Man sanctioned by job centre after applying for 67 jobs in a fortnight

[RedRob]

Everyone thinks this kind of thing is a laugh and scroungers deserve it, but wait until it happens to them or someone close them and it will

...I don't think 'it's a laugh' - far from it.

 

[Garage_Doors]

Fortunately, so far, I have not been made redundant but it must be soul destroying becoming a statistic and been put through what some have described.

Best of luck in getting re-employed.

I have been made redundant twice, once after 15 years and again after 12 years, financially it was very rewarding given each time with generous remuneration, I was was re-employed very quickly after by companies that were competitors so for me it worked out very well each time.

 

[looney]

Agree with you on playing the system or it will screw you comment.

As for for playing the martyr/activist remark i totally disagree with you on that. We need people like Peter to carry the fight where others simply cannot. The more exposure and campaigning the better. People should be made aware of it because one day they might end up in this dreadful system. With the general election around the corner i'm sure the Tories can do without bad publicity.IDS is probably the most hated figure in the Conservative party.

Best policy and differs from advice sometimes given.

It is possible to crash into a zealot or get a personality clash.

[MENTION=28056]bn9 bha[/MENTION]

I think I can answer your responses and the OP with a couple of points.

1. Labours dire treatment of the work class vis mass immigration etc signalled to the tories they dont give a shit and given the tories the green light to beat up on those at the bottom. Dont expect this to become an election issue any time soon.

2. As for bad eggs(and I personally have come across one during a spell on the dole.), your not going to get rid of them, they are unsackable. They are Unionised, the main problem with Public sector employment is you cant get rid of the deadwood this is true of the DWP. Believe me I have tried.

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

Feel free to e-mail me your CV if you wish tim@sussexbp.com, I'll take a look, you never know?

 

[Del Fenner]

something sniffy about this story. immediate assumption was someone looking for the wrong jobs, carpet bombing every job to look active might work until someone notices they dont have any hope of getting those jobs. ( i know this is a popular method of staying on the sausage in the past, im sure it works today). or maybe someone inistiing on keeping to some high level role that arent available, unwilling to adjust?

then i see the blog. its, well, its rather too good isnt it? certinly doesnt look like my first theory fits. so im wondering if there is a motive, an agenda... then the final paragraph: " if anyone needs someone with experience as a journalist, journalism and public affairs lecturer, content manager, PR or copywriter or related disciplines please step forward ".

ah. a journalist who can PR and copy. unable to find work in the southeast or freelance, really? or trying to create a story of their own prehaps?

A benevolent reading of your post would be that you have not been unfortunate enough to have to deal with the DWP in the last 3 years, and believe what mainstream politicians say about the process.

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

Everyone thinks this kind of thing is a laugh and scroungers deserve it, but wait until it happens to them or someone close them and it will

This. This. And again, this.

 

[The_Viper]

I have only been unemployed for a short period of time in my life. I was in my mid twenties and had just returned from a years travelling abroad. I found a job within a few weeks of being back in the UK. I can only imaging that it must be very depressing to be out of work and your self esteem must be pretty low. However, I just can't understand how anyone is out of work for more that a few months.

You may not be able to find your preferred job but you must be able to find work of some kind. I would do pretty much any line of work if I had too. I would happily work in a fast food outlet or deliver leaflets. Anything must be better than not working. People on here moan about only getting £70 per week dole money, but you must be able to find a job that pays more than that in a week.

Minimum wage is about £8 per hour, so you would only need to work about 9 hours a week to be earning the same as the dole money. This would leave you plenty of time to look for a better job and you would be supporting your self and not relying on the state. I just can't ever imaging having to rely on the state to support me, unless I was unable to work due to illness. I would even take a job on £5 per hour if it meant that I could support myself. I would work for 10 hours per day for £5 per hour, for 6 days a week if need be. That would work out at £1200 per month. Much better than £70 per week dole money.

I do hope you find a job, but if you have not found one in a year then I do not hold out much hope for you. My advice would be to take any job, on any money and see where it takes you. Your self esteem will improve no end once you start doing a days graft.

This shows the ignorance of those who have never struggled to find a job. I have a law degree and I'm currently saving up for my 4th year to go to the LPC. After a year out travelling I came back and got a small part time job in a night club, the club went bust and I set about sending my CV off for my preferred jobs. Two weeks after being shunned for everything I started on Sainsburys, Lidl, Tesco, Zizzi, Pizza express, KFC. I was interviewed for 3 jobs, WHSmiths, KFC and Lidl. All three turned me down for being over qualified and not a long term asset. Other companies on the same basic and menial scale didn't even reply. I made my CV with the help of two published law lecturers, who both said it was of outstanding quality for any level of work, whether it was in my chosen career or if it was a smalltime job to make ends meet.

