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Aug

Adventures in Unemployment

By Scribbleboy 3 Comments

Categories: Life, Life List, Money and Writing

Imay not have been writing about it as much but that’s not to say my life hasn’t been exciting and eventful – why only the other day I listened to the BBC Asian Network and bought some milk.

One of my favourite pastimes recently is visiting the job centre, it’s so good there I go at least once a fortnight. Yes, once again I find myself in a similar circumstance to the one I was in when I started writing this blog; once again I am looking for work.

The only differences this time are that I’m now living in Peterborough and, having frittered my savings away on luxuries such as bread and rent, I am claiming the dreaded benefits. According to the media, people make more money on benefits than in full-time jobs. I make £103.70 every two weeks on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA). So if you define “full-time” as less than nine hours a week on minimum wage, then, yes, I am one of the people you read about in the papers.

If you too want to live the benefits dream, then go and read this page right here – they explain it better than I can. Complete the steps correctly you’ll end up with an invite to the job centre (mine took four weeks, so best get started), there you’ll get to sign a Jobseeker’s Agreement and as soon as you do that everywhere you look you’ll start to see what’s wrong with the system.

To qualify for JSA I have to take three “job search steps” a week, unfortunately what does and does not qualify as a step has never been put down in writing on any document I’ve ever read. As far as I understand it, a step is anything you do that increases your chance of getting a job. So buying a newspaper with a jobs section in counts as a step, signing up to an agency counts as a step, getting job alerts emailed to your inbox counts as a step. In fact you could complete a hundred steps without ever applying for a job.

This, however, is just one flaw in a system that comprises of little else. If the advisor you get is particularly keen they may read your logbook but this is not always the case, so weeks can go by without your steps being checked. Even if they are checked, advisors will never request a copy of the job application, a copy of your covering letter or any evidence to prove that your claims are grounded in truth.

These oversights mean it is inevitable that some claimants will be applying for jobs they are not qualified to do or only pretending to apply for jobs, and so will never come off benefits.

If you do find a temporary job the system discourages you from taking it. If you take a one week job, instead of a week’s worth of benefits being deducted, your benefits are cancelled and you have to re-apply once the job is over. Depending on the time it takes for your benefit to resume you could end up making less money working than if you’d just stayed unemployed. Also the forms you have to fill out require payslips and tax and National Insurance breakdowns; I asked an advisor about freelance work and invoices and he just stared at me blankly.

One route back into work is through work experience but if you do more than 15 hours and 59 minutes a week they will deduct minimum wage from your benefits for each additional hour worked (in theory anyway, I declared 34 and a half hours of work experience in one week and they never deducted a penny). I think this is to prevent people getting paid cash in hand and then dishonestly declaring it as work experience, how this stops them from just not telling the job centre I am less sure.

So, these are my observations after less than two months on JSA. I’ve taken at least 60 steps and it’s hard to tell if I’m any closer to employment. I’ve rewritten my CV, signed up to half a dozen job agencies, updated the half a dozen job websites I’m with and even signed up for a few more. I get daily job alerts by email, buy the Peterborough Evening Telegraph every Thursday for the job section and have even applied to do work experience at the paper.

If you follow this blog then expect plenty more to read over the coming months, I might even write a bit about my new city. If by some strange coincidence you’d like to hire me, you can read my newly updated about me page, read my LinkedIn profile (it’s social media for the unemployed) or even get in touch.

Sep

How to be Broke

By Scribbleboy 2 Comments

Categories: Life List and Money

[EDIT: Edited by Nancy Bennie and styled by Antonio Roberts, a version of this blog post appears on page six of the first edition of the Lost in the Wood zine. Here's a PDF version in case you're not a fan of the Flash gimmickry below.]

The other day my friend’s Facebook status read “Stan Chau has no money till Friday :(” and instead of responding with “sux 2 b u lolz” or whatever the correct etiquette is these days I decided to type some tongue-in-cheek survival tips. The response was unexpectedly positive, so I’ve decided to expand on them and put them up here. Think of it as a tasty little starter to the rather bland but filling main course that is Finance July.

