At this time of economic gloom and woe, I am almost embarrassed to report I have landed another job interview.
I am confident that I deserve this interview as I wrote (well, typed, thanks to the accessible glory that is an online application) next to every disability-linked question and every 'if you are shortlisted for interview'-linked question that I was NOT requesting an interview under the Two Ticks scheme* and did NOT want to be shortlisted on the basis of my disability.
My only concern is taking the time off from my existing job to attend the interview, as it's on a day when we tend to be both busy and understaffed at the best of times. I'll have a word with my manager today. I suspect I'll end up stashing jeans and trainers at work the day before, so that I can go in straight from interview and change out of my suit there.
I realise this is really quite a smug position to be in.
*The Two Ticks Scheme
This is a scheme that quite a few large employers sign up to, recognisable by a symbol of two ticks encircled by the tagline "positive about disabled people". The part of it that is relevant here is a pledge that if a disabled candidate has shown on their application that they meet the minimum stated requirements for a job, that candidate gets an automatic interview. This helps, because a lot of disabled people wouldn't make the first cut due to things like:
- one or more long periods of unemployment
- previous employment mostly in an entirely different field
- an unusual pattern of education
- employer prejudices
... the idea being that once a person is in an interview setting, they can better explain and show how they are the right person for the job, how their nonstandard CV is proof of their ability to adapt to situations and overcome obstacles, how they are pleasant and competent individuals who will be an asset rather than a burden to the existing team, and so on. Or indeed not, as the case may be. Either way, the person gets interview practice, hopefully some interview feedback so that they have an idea where they should improve things, and a greater chance of getting a job when their CV might otherwise have gone straight into the bin.
Which is all great, but there's a flipside. Going to an interview takes up time, energy, and money, three things that your average disabled job applicant is not rolling in. You have to get your suit cleaned and your shirt ironed, you have to research the company, practise some answers for likely questions, arrange for a lift or pay for the taxis there and back, you have to deal with spending the 24 hours beforehand feeling utterly queasy with nerves.
If you already work, then it's even worse. You have to have that uncomfortable little discussion with your boss that (s)he might be about to get asked for a reference. You have to worry about whether the knowledge that you applied for another job is going to adversely affect you when it comes to managerial decisions about promotions or redundancies or pay cuts. You have to book time off work, and if that's not possible and the interviewers can't offer a different day, you have to start weighing up abandoning the interview vs throwing a sickie...
All of which might very well be worth it, if there's a genuine chance of getting a decent job at the end of it.
Unfortunately for a Two Ticks candidate, a job will (and must, and should) always go to the person most competent to do that job. If you meet the minimum criteria and turn up for a Two Ticks interview, and five other people (disabled or otherwise) are being interviewed who meet and exceed the maximum criteria, well, you're never going to get that job.
Also unfortunately, nepotism is alive and well and probably always will be. I have seen a couple of jobs where the position was publicly advertised (because it's a requirement of the company policy), the disabled candidates were interviewed (because it's a requirement of the Two Ticks scheme), and then everybody had to try and not look surprised when the position went to, at best, an internal candidate, and at worst, the repugnant offspring of the managing director.
In such situations, the Two Ticks candidate has NO chance of getting the job. All (s)he gets is a lot of expense and hassle and a smidgen of interview experience. Which is fine if interview experience is what you want... but personally, I'd rather only attend interviews where I know I have a reasonable chance of being the one who gets the job.
Edited for grammar 22:27 12/02/09
Showing posts with label jobsearch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jobsearch. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Welfare Reform
I'm sure many of the people who read this blog will have encountered the stories in the news about James Purnell's work for welfare plans. On the face of it, and to particular types of people (generally the ones who are well educated/spoken/connected/balanced/experienced/etc enough to have never had too much trouble getting a job) the plans seem quite reasonable - "severely disabled people" and single parents of babies under one will be supported, everyone else will have to work for their money. And let's face it, those are the people we want to help with our taxes. We've had quite enough of supporting entire workless families like the Malcolm family who fulfil every stereotype of a feckless wastrel benefit scrounger that you ever heard (seriously, whichever reporter dug that lot up deserves a bloody medal).
Why does it bother me anyway? I have a job. Well, it bothers me because I know how extremely lucky I am to have got into a position where I could look for work, let alone how fortunate I was to actually get a job. I know that all it takes is one factor to slip - Steve and I breaking up, a change in Access to Work criteria, the company I work for to collapse - and all of a sudden I will be back on the scrapheap, and in a jobs market which is terrifying compared to what it was a year ago. It also bothers me because I know too many people who are in similar positions to the one I was in before I moved in with Steve, who would like to be working and earning their own money but simply aren't in a position to manage it.
The first problem is this "severely disabled" idea. The criteria for this is incredibly stringent. The Benefits and Work website has a free Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) self-assessment test. I count as disabled, but not severely enough that my capacity for work-related activity would be considered "limited", which has surprised a couple of people who know me.
It's not just me though. Here's an example from the DWP's own guidance (pdf):
"Customer receiving DLA (middle rate care) and DLA(higher rate mobility). A person with severe rheumatoid arthritis affecting the hands and feet, limiting the ability to walk and needing some help to wash, dress, cut up food, and attend to toileting needs. The customer is living alone and nobody receives Carer’s Allowance for looking after him."
That is an example of someone who is NOT considered to have limited capability to undertake work-related activity.
They cannot walk, dress, wash, eat, or go to the loo unaided, but they are considered to be perfectly able to do full work-related activity. And they will face "sanctions" if they cannot manage it.
How on earth does that work?!?
