• As a jobcentre adviser, I got ‘brownie points’ for cruelty
    50 replies, posted
Question: why the fuck would anyone ever work at a place "for the experience" and then happily accept that alone as a form of payment? Maybe it's my 12-hour day, blue collar background but that seems absolutely fucking retarded to me and I'd never do it. I work hard, I do a damn good job, and I expect to be paid fairly for it. [editline]10th February 2015[/editline] I'm not trying to be a dick here, I just don't understand why that's apparently a thing in the UK.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;47114879]Question: why the fuck would anyone ever work at a place "for the experience" and then happily accept that alone as a form of payment? Maybe it's my 12-hour day, blue collar background but that seems absolutely fucking retarded to me and I'd never do it. I work hard, I do a damn good job, and I expect to be paid fairly for it. [editline]10th February 2015[/editline] I'm not trying to be a dick here, I just don't understand why that's apparently a thing in the UK.[/QUOTE] Because if you're relying on your benefits then you do what the DWP tells you or you'll lose them for anywhere from a month to like a year.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;47114879]Question: why the fuck would anyone ever work at a place "for the experience" and then happily accept that alone as a form of payment? Maybe it's my 12-hour day, blue collar background but that seems absolutely fucking retarded to me and I'd never do it. I work hard, I do a damn good job, and I expect to be paid fairly for it. [editline]10th February 2015[/editline] I'm not trying to be a dick here, I just don't understand why that's apparently a thing in the UK.[/QUOTE] Sometimes, you don't have the choice mate, it's that, or rely on food banks to feed you.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;47114879]Question: why the fuck would anyone ever work at a place "for the experience" and then happily accept that alone as a form of payment? Maybe it's my 12-hour day, blue collar background but that seems absolutely fucking retarded to me and I'd never do it. I work hard, I do a damn good job, and I expect to be paid fairly for it. [editline]10th February 2015[/editline] I'm not trying to be a dick here, I just don't understand why that's apparently a thing in the UK.[/QUOTE] You pretty much [I]need[/I] experience to start virtually any job. My advice to anyone lifting a finger to go sign on, get with an agency instead since it's their job to get you a job, more so than the job centre its self.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;47114879]Question: why the fuck would anyone ever work at a place "for the experience" and then happily accept that alone as a form of payment? Maybe it's my 12-hour day, blue collar background but that seems absolutely fucking retarded to me and I'd never do it. I work hard, I do a damn good job, and I expect to be paid fairly for it. [editline]10th February 2015[/editline] I'm not trying to be a dick here, I just don't understand why that's apparently a thing in the UK.[/QUOTE] To make a long story short, the jobcentres before 2010 weren't that bad so lots of parents told their young that if you do exactly what they say you WILL get a job however they didn't know to what extreme lengths of bullshit the jobcentre was throwing at you in order to get a job. 2010-2011 was a time where there was still quite a lot of unemployed from the recession only a few years ago(?) so you just did whatever you could to wait for the jobs to appear - I mean there were jobs but everyone in town was applying for anything they can get + entry level positions quickly became the jobcentres solution to solving high unemployment because they can quickly funnel you into those positions and sanction you for not obeying. (sorry that was longer than expected :/)
I'm sort of confused. Can anyone give me a brief rundown on what a jobcentre is and why they are bad?
[QUOTE=Whibble;47115691]I'm sort of confused. Can anyone give me a brief rundown on what a jobcentre is and why they are bad?[/QUOTE] If you're unemployed, you can get £50-70 a week (Roughly enough for food and clothes-ish) if you go there and do what they say, except that they have a ton of bullshit rules that aren't anything related to getting a job and often actively try to trick or bait you into breaking the rules so they don't have to give you any money. This is apparently to 'encourage' people to get a job, except a lot of the time people are either willing to but can't find work, or aren't able to work, so they end up going hungry or having to borrow money because of minor infractions and bullshit like being five minutes late to a meeting, telling them you can't attend a meeting with them due to family commitments, and a mate of mine got cut off for sending out a blanket application to every supermarket in their own.