How to be Broke

So, You Think You’re Broke

More than likely you’re not broke, you just think you’re broke because a paycheck or student loan is taking longer than expected to arrive (if this isn’t the case, and you have no savings of any kind, you should probably seek real financial advice rather than reading my blog).

This delusion of brokeness first sets in when an ATM refuses to give you any money. Instead of panicking, take your bank card to student cash point (the kind that dispenses five pound notes) and make a withdrawal. If you can’t find one or you have less than a fiver in your account go to your nearest branch and make a withdrawal, it might also be worth asking for an overdraft extension while you’re there (the worst they can do is say no).

Now collect together all the change you have in your trouser pockets, coat pockets and change jar. Have a look down the back of your sofa and under your bed. Is there a place you hide money for emergencies? Look there. It’s also worth thoroughly examining your wallet, more often than not there’s a slot that you “never use” that turns out to be harbouring a fiver. Also collect any foreign coins you have and take it all to a Coinstar machine.

Food

By now you should have almost £10, and it’s more than likely that the Coinstar machine you’re standing at is located in a supermarket, so it’s time to go food shopping. Whatever you do, however, don’t do this when you’re hungry or else you’ll just end up buying yourself snacks that you’ll have consumed before you’re even halfway home.

Stick to the end of the aisles because this is where all the deals are located. Try and purchase things that will turn the leftovers you have at home into edible meals, it is useful to remember the following universal laws;

anything + bread = a sandwich

anything + eggs = an omelette

Also it is inevitable that you have tonnes of dusty pasta and rice, buy some sauce so you can actually eat this stuff. If you don’t already have it, purchase some granulated coffee. When you run out of food start making very strong cups of coffee so thick they’re like paste, this will stave off hunger for a while.

Fun

The cheapest hobby you can ever take up is sleeping, try and do this as much as possible. When you do find yourself conscious, drinking will help you through this (understand that these tips are “tongue-in-cheek”, so if your mother or your liver start complaining you can’t hold me responsible). Find an open bar or at least a bar that will serve you free drinks. Free food and free drink should now be the criteria you use to decide which social events you attend. If friends and family owe you money or dinner now is the time to collect those debts.

For numerous examples of what not to do, keep reading.

Continue reading ‘How to be Broke’

Aug

Not Dead, Still

By Scribbleboy 1 Comment

Categories: Life, Life List and Money

Working nine to five may be the way Dolly Parton intended but for a time it severely sapped my urge to blog. After spending all day sat at a computer typing, when I got home all I wanted to do was make a drink, watch some tv and crawl into bed.

When I wasn’t tired, I was busy. Since we last spoke I’ve moved house twice, which has involved a lot of sorting, a lot of packing and a few trips to the charity shop. It’s also meant working my way through a variety of internet connections, most of them unreliable or non-existent, and spending too long on the phone trying to change my address details with numerous faceless corporations.

I guess the other big thing that’s happened to me is that I got mugged. Here’s the account I gave to The Sentinel. It’s been over three weeks now since my attack so I think I’m over it, although it took a lot longer to replace my bank card than it should have done. For some reason my local branch only opens during office hours and doesn’t open at all over the weekend. This would be a brilliant business strategy if unemployed people had any money.

So, now I’ve fixed my sleeping pattern, settled into my new house and have almost sorted all my records, it’s time to pick myself up and get back on the blogging horse.

I’d like to start with a comment Clara left on my Facebook wall in relation to my new job.

very very good Jon! Quite proud of you at the moment! I will be checking in on the website to see fundamental changes to the graph

Now this might cause confusion for some of you but that’s understandable, I’m not saying it’s a long time since I created graphs to represent my debt but it’s probably before you were born.

