Anyone who has had any experience with the job centre will know that they are the most incomprehensible and incompetent organization under England’s grey cloud obscured sun. Today I received a letter saying my benefit claim had been stopped because I hadn’t attended an appointment. I’ve attended all my appointments, in fact I had an appointment this very day, which I went to, albeit filled with wrath, and showed them the letter. They had no idea what the letter was in relation to and suggested I phone the number on the letter. A droll sounding woman said I needed to speak to my job centre. I told her I was in fact currently inside the job center and she said ‘yeah, you need to talk to them’, I said I already had. I have received many of these vile little brown enveloped letters before, saying my claim has been canceled. All they mean is you have to spend hours on the phone on hold listening to an irritating midi version of Handel’s Water Music. Then talking to people who have no connection to each other, have no information and would audibly much rather be watching Jeremy Kyle than talking to you. Hours spent trying to sort out their clerical errors, hours I would much rather spend job hunting than being made to feel increasingly bitter and irritated like a puppy being repeatedly poked by a child holding a stick.
The job centre has a quota of people who’s benefits they have to cancel. Which becomes a horrible childish little game of claim canceling due to any error they can find, usually one they have made themselves. The Job centre has never helped me find a job, in fact I would say it has deterred me from doing so. I don’t think people on the dole can be blamed for apathy when the people behind the desks at the job centre are equally apathetic. It is like the blind leading the blind, or people that would rather be watching Jeremy Kyle leading other people who would rather be watching Jeremy Kyle. One particularly awful employee in Lewisham would more or less just print off a random job and throw it at you and say you had to apply for it or your claim would be cancelled. I went on a really unhelpful course through the job center, which was frequently interrupted by people having to leave to go and sign on under threat of claim cancellation. I also heard a lot of talk there about the place they make you go to after you’ve been on job seeker’s for too long. In which you are forced to spend hours in a room full of people who would rather be watching Jeremy Kyle, people the jobcentre has made them so angry and lethargic that they are physically unable to apply for jobs any more. My ex-boyfriend had to go o this hell place while I lived with him and went back on anti-depressants because of it.
From my brief experiences on the dole I would derive that the job center’s main aim is not to get people jobs but to turn them into homicidal maniacs. Who after receiving brown envelopes in the post and spending hours with the phone pressed against their head will take to the streets with a serrated bread knife, Handel’s Water music playing in their heads looking for that heinous green sign ready to sever the jugulars of all who dwell within. Personally I’ve just been offered a job that starts in January but they still seem to want to cancel my claim so that I won’t have any money to travel work and will have to come back to them head hung, green book in hand, begging for £50 a week so that I can pay for the bus to hand out CVs just so when I get a job they can cancel my claim again. I think the main reason for youth unemployment is in fact the job centre itself. They might as well just replace the job centre with a 9-5 Jeremy Kyle screening room, that way at least the majority of people would be happy.
Posted in: Employ Area |