I've worked for the Department for Work and Pensions for many years, but never in a job centre before, and I'm looking forward to it. This one is newly decorated, in bright colours, smart as paint.
I sit down at the desk allocated to me, and am introduced to several colleagues, including one who is so hugely overweight that if she fell over sideways, it would be a while before she realised it. I at once resolve not to have a biscuit with my morning tea. (Civil servants drink as much tea as possible).
My first customer (as we are instructed to call them) is a young gentleman who is incandescent with rage as his Jobseeker's Allowance has been stopped. When he has calmed down enough to give me his National Insurance Number, I look into the system and discover that his benefit was stopped because he was not deemed to be 'actively seeking work.' For some of our young people, the link between receiving JSA and actually looking for work will remain forever missing.
When I tell him this, he replies indignantly that he is indeed seeking work. Why, he attended an interview two weeks ago! The reason he didn't get the job is because the employer was: 'Racist s..., yeah!'
I ask him what he wore to the interview, and the answer I get is: 'What I've got on, yeah!'
I do believe that the employer is prejudiced, against a young man who wears a hooded top, with the hood pulled up over a baseball cap, and jeans hanging round his knees. I suggest that different clothes could perhaps be worn to job interviews, and he stares at me with such blank incomprehension that I wonder if I have suddenly started speaking in Russian.
Next, he demands; 'How am I supposed to give money for my yoot, yeah?'
I have no idea what a 'yoot' is, perhaps some kind of musical instrument for which he is trying to save?
Wrong. His 'yoot' is his three month old son, who lives with his mother, from whom the customer is of course separated, that is if they were ever together for longer than it took them to conceive their 'yoot.'
I say that it might make a difference to his JSA being put back into payment if the processing centre know he has a child (it won't) so he gives me the mother's name and address. I'm surprised he actually fell for that one, most of our customers know the system better than we do. As soon as he has gone, I look up the mother on the system, and find that she is also on benefit, (never!) and has given the Child Support Agency the usual excuse that she met the child's father at a party, didn't bother to ask his name(!), and has not seen him since. I ring a contact at the CSA and give them the new information, so that if he ever does get a job in the future (unlikely) they will hopefully jump on him.
I sit down at the desk allocated to me, and am introduced to several colleagues, including one who is so hugely overweight that if she fell over sideways, it would be a while before she realised it. I at once resolve not to have a biscuit with my morning tea. (Civil servants drink as much tea as possible).
My first customer (as we are instructed to call them) is a young gentleman who is incandescent with rage as his Jobseeker's Allowance has been stopped. When he has calmed down enough to give me his National Insurance Number, I look into the system and discover that his benefit was stopped because he was not deemed to be 'actively seeking work.' For some of our young people, the link between receiving JSA and actually looking for work will remain forever missing.
When I tell him this, he replies indignantly that he is indeed seeking work. Why, he attended an interview two weeks ago! The reason he didn't get the job is because the employer was: 'Racist s..., yeah!'
I ask him what he wore to the interview, and the answer I get is: 'What I've got on, yeah!'
I do believe that the employer is prejudiced, against a young man who wears a hooded top, with the hood pulled up over a baseball cap, and jeans hanging round his knees. I suggest that different clothes could perhaps be worn to job interviews, and he stares at me with such blank incomprehension that I wonder if I have suddenly started speaking in Russian.
Next, he demands; 'How am I supposed to give money for my yoot, yeah?'
I have no idea what a 'yoot' is, perhaps some kind of musical instrument for which he is trying to save?
Wrong. His 'yoot' is his three month old son, who lives with his mother, from whom the customer is of course separated, that is if they were ever together for longer than it took them to conceive their 'yoot.'
I say that it might make a difference to his JSA being put back into payment if the processing centre know he has a child (it won't) so he gives me the mother's name and address. I'm surprised he actually fell for that one, most of our customers know the system better than we do. As soon as he has gone, I look up the mother on the system, and find that she is also on benefit, (never!) and has given the Child Support Agency the usual excuse that she met the child's father at a party, didn't bother to ask his name(!), and has not seen him since. I ring a contact at the CSA and give them the new information, so that if he ever does get a job in the future (unlikely) they will hopefully jump on him.
posted by annette wilson @ 5:42 AM
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