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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To have thought the jobcentre was meant to help you find a job?

144 replies

Houseonahill · 25/02/2019 13:20

Just had an appointment with my work coach as after a few really hard years and only working part-time since having DD I wanted some advice on my options.

I am currently unqualified (the last exams i did were GCSEs) but would like to go and train to be a counsellor I asked how training would work with UC and if I was allowed to do a full time course (I'm a single mum and can't get child care evenings and weekends so working while doing it would be hard). The answer was she didn't know.

I asked if they could help me find a college/uni or if there is any they recommend or just any advice on it really as I'm new to the area. She gave me a leaflet for a company that will help you write a CV?!

I asked if my current zero hour contract at the pub would result in me being sanctioned as when I went back to work after maternity I went back full time but wasn't coping with being a single mum to a 6 month old and working full time so dropped my hours to 20 a week and they tried to sanction me and it took months of arguing and letters from my GP and MP for them to agree not to sanction me so I was worried if I had lots of hours one month and not many the next that would count as voluntarily dropping hours and I would be sanctioned........She didn't know.

She then went on to suggest I apply for a job in asda or as a home carer for elderly or disabled people???? Where did that even come from? I have a job and a plan for my future?

So basically, they know nothing about UC and how it works and can't or won't help me get back into training so I can eventually earn enough money to not rely on benefits to top up my wages. What exactly is they are meant to be doing if it's none of the above?

Grrr sorry for the rant.

OP posts:

OnlyTheWelshCanCwtch · 25/02/2019 20:36

Are you a WC MsFrosty? hats off to you, I couldn't do it. Im backroom an happy there!

SusanWalker · 25/02/2019 21:20

I got a job from a card in the job centre in 1998. Back then all the civil service jobs were advertised through the job centre.

Last time I was jobseeking using the online system all the jobs were just pulled together from internet sites, so you had to trawl through things like betterware. Then you had to go through all the internet sites separately to show you had looked at everything.

It seems such a shame as it could be made into a brilliant jobs hub, with ideas for further training and really decent job advice.

When I worked at the hospital booking appointments we had a long period of having no paediatric dietitian. The trust advertised non stop but there was a shortage and we couldn't get one. It would be great if there was a wall up in the job centre telling you which careers needed people so you could perhaps be inspired into a career where you had a chance of a decent job.

Instead the aim seems to be to push you into any old crappy job, then blame you for not earning enough to be free from benefits.

MsFrosty · 25/02/2019 21:33

Not a WC anymore but do service delivery. Feels like crisis management at the best of times. Some people are in a really bad way and so many people don't understand all the changes that are constantly happening

GrandTheftWalrus · 25/02/2019 22:02

I used to be a security guard in the job centre. Was my full time job until I went on maternity leave.

FuerzaAreaUruguay · 26/02/2019 09:08

Instead the aim seems to be to push you into any old crappy job, then blame you for not earning enough to be free from benefits.

The thing is, you're free to pursue any career, but you're expected to figure out how to qualify for it and pay for it, as does everyone else.

IrmaFayLear · 26/02/2019 09:46

I still am very confused about how people talk loftily about care work being for certain types of people, and a vocation, but then hastily saying it's not for them or their dcs, and is a crappy job. Make up your mind. It is beyond patronising to talk of the wonderful people who work in care homes and then say [tinkly laugh] "but I couldn't do it!".

I have a great deal of experience of care homes. There may be comforting of people and listening etc etc, but there is no escaping the fact that a good deal of the job is cleaning people, helping them go to the toilet, feeding them and, indeed, dealing with various antisocial or just annoying behaviours.

I am saying that when a job sector is increasing, it is high-handed of people to declare that they will not work in it. I'm sure that not everybody was mad about working in a factory in an industrial town of the 19th century, but unfortunately they were not able to say, "Factory work? No, I'm sure it's all very necessary and very skilled, but it wouldn't suit me ."

