to be so abusive, and to demand money without at least trying to follow the rules.

I felt like saying to him, listen I was your age once (he was about 19) if you stop the abuse, calm down and just LISTEN they can help.

I will do, I need a kick up the jacksy methinks

No usual I didn't know I could claim ESA I originally went in for JSA

But when I told the woman what had gone on she explained that ESA would be more suitable if I wasn't ready to work, so she went through it with me

Thats why I thought she was so lovely because she didn't really have to do that

Well she advised me well then, because the fella I spoke to on the phone didn't. So I'm glad either way

Signing on as a professional, or if you need to pay for childcare and travel to work, is a joke.

DH had to sign on a few years ago when made redundant. It took him 6 months to find another job as he works in a niche area. He was being interviewed for £50k+ roles and in between the "advisors" (don't make me laugh) were trying to get him to take min wage admin jobs which would not have covered the costs of travel to work and childcare. Their target is to get you off benefits as soon as possible even if that means you are wasting your state funded education in a manual job rather than it taking a few months longer to secure a highly paid job where you are paying back far more in taxation. We also lost money as we relocated to an area where there is more employment in his field to help him find work, and although he notified them in advance, they kept losing his details and he had to restart a claim at least twice.

I also had to sign on while waiting for a job to start. (The delay was actually because childcare wasn't available until a certain date. )I went through a charade of pretending to apply for jobs or I couldn't have afforded to eat in the meantime.

....so yes I feel sorry for the people who work in Job centres as the rules they have to follow are bullshit. I strongly suspect no one would work there if they had any chance of a job elsewhere, ironically.

I have personally had one bad experience in terms of staff at my local jobcentre. He was a bit of a jobsworth and more concerned that I hadn't updated my universal jobsmatch account on a daily basis than the fact I had actually been to 2 interviews in that fortnight. My regular adviser at the time was really nice, and used her common sense. She knew I had a young child, and although I was trying my best to look for work, it was not always possible to log on to website every single day of every single week. She changed my agreement to state that I had to actively search for work at least 5 times a week. She also changed my agreement so that I only had to look for work 60mins away, starting no earlier than 9am, as she knew I had to rely on childcare provided by a childminder/nursery. However, she did this knowing how hard I was looking for work, and I suspect that the DWP will make small allowances in cases of childcare/caring for family members etc. She did use her common sense, and never gave me a job that I HAD to apply for if it had a start time of 7am.
So yes, she used her common sense and didn't make me waste my time applying for jobs that I could never take etc. But at the same time, I was never given any help to find work. I basically went in once a fortnight, they looked at my log of what I had done, and then booked me my next appointment.
My autistic brother has been claiming JSA since he left college. He really wants to work, and is starting to get quite depressed about not finding anything. They keep putting him on group courses for CV writing and interview skills, the same courses again and again. He is given no advice specifically for his needs, and told to apply for jobs that he just won't be able to do!

I think the main problem is with the rules and regulations within the DWP. It needs to be structured better. The staff need to be trained and supported better. And vulnerable claimants must ALWAYS be seen by suitably trained staff. Mr brother was allocated to a disability adviser for just 6 months. He now sees a different person every week, and I don't think they have any idea of his autism.
Also, someone with an ounce of common sense needs to come in and redesign all their bloody forms!!!

Oh you are right, MrsD, as always.

Although I'm not excusing this arse for one second I do kind of see his point about morning appointments being early. When I was signing on I was living on my own with little reason to get up. I found it very hard to sleep and then to get up again. I was thankful that my sign on appointment was 3 pm. Also, completely coincidentally, my advisor was my landlord!

Ah MrsDevere I shall prepare myself for that then. Perhaps I'll use your reply if anyone is horrible to me.

Pipbin I don't really see a point at all Surely the reason to get up is to continue getting your money.. like you would in a job? It's hard but something that needs to be done?

Oh I agree Nursey all I'm saying is that I can see how someone would get into that situation. However he was a twat.

You feel sorry for jobcentre staff? The majority are scum.

I speak as I find. I felt sorry for the ones today.

And saying the majority are scum is just as bad as saying all benefits claimers are scum - both statements inherently wrong IMO.