Finance June

Week commencing 1st June (three posts)

Incoming: £0

Outgoing:

£10 food
£728 rent
£67 council tax
£18 Vodafone
£10 entertainment (I went barfuss at Trentham and I bought Front Magazine)

Total: £833

End of Week Total: -£3,046

Week commencing 8th June (one post)

Incoming: £0

Outgoing:

£38 food
£48 transport (catching all those trains to go to Sky School)
£100 utilities

Total: £186

End of Week Total: -£3,232

Week commencing 15th June (0 posts)

Incoming: £0

Outgoing:

£38 food
£3 drink (I bought a medium Pepsi at the cinema because I didn’t realise they had a coffee machine, it was sickly sweet and apparently medium now means bigger than my head)
£20 student loan over calculation repayment
£15 insurance
£6 entertainment (I went to see Night at the Museum 2 at the cinema and it was a lot better than I imagined it would have been)

Total: £82

End of Week Total: -£3,314

Week commencing 22nd June (two posts)

Incoming: £0

Outgoing:

£50 food
£20 transport
£1 stationery (an address book I needed for work)
£9 rounding error (haven’t a clue)

Total: £80

End of Week Total: -£3,394

Week commencing 29th June (one post)

Incoming: £0

Outgoing:

£26 food
£10 drink
£20 transport

Total: £56

End of Month Total: -£3,540

The Poverty Line, for the month of June*

For those a little perturbed by the re-appearance of the graph, here’s one last photo from the phone with some words of wisdom that it’d be worth you heeding.

Great piece of design, first time I've seen it in real life

* Figures are rounded up and my student loan debt, which has now risen to £19,993.48, is not included.

Jun

Finance May, The Gripping Conclusion

By Scribbleboy 1 Comment

Categories: Life List and Money

In March I made you a promise. I’d quit the overdrafts and cut back on my bank accounts. We’re now in June and I only have two accounts and for a short time last month I was even in the black. Once these two conditions were met I said that I’d make Finance Friday a less frequent event, so here are the last two weeks of May. From now on I’ll update you on a monthly basis.

Week commencing 18th May (blogged three times)

According to my bank statements I didn’t acquire any pennies this week, nor did I spend any pounds. This is contradicted by receipts, my memory and reality. Presumably I was spending loose change found strewn across my room, more than likely the £16 I couldn’t account for the week previous and also £55 that Frosty lent me.

End of Week Total: -£2,820

Week commencing 25th May (blogged twice)

Incoming:

£80 wages (from the traffic survey I mentioned in this post)
£10 from my Gran

Total: £90

Outgoing:

£57 food
£14 drink
£36 gifts
£55 repaid to Frosty

Total: £162

End of Month Total: -£2,892

Since Finance Friday is now only a monthly ordeal I might even start redrawing the graph, for this month however you get one last photo from the phone.

This is a snap of the sticker that Gingell was giving away to anyone on Twitter who promoted her blog over the weekend. If you didn’t follow the link yesterday, there’s no harm in taking a look today, especially as there’s a new post to read. This piece of Running from Zombies merchandise now takes pride of place on my music box just above my Wu-Tang Clan sticker (yes, their new album Chamber Music is out on Tuesday, going to reign my excitement in for now because I haven’t met anyone that feels the same way. If however you are hyped check out Fat Lace Magazine, a project Reg is involved with, to preview some of the tracks).

On the topic of merchandise, I’d like some input from you dearest reader. Would you like to see some scribbleboy.co.uk freebies? If so what kind of items and where can I buy them cheap? This is unlike anything I’ve done before on this blog, the closest I ever got was offering a free drink to anyone who came up with a creative swear word that wasn’t on my list of banned words for Lent. This was won by a man who works in bar and was therefore ultimately pointless. His name is Nick, I’m going to leave you with his winning submission;

donkeyrapingassmaster possibly not something in you’re vocabulary but soon will be when you start thinking about it, plus it rolls of the tongue quite well i have found when delivered as one word…….. try it and add a quid to the jar.

Jun

Escape From Sky School

By Scribbleboy 8 Comments

Categories: Life, Life List and Money

spy_school_portrait

On Friday 22nd May I replied to a vaguely worded job description posted on reed.co.uk. It read;

DO YOU HAVE THE X – FACTOR ?

Birmingham based Advertising company looking for individuals with a great attitude to work within a lively outgoing environment.

We are looking for people with that special X – Factor that can be trained up to join our busy PR team.