0rangeB0ttle · 26/02/2019 12:12

I've heard stories from the past of people committing fraud. So I assume one of the points of the job centre is that people sign on in person using the electronic device weekly (unless you live in a remote area)

CuriousaboutSamphire · 26/02/2019 12:30

I still am very confused about how people talk loftily about care work being for certain types of people, and a vocation, but then hastily saying it's not for them or their dcs, and is a crappy job. But it is a vocation AND it is a crappy job.

Nursing and teaching are going the same way.

You HAVE to love the job to do it well : the salary is in no way commensurate with the value of the work done. All that cleaning is often done in a medicalised context, as is the chatting. Helping strangers void their bowels isn't for everyone!

I am in no way patronising any care worker when I say I couldn't do it if my life, or anyone elses, depended upon it. To me it is a horror I choose to avoid. I have nothing but total admiration for those that do it well. They are bloody saints, and deserve far better working conditions and pay!

RomanyQueen1 · 26/02/2019 12:34

irma

if you enjoy care work, then that's fine.
Some of us wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, we can still appreciate that others do enjoy this type of work.
To me it's wiping shit, I can't see it any other way. If there was no wiping shit I might enjoy talking to old people and being a mental support.

L0kiWh0 · 26/02/2019 12:44

I’m an ODP and I couldn’t do care work. It’s not for everyone, and shouldn’t be a last resort - somewhere to shove all the unemployed.

FuerzaAreaUruguay · 26/02/2019 14:17

Factory work didn't involve bathing people and helping them on the toilet or all night shifts with someone with sundowner's syndrome. I'd sell drugs or make illegal alcohol or smuggle before I do care work, hell, I'd sell myself before I did care work - fewer hours, too.

It's also very prone to abuse because you're working with vulnerable people.

It's not something you force people into for that very reason.

dietcokemegafan · 26/02/2019 14:19

but would like to go and train to be a counsellor

any sensible job advisor would tell you that training to be a counsellor is a swift route to unemployment - there are hugely more counsellors than paid positions - and would be helping you work out some training that would lead to paid work.

Yabbers · 26/02/2019 14:21

They only advise on benefits not career advice.

In the JOBcentre?

Surely the clue is in the title?

CostanzaG · 26/02/2019 14:35

In the JOBcentre?

Surely the clue is in the title?

but they aren't qualified careers advisers so shouldn't be offering career guidance.

JuniperNarni · 26/02/2019 14:39

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

I did well at school, got my A levels and was going to go to university but my DS was born first. When he was a little older, I went to the job centre for my appointment and asked about either university or a college course, about funding etc. They said I was "over ambitious" and didn't give me any answers at all.

sharpstick · 26/02/2019 14:42

About a year ago, I felt I was stagnating a little in my current role, and having not used a jobcentre for the best part of 15 years, thought that would be the first place to go to see what alternative jobs were available.

What I found was a huge pretty much deserted office with a couple of staff who seemed to scarper on me walking in, and another very hostile one slouching at her desk doing FA.

I explained my situation and slouchy desk woman basically told me that any jobs are online, and waved to a few leaflets on the wall saying something there may be of help (it wasn’t) she was not interested in the least and I was in and out within a couple of minutes.

What an utterly boring existence for the jobcentre staff if that is all they do all day.

To be honest I walked out feeling like I had been an inconvenience. I realise jobs are posted online these days, but I didn’t realise there are no jobs advertised at all in the centres with zero advice given.

As it was I luckily fell into a progressive role with my current employer so I won’t be darkening the job centres’ doorstep again!

MsFrosty · 26/02/2019 14:57

I never said it was named appropriately. In reality we aren't staffed to see anyone who isn't in.receipt of benefits though we try and signpost as best we can and we aren't qualified careers advisors so we can't advise.

crackofdoom · 28/02/2019 13:29

It's weird how they're constantly rebranding every other bloody thing, yet haven't done so with the Job Centre. Surely something snappy like "Futility Portal" would be more appropriate?

Haftseen · 28/02/2019 14:47

OP why a counsellor? I looked into doing it, did a few courses, was in work at the time but certainly couldn't afford the higher level courses. Plus the amount of hours you need to practice before qualified is substantial.. Nobody I knew got funding either..

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