After 3 months of trying I had to sign on. I was sanctioned after two weeks. Although my 'contract' was to apply for 7 jobs a week, and to make 14 logs of activities I was sanctioned 6 weeks of payments because my advisor felt I should have been applying for jobs as far away as London, which is a 90 minute train journey for 55 quid a time. She then went on to say at least 40 jobs applied for a week was not an unreasonable expectation from her as I was young and should be willing to do anything.

I explained that I simply do not have the resources to travel to London and back from Leicestershire for a job and I felt she was being completely unreasonable and I'd like to speak to someone higher. She refused and I then refused to leave the center until I did because it was a disgrace. A supervisor then handily pops over, I begin to explain the situation when my 'advisor' interrupts, says she felt threatened and she'd like me ejected.

As far as I'm aware I'm still banned from the JCP, and under sanctions. I wouldn't know because shortly after I got a job for o2 and I'm now working full time saving for my final year of education and couldn't be happier. This is from someone who has worked jobs since he was 17, including during a law degree. I genuinely think she needed to sanction someone to hit her targets, and so went on a wind up with me until I snapped and then got her target ticked off. #ConspiracyTheory

They don't care who you are, they have boxes to tick and sanctions to be dealt, and being part of a government machine they know they're untouchable, so what was the point in me even bothering?

So pleased to see TC is getting his recognition and maybe something on a small scale will be done.

 

[Beach Hut]

I have been made redundant twice, once after 15 years and again after 12 years, financially it was very rewarding given each time with generous remuneration, I was was re-employed very quickly after by companies that were competitors so for me it worked out very well each time.

It would be very financially rewarding for me to be made redundant but it is not what I want.

 

[perseus]

They can see you Coming!

If you have not got a home computer (bad excuse) and you are skint, unemployed can use the library for free to look for jobs. You can also get a cheap second hand computer (discount) that works OK. And you get a version of Office for £100 (desktop) and £150 (a laptop). Training available to update your skills. Courses are not up to much, but will suit the majority of claimants.

Collaboration with system is best policy. Most claimants do avoidance. Others do conflict. Compromise is a headache.

This is sound advice to avoid getting sanctioned. Fishing for a job: trawl lots of jobs at first and then when you get the hang of the system be more selective. It has always been like that. Working in a supermarket made me go to college, back in the sixties.

 

[Billy the Fish]

Sorry but I can't buy into any of this and I don't agree with your publicity seeking and don't think it will help to make you life any better. Nobody is doing the OP any favours by pandering to that attitude. Losing your job is undoubtedly hard and demorolising, but so are many things in life - it's how you deal with those situations that matters.

All I get from that blog is bitterness and that you see the whole process as beneath you. You'll never get anywhere with that amount of negativity fuelling you.

Mabye if the OP dropped that massive chip from his shoulder and just played the game for a bit instead of lashing out at everyone he might have a bit more success. If you're having problems at the job centre then it's YOUR fault for not managing the situation correctly. We all have to deal with people and do things we might not like, but every now and then you need the help of people you don't like and you just have to swallow your pride and get them on side. This quote says it all:

and the DWP staff seemed only too willing to carry out Iain Duncan-Smith’s ill-thought out, vindictive and distinctly unhelpful measures

What do you expect them to do? They are given instructions from managment and if they don't carry them out they'll only be at risk of losing their own relatively low paid job. Stop making other people's jobs more difficult (the people YOU NEED to sign off on your £70) and they'll be more willing to help you, all this tells me is that you need to develop better people skills.


Biscuit Barrel has it spot on, just get the best job you can for now even if it's "entirely unsuitable to my experience, qualifications and talents". This will fund your search for the position you really want, which is in a specialist industry that you're unlikely to find at the job centre anyway.

Consider this: An employer gets 2 applications from people with a good degree and 20 years experience and both were recently made redundant. One of them took a minimum wage job to survive while he looked for something in his chosen field and updated his skills to make them relevant to the current market. The other went though the motions at the job centre, bitched about it at every turn and got signed off by the doctor because it was too stressful doing something that 1000s of other people regularly have to do. Not only that but he told the world about it on the internet!!

Which one are you going to employ?

 

[Billy the Fish]

As far as I'm aware I'm still banned from the JCP, and under sanctions. I wouldn't know because shortly after I got a job for o2 and I'm now working full time saving for my final year of education and couldn't be happier. This is from someone who has worked jobs since he was 17, including during a law degree.