Must have excellent skills in customer service, confidence in their communication levels and be willing to be trained from scratch.

Full training given with opportunities for advancement for the career minded.

Please forward your CV to us for consideration.

Ten days later they made contact. According to the man on the phone I had enough “X – Factor” to get an interview. When I returned home there was an email from Scorpia Corporation informing me that I was also being considered for their “Business Development Program”. Further details could be found on their website, ANB Promotions.

This is when I became suspicious. Scorp Corp had placed the advert on behalf of The Cobra Group, part of which was ANB Promotions LTD, the company I would be working for if my interview was successful.*

Ignore that scorpions and cobras poison their prey, ignore that ANB stands for A New Beginning and sounds like a new-age cult, just look at the website. It looks very professional, with a lot of stock photography and very little detail. If I was part of an undercover operation this is the kind of site I’d put together to try and convince the public that we were legitimate. Look at their contact page, their location pulsates, as if at any moment it will vanish, and the man in the dark glasses looks nothing if not shady.

It was at this point that I wondered if ANB Promotions was my Credit Dauphin, if like Sydney Bristow in Alias I’d be recruited for what on the surface appears to be a banking corporation but in reality turns out to be a criminal organisation. When a business says they’re “a leading below-the-line direct marketing specialist representing an array of national and international clients” you wonder what you’re going to be asked to do. As it turned out it wasn’t ripping off jumpsuits to reveal slinky cocktail dresses and abseiling in heels, although it was seven floors up from a cross-dressing strip club.

ANB Promotions is located in Chinatown in Birmingham and provides other businesses with new customers. One of their most recent clients is Sky TV. Sky currently have 9.3 million customers in the UK and are aiming for 10m in the next five years. Here are some facts that make ANB happy; Sky’s closest competition is Virgin who are losing 2,500 customers a month. Some people are just trying to save money, others are unemployed, both are watching more tv and scrutinising how much they pay for this service.

I passed the first interview.

Then I completed the evaluation day.

Then I passed the second interview.

Then I was invited back for the training week.

Then, if I passed the end of week test, I would have a job selling pay tv door-to-door. This job would be commission based, so if no one bought Sky then I wouldn’t get paid.

The training week began on Monday at 9:30am with some of the most detailed paperwork I have seen in a long time. Hair colour, eye colour, height. A five year history of all employment, unemployment and education to the exact date with no omissions or overlaps. I was also required to arrive with eight different documents, including a reference I had to source and print over the weekend.

Afterwards we went into a boardroom. We were given talks and we took tests, I dubbed this part Sky School. Most days we didn’t finish until at least nine at night.

On Wednesday I got to go out in the field with my Sky Buddy Kristel, as I had done on the evaluation day. Kristel was born in Estonia, lived in Norway and has worked with ANB Promotions for over a year now. She has an amazing sense of humour, bought me an umbrella when it rained and is very good at what she does.

Then on Thursday we did the same again, only this time with less rain, flying bugs, and unfortunately, less sales. Every day each field representative is given a walk sheet (note my correct usage of technical terms there) detailing 100 names and addresses of people who can afford Sky tv but are currently with someone else. The average success rate is seven. For the entire week.

Friday I quit.

I met some great people and I learnt a lot about sales, psychology and body language but this job was not for me. In the short term I had to jump through a lot of hoops to make money that wouldn’t have covered my transport costs. Long term this job could have been quite profitable but I’d be trapped in a tiring, repetitious, mentally draining job.

The job hunt continues on Monday.

* A subsection of The Cobra Group is Appco Direct LTD. ANB Promotions and Lifestyle Advertising are both subsections of Appco Direct. While the email suggested I’d be working for ANB it turned out I was working for Lifestyle. Both companies share the same office and do exactly the same things, only with different coloured folders. Mine was red.

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About

Born in Paignton, educated in Stoke-on-Trent and living in Peterborough. I am a footsoldier in the army of the unemployed and an occasional blogger.

I survive on caffeine, willpower and JSA. This blog is a record of my attempts to find work and my successes and failures as I try and complete life-improving challenges suggested to me by readers.