[QUOTE=Rents;47115743]If you're unemployed, you can get £50-70 a week (Roughly enough for food and clothes-ish) if you go there and do what they say, except that they have a ton of bullshit rules that aren't anything related to getting a job and often actively try to trick or bait you into breaking the rules so they don't have to give you any money. This is apparently to 'encourage' people to get a job, except a lot of the time people are either willing to but can't find work, or aren't able to work, so they end up going hungry or having to borrow money because of minor infractions and bullshit like being five minutes late to a meeting, telling them you can't attend a meeting with them due to family commitments, and a mate of mine got cut off for sending out a blanket application to every supermarket in their own.[/QUOTE] In addition to this, they started a new program in my region, where you will be made to go to the jobcentre every single day for your job search, totaling 35 hours per week. If you are late, miss one single day, late back from lunch, or are seen to "Not be doing the full 35 hours", then you can be sanctioned for 3 months, 1 year, or 3 years, meaning you don't get any money from them for that long.
Its great how we piss on poor people in this country
Can't get a job? Nothing to eat? Guess we will cut your already minimal support.
[QUOTE=Trainbike;47112531]I had this happen to me. It was supposed to be a 4 week "work experience" (read: free temps for them) placement over the Christmas where I was working more hours than almost all of the rest of their actual staff. On top of that the managers were complete cunts and treated us like dirt whenever they spoke to us.[/QUOTE] This is pretty horrifying to me. I don't know about the USA, but there are strong laws up here stating that under no circumstances can someone work without pay. Even when I was at Wal-mart, on one of my days off I noticed the team in receiving was overworked and offered to lend a hand for an hour or two - Nothing doing, the managers told me it was completely verboten. If an employment agency here asked me to work without pay I'd tell them to fuck off.
[QUOTE=Rents;47115743]and a mate of mine got cut off for sending out a blanket application to every supermarket in their own.[/QUOTE] That's fucking disgusting, they sanctioned him for literally trying to get a job.
[QUOTE=Deiru;47115947]In addition to this, they started a new program in my region, where you will be made to go to the jobcentre every single day for your job search, totaling 35 hours per week. If you are late, miss one single day, late back from lunch, or are seen to "Not be doing the full 35 hours", then you can be sanctioned for 3 months, 1 year, or 3 years, meaning you don't get any money from them for that long.[/QUOTE] That's fucking ridiculous. I know in my area the website doesn't change with anything useful on a daily basis, and there's nowhere near enough jobs on there to spend an hour searching..
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;47114879]Question: why the fuck would anyone ever work at a place "for the experience" and then happily accept that alone as a form of payment? Maybe it's my 12-hour day, blue collar background but that seems absolutely fucking retarded to me and I'd never do it. I work hard, I do a damn good job, and I expect to be paid fairly for it. [editline]10th February 2015[/editline] I'm not trying to be a dick here, I just don't understand why that's apparently a thing in the UK.[/QUOTE] Imagine there's a shit ton of assholes who want your job, how do you get noticed, tell them you'll work for less. Seriously 90% of the jobs that are available get something akin to 1000 applications in a week. [editline]11th February 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Whibble;47115691]I'm sort of confused. Can anyone give me a brief rundown on what a jobcentre is and why they are bad?[/QUOTE] When you're out of work you can and most likely have to sign up for Job Seekers Allowance, the whole idea is you meet up with these Job Centre dudes, and they're supposed to help get you back into work. Now imagine that they don't lift a single finger to help you and are constantly looking for ways to reduce the money they're supposed to pay to you. See they'd be fine if they done their job, but they don't, they have zero reason to help you get a job, it's basically surplus to their job.
