I Hate the DWP

2004-11-25 at 10:58 p.m.

Woe, woe and thrice woe. Or words to that effect. I am now classified as long-term unemployed having passed the six-month mark back in August. The Jobcentre only just got around to calling me in to talk about this this Monday though. So, the good news: I get 50% off travel on public transport and anyone who employs me gets £2,000. The bad news is that I have to attend a five-day induction course to explain the New Deal to me, even though it is a) not that complicated and b) I was involved with the North-East launch of the programme back in '97, and attended all the conferences and read all the literature about it back then. No way can explaining it take five days, but I have a suspicion that they expect us all to have very limited English and so that is the reason for all this time being spent on it. After the five day course I get a ten-day one which will teach me how to write a CV, apparently, and during which time I will have to apply for many, many jobs whether I want those jobs or not. Hopefully that course will be after Christmas. The worst piece of news though is that I was made to apply for Christmas shop work while I was at the Jobcentre. Now, I have no particular objection to shop work, either at Christmas or any other time, but I do have an objection to working in Tower Hamlets which is "the most economically deprived inner city area in England" and not a place I want to be wandering through at night. I only just live in the borough as it is, and I would far rather work in the City or the West End, anywhere but the East End. But the government has a system whereby they match you with jobs closest to you - great if you live in the countryside, not so great if you live in London, where everywhere is just about as near as everywhere else, and some places, near or far, you would not wish to live in. I had to do a telephone interview, which I passed, and they're supposed to be getting back to me sometime this week, although they haven't yet. I'm still hoping to get out of this, as if I actually turn the job down then I lose my benefits, but I have a Cunning Plan. I shall tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - in other words, I'm going to tell them I'm bipolar, which should put them off entirely. I hope.

Aside from that regrettable incident, this week hasn't been too bad. I had an interview for the civil service on Tuesday, which was more of a test than an interview, really, and not too difficult. I ended up being late for the biology class because of it but fortunately this week was "review week", which meant no actual lecture. By the time I arrived all everyone was doing was filling in self-assessment forms and discussing things they didn't understand. I understand biology quite well (I think) so I just filled in the forms, picked up my second practical (I got 89%) and went home. Well, after going shopping. I found a calendar of puppies I've bought for my mother's Christmas present as she likes dogs and we can't have one. The physics was much the same except we had to stay the full three hours, after filling in the forms we worked on some problems on electricity. I surprised myself by managing to get them almost all right and not finding them too difficult and explained to the lecturer that the only bits I find really difficult involve trigonometry, and there isn't much she can do about that, I just have to revise.

Today, I just spent reading, and I intend to spend more time just reading the rest of the week. Dad's going to Moscow on Sunday so we're not going to be doing much over the weekend.

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