So you used you own initiative and helped yourself and now find yourself heading in the right direction. Surely that's just how life works isn't it

 

[£1.99]

Not sure if this helps anyone but saw this today
http://www.brightonandhovenews.org/...s/36455?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

I've been there a couple of times in my life to date, so best of luck.

To be fair to JobCentre staff, they presumably have to work along guidelines from above. I can remember having a "work" ( I.e. Not as an unemployed person but as a colleague from an employment group) conversation with someone relatively senior in the main job centre in Southampton in 1997, fairly soon after the General Election Victory for Labour, where she said that the atmosphere had changed overnight and they felt liberated to do the job they ought to be doing - I.e. Helping people back in to work genuinely, rather than doing whatever they could to get them off the statistics.

 

[Gwylan]

I can sympathise with the OP. I was made redundant about two months ago and have not found another job yet. I have a few months more of redundancy money to go through and have found some freelance work - not enough to live on but enough to make the redundancy dosh last a bit longer. Like the OP, I'm a journalist and it's tough out there right now. I haven't yet had dealings with the DWP, but as I have two kids to support, I may be doing so before long.

I haven't been unemployed since leaving college but I remember back then applying for several hundred jobs, both journalist ones and others, just to make a living. I heard, rather too many times, I was over-qualified for a particular position. For a couple of jobs, I had to take an intelligence test and was turned down because my score had been too high - so I know full well that companies will turn you down for the most ludicrous reasons. I'm already dreading my future dealings with DWP, I'm sure it won't be fun.

Good luck with your job hunting and keep up the good work with your blog.

 

[Gwylan]

I suggest writing to the editor of the Argus because they are in dire need of someone with your credentials for proof reading. If they say they have no vacancies I would suggest that they sack the existing postholder and give you the job.

The editor of the Argus is leaving - his job is currently being advertised

 

[Peter Styles]

In reply to I Remember The Good Times, I signed off with stress because I couldn't deal with the massive levels of harassment and discrimination. I am perfectly fit for work and indeed have an interview this Wednesday. In the last ten years I cannot think of a single day I've had off sick. The problem is with these jack-booted so called 'civil' servant. They give a whole new meaning to Arbeit Mach Frei...

 

[looney]

In reply to I Remember The Good Times, I signed off with stress because I couldn't deal with the massive levels of harassment and discrimination. I am perfectly fit for work and indeed have an interview this Wednesday. In the last ten years I cannot think of a single day I've had off sick. The problem is with these jack-booted so called 'civil' servant. They give a whole new meaning to Arbeit Mach Frei...

I get from reading your blog and especially this post that over 90% of the problem is you. Sure there are wronguns in the DWP(A minority), they are being forced to pressurise claimants but I get the impression that you are the type that can be described as "Your own worst enemy". Your attitude stinks tbh. Would you blame all blacks if you got mugged by one? Why apply the same general smear tactics to a part of the government whos job it is to help?

 

[Billy the Fish]

In reply to I Remember The Good Times, I signed off with stress because I couldn't deal with the massive levels of harassment and discrimination.I am perfectly fit for work and indeed have an interview this Wednesday. In the last ten years I cannot think of a single day I've had off sick.

So you're admitting you've lied about stress? FFS man it's on the internet under your own name! Delete that post and I'll delete this quote before anyone at the DWP sees it.

The problem is with these jack-booted so called 'civil' servant. They give a whole new meaning to Arbeit Mach Frei...

If that's your attitude towards them is it any wonder you're not liked at the jobcentre? They are just people at the bottom of the chain doing what they're told to do so they can make a living. They probably don't have the benefit of your university education and I dare say they earn less than you've ever earned in well paid media jobs, they're clearly not going to be miracle workers.

 

[The_Viper]

So you used you own initiative and helped yourself and now find yourself heading in the right direction. Surely that's just how life works isn't it

I'd been using my own initiative before I even stepped foot into the job center. My point was that the center actually made my life a hundred times worse for just two short weeks.

Just because it's fine now it doesn't eradicate the absolute BS that I was subjected to at that point in time does it?

But then your previous post was all shades of ridiculous so I think there is no reaching you.

 

[Billy the Fish]

I'd been using my own initiative before I even stepped foot into the job center. My point was that the center actually made my life a hundred times worse for just two short weeks.

Just because it's fine now it doesn't eradicate the absolute BS that I was subjected to at that point in time does it?

But then your previous post was all shades of ridiculous so I think there is no reaching you.

So you were faced with the same system as the OP but you still managed to find work off your own back.

Why didn't you get signed off with stress or write a blog about it? That's clearly the best thing to do isn't it.