[QUOTE=Whibble;47115691]I'm sort of confused. Can anyone give me a brief rundown on what a jobcentre is and why they are bad?[/QUOTE] Heres an experience i had with them to give you a little more of an idea as to the shit they pull. The job centre sent my girlfriend up to a "jobs fair" meeting in Southampton once. we live on the isle of wight, she had no car and a painfully broken ankle (she was walking on crutches at the time) they were fully aware of this, and didn't care, telling her they would reimburse her any travel costs. her parents buy into the lazy-welfare-free-loaders stuff so they refused to give her any help getting up there on the grounds that she should "work for her money like any one else" meaning she had no choice but to make the journey on foot, or not get any money for food/transport for god knows how long. I went with her to help, when we arrived in Southampton the gates to the "jobs fair" were closed, and the staff there (i think they worked for the site hosting the event not the job centre) instructed us to go the long way around down the main road, muttering between themselves about how it would do us scroungers some good to get out the house and off of the "taxpayers xbox". so after pretty much carrying my girlfriend down the road, and around what looked like an industrial estate for half an hour, we eventually found the other entrance and went inside- the jobs fair consisted of one university of Portsmouth application kiosk, and a little stand for each branch of the armed forces. my girlfriend was exhausted and could barely balance on her crutches so we had to call a cab to get back to the ferry terminal costing us £11 (that they refused to reimburse her). she was sanctioned on her next meeting for failing to apply for anything while there.
[QUOTE=archangel125;47116559]This is pretty horrifying to me. I don't know about the USA, but there are strong laws up here stating that under no circumstances can someone work without pay. Even when I was at Wal-mart, on one of my days off I noticed the team in receiving was overworked and offered to lend a hand for an hour or two - Nothing doing, the managers told me it was completely verboten. If an employment agency here asked me to work without pay I'd tell them to fuck off.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure it [I]is[/I] actually illegal. I remember a court case in the news that was over similar things to this and the court ruled in the favour of the claimant. Anyway, I did two weeks of it then told them to go fuck themselves if they're not gonna pay us, doubly so for expecting us to work Christmas eve, boxing day and new year's eve / day. I was prepared for the job centre to get all pissy about it and was expecting to have to slug it out with them over it, but a convenient set of circumstances lead to them completely forgetting about it by the time I went back to them :v:
I feel really lucky about my JSA experience. My advisor was incredibly friendly and helpful. He ended up signing me onto "work experience" at an accountancy firm which was great and helped a lot. I ended up getting a job through one of their clients.
I also like how the current government has also made it easier to lose your job, you now have to be employed for two years before you can claim that you were unfairly dismissed from a given role.
Dwp work experience is the biggest scam. Expecting you to do a full weeks worth of work for free regardless of your situation.somwtimes traveling 10 miles and having to beg forbthem to pay the travel expenses or be sanctioned. It's just another form of slave labor for the corrupt capitalist system.
I was on jobseekers for a few months before getting into a job and it was just soul crushing. Once you get over your pride and commit singing on and job searching as you'd normally be doing but then being forced to come into a depressing building, to be told that you're not trying hard enough or that you should be applying to jobs that aren't even remotely suitable for you, it really takes the piss. Thankfully I had several years of job experience so I wasn't shoehorned into the mandatory work experience at a charity shop. Though I saw and heard so many people creating bullshit excuses, constantly lying and going out of their way just to cheat the system that I can't be that surprised that the sanctions are getting more and more severe.
I signed on JSA last year and it was nothing but soul crushing misery and stress. They way I was treated was nothing sort of dreadful. They put me onto the Work Programme which basically entailed being told to sit on a computer and search for jobs for hours on end. And they honest to god had sessions where they spoke to us like we were school children, not adults. My first two weeks I had to attend for 3 hours every day and after that they expected me to attend from 9am-3pm twice a week. How is that supposed to help anyone find a job? They didn't actually support you in anyway, just tell you to job search. I missed a sign-in appointment accidentally and that was it. They not only stopped my benefits, they didn't think to actually tell me until JANUARY. The appointment was in December. Thank god I still live at home because I would have been homeless from not being able to pay my rent. I'm sadly still unemployed but really don't want to sign back on. The poxy £50 a week isn't worth the stress.
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