The job centre has some nasty, vindictive, up-their-own-arse snooty bastards working for them. But they also have some genuinely nice people there, who have constructive ideas, who understand that people's situations are not black and white and who have the patience of saints.

I agree, there appears to be no middle ground, either lovely and incredibly helpful or patronising. petty minded little Hitlers drunk on the pathetic level of power they hold. Sadly the latter are far more prevalent than the former.

Whilst I'd never condone giving anyone else a gobful of abuse at work, in some cases I've heard and seen, the way some of the staff speak to people it is hardly surprising that some people loose their rag with them.

Pipbin if you don't get up at a reasonable time, you may well miss the call from the potential employer or an agency asking you to attend an interview. Answering your mobile as it drags you out of your slumber isn't the best way to make a good impression. Plus as I said earlier up the thread, I may still get up at 7:30am every week day while I'm out of work partly for this very reason, but as soon as I do get another job chances are I'll be getting up at least an hour earlier if not more. If you've been sleeping in until 10am every day for however many months then when you DO need to get up at 6 or 7am your performance at work will be pretty crap in the mornings until your sleep patterns get used to it again - at the most crucial time to be making a good impression.

One reason for a 9am appointment is that the JCP staff do have the right to work normal office hours. If all the claimants had later appointments, then the JCP staff would have to finish later every day to get everything done. The other reason of course is to "encourage" claimants to take attendance & job-seeking seriously, as Nursey says treat it like a job.

Job Centre staff are human, like anyone else
They are under immense pressure constantly to deliver
Like all Government Departments, everything these days seems to be stat based

I'm not frontline in DWP any more, but 21 years into working for them, things aren't getting better, they want more and more out of us for less and less
I would hate to work in the actual JCP, the attitude of a lot of jobseekers is disgusting.....its not always the staff, they are only following the rules that have been laid down by the Government.

Oh and now they want to cut our (3 mile away buses) to one every two hours, meaning short appointments in town can quite easily waste most of the day

In my rural area we have one bus a week, which goes nowhere near the job centre twelve miles away. If you can't afford a car you can't sign on.

Unemployed people should not have to be better than employed people yet that is what it feels like as soon as you are in receipt of any sort of benefits.

Get up at 8 to go to work? That is fine.
Unemployed? You lazy bastards should be getting up at 6! Why?
Not sure, but you just should thats why....

I don't see any conditions put on the job seekers that are over and above what I would expect to have to do if I was working.

9am appointment? Well the majority of jobs start at that sort of time of day or earlier, so it seems perfectly reasonable to me attending the JCP at that time. the JCP staff have to be there comfortably earlier than that to get logged in & settled ready to start seeing people. Never heard of any JCP event that's run later than about 5:30pm, which is a normal finishing time for many jobs.

Called in at a couple of days notice to attend some event at the Job centre? Well I've had calls at 5pm inviting me to an interview at 9am the next morning, and half or 1 working day notice of interviews is common.

Expected to make an effort every day to at least have a look at what's out there? Well if you're working you're expected to put in your contracted hours every day too.

At least I can turn up at the job centre in jeans and comfortable shoes, which there's no chance of if working.

Now I won't say I agree with many aspects of the system; things like the processes are set up with the assumption that all claimants are in blue collar type jobs, or that all claimants have to use "lowest common denominator" type methods even if their own way is superior. Examples of this are having to record all job seeking activities on that abortive bastard on line application they call Universal Jobmatch rather than the informative well organised spreadsheet I used to use & take in with me, or the assumption that jobs in my field will be advertised in LOCAL newspapers so I need to scan those every week.

But don't blame the staff in the front line. This is what they have to do, a large majority do it with tact and understanding and most of the rest just going through the motions as they have been worn down by their shitty job.

I signed on after university. The staff were all really nice and really positive. I did get very down that the only jobs available to apply for were all jobs I could have got without my degree. I did get free courses, which I did to show I was willing, cv help which was invaluable and i did feel sorry for the staff who were trying their best with people who clearly weren't bothered about getting a job.
My ds applied after university to a different job centre and they were vile to her. They were rude, dismissive, told her her degree was a posh waste of time.
I think it depends on the place