The reason I posted was because I was still reeling from the lack of questions asked. I have been in this position before, but not for very long, and my memory of it was much different than the experiance I had today. I was braced for the third degree, I received none. Although I strongly disagree with de-humanising people when asking about their job seach, by the same token I feel it is important for the Job Center to be made aware that the person they are giving government money to is actively seeking work, this was not the experiance I received today. There are approaches to asking without making a person feel like a second class citizen, but questions do need to be asked inorder to determine those who aren`t seeking work, and then in an ideal world, determine why, and offer more support for those who are genuinely demoralised, I have had personal experiance of someone who was unemployed for years who suffered from the most abject depression.
Our position was that Mars had to quit work because his wage was so unreliable, we`d lost our transport for him to be able to get to work, and when he needed time off to deal with family issues (disabled mum), bereavement (interestingly when he told them he was entitled to bereavement leave, their reply was `yes you are, but we are not entitled to pay you for it!`), or when he was sick, or I was very sick (earlier this year) his job offered no security whatsoever, in fact they screwed him over at every turn, despite the fact he`s been with them for over four years. When we made the decision to swap roles, I went out looking for work like a woman possessed, but was unfortunately unable to find work before our debts became so bad we eventually ended up in court for eviction. In the end I made the very difficult decision of us him quitting and us claiming Unemployment whilst I looked for work so we could stablise our rent with housing benefit. There was a gap beween wage and claiming, because I was so confident one of my agencies would find me work I stupidly put it off! It was literally either that or lose the house. Even the woman from the CAB advised us to stay on the dole, which of course I have no intention of doing, I have a career I want to embark on, but when somebody in that position understood our circumstances, and advised us to stayon the dole, then you know something is really fucked up with the system.
I really, really did hope I would be able to avoid this route, and if events had been a couple of months slower, we might have been able to, but ho hum, such is life! The position I have applied for offers decent sick pay, child-care benefits, and other support which if our year turns out anything like 2004 did, will give us the security we need not to fall foul of our court order. We are back in court in Feb, and need to prove that we have stabalised our rent, which we have managed to do by going on the dole
, we were lucky in the fact that the judge understood how this last year has been for us, and gave us a little more time.Anyway, the reason I write the above is NOT because I am after sympathy, it`s because after reading some of the above posts, I felt rather obliged to justify why we chose to become unemployed. I`m not proud of having to take that route, but it could very well be that my time on the dole only amounts to one month after Friday! :bounce:
But as far as the house goes, it`s a huge gamble, because I don`t know how the swap from Unemployment to working a week/month in hand is going to effect us whilst we are in the process of such a fine balance with the court, but this is a golden opportunity , and could go a long way toward us working for a living instead of working for an existance.
Venusxxx