The second problem is the idea of full-time work-related activity or community work. Regular readers will be aware that I recently had to bow out of a great interview for a job that I really wanted to do at a place where I really wanted to work, just because it was full time. I'd love to earn full-time wages but the unfortunate truth is that I cannot manage to do a full-time job AND keep on top of life's essentials such as showering and eating and so on - as we've covered before, I'm pretty stretched just working part-time.
These new plans, however, would have me "working" 9-5, and facing "sanctions" when I failed to manage it. Which brings us neatly on to the third issue, which is rates of pay.
Basic ESA is £60.50 per week, which is the same as Jobseeker's Allowance for a person over 25 years of age. Then there's £24 on top of it for participating in the Work-Related Activity. I understand this is the bit that gets withdrawn if you "refuse to co-operate" by, for example, being stubbornly too ill to leave the house on more than one morning.
I suspect there are very few people reading this who would consider working full time for £85 a week, but disabled people will have a choice between that and real heat-or-eat poverty. You see, there are two good reasons why Incapacity Benefit at the long-term rate is more than Jobseeker's Allowance. The first reason is that a disabled person generally has to cover more costs than an able-bodied person. DLA (supposedly) accounts for the additional personal-care-related and mobility-related costs, for instance Meals on Wheels and taxi fares, but there are also increases in general costs - things like having to do more laundry due to frequently spilling things, buying more trousers because they wear through at the knees as you crawl around your home, or having to have an internet connection because you do not have the capacity to get to and around the local shops nor the supermarket for your essential groceries. The second reason is that it generally takes longer for a disabled person to secure a job, during which time they will have more household expenses of the sort that the able-bodied person on short-term JSA could defer until they'd got a job. I'll explain. Even putting aside issues of access and discrimination at the interview stage... let's say that the odds of getting a job are one in a hundred, so if you apply for a hundred jobs you will get one of them. While an able-bodied person could, technically, apply for every job in the paper that they were qualified for and hit the hundred in a few weeks, a disabled person with the same level of qualifications will only be able to apply for the few jobs that also match their physical capabilities - it could take a year or more to find a hundred suitable jobs to apply for during which time the boiler will still need repairing and the wheelchair will need a service.
Even Reasonable Adjustments and Access to work can't make everything possible. A reminder of a post I made before I got my job:
"I still have certain limitations. The obvious physical symptoms of my illness rule out quite a lot of things, especially in terms of the usual easy-to-get minimum-wage flexible-hours jobs. I don't think I'm in any way 'above' cleaning toilets or serving fast-food or collecting trolleys from a supermarket carpark, but I would do such an ineffective job of those tasks that really, another person would have to be employed just to pick up my slack."
Which brings me to my final point. Even with the job that I do, which looked possible enough to make it worthwhile applying, it costs quite a bit of money to keep me in work. I need taxis to and from work. There are no other transport options available to me so the taxpayer contributes about £40 a week to my taxi fares (I pay the rest). I also have a special machine, a mechanical press, bought by the taxpayer as I cannot use the hand-press my co-worker uses. That was £500. Other people need different things - Lilwatchergirl needed a wheelchair, an office chair, an ergonomic keyboard and mouse, and a PDA; Lady Bracknell's Editor needed a laptop and "Secure Remote Access System" to enable her to work from home when necessary, plus however many man-hours were required to untangle the inevitable snarl-ups; various other people have required voice recognition software or Braille displays or even actual human assistants to help with certain parts of their work. That's before we even get started on the costs of things of uncertain merit like DEAs and Remploy. All things considered, I suspect there are more than a couple of us who cost more money "working" than they did claiming IB. How will the costs of enabling us to attend and accomplish "work-related activity" be met on top of paying full ESA?
I don't have all, or indeed any of the answers, but what I have heard so far about the reforms strikes me as badly-thought-out and more than a little scary.
Why does it bother me anyway? I have a job. Well, it bothers me because I know how extremely lucky I am to have got into a position where I could look for work, let alone how fortunate I was to actually get a job. I know that all it takes is one factor to slip - Steve and I breaking up, a change in Access to Work criteria, the company I work for to collapse - and all of a sudden I will be back on the scrapheap, and in a jobs market which is terrifying compared to what it was a year ago. It also bothers me because I know too many people who are in similar positions to the one I was in before I moved in with Steve, who would like to be working and earning their own money but simply aren't in a position to manage it.
The first problem is this "severely disabled" idea. The criteria for this is incredibly stringent. The Benefits and Work website has a free Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) self-assessment test. I count as disabled, but not severely enough that my capacity for work-related activity would be considered "limited", which has surprised a couple of people who know me.
It's not just me though. Here's an example from the DWP's own guidance (pdf):
"Customer receiving DLA (middle rate care) and DLA(higher rate mobility). A person with severe rheumatoid arthritis affecting the hands and feet, limiting the ability to walk and needing some help to wash, dress, cut up food, and attend to toileting needs. The customer is living alone and nobody receives Carer’s Allowance for looking after him."
That is an example of someone who is NOT considered to have limited capability to undertake work-related activity.
They cannot walk, dress, wash, eat, or go to the loo unaided, but they are considered to be perfectly able to do full work-related activity. And they will face "sanctions" if they cannot manage it.
How on earth does that work?!?
The second problem is the idea of full-time work-related activity or community work. Regular readers will be aware that I recently had to bow out of a great interview for a job that I really wanted to do at a place where I really wanted to work, just because it was full time. I'd love to earn full-time wages but the unfortunate truth is that I cannot manage to do a full-time job AND keep on top of life's essentials such as showering and eating and so on - as we've covered before, I'm pretty stretched just working part-time.
These new plans, however, would have me "working" 9-5, and facing "sanctions" when I failed to manage it. Which brings us neatly on to the third issue, which is rates of pay.
Basic ESA is £60.50 per week, which is the same as Jobseeker's Allowance for a person over 25 years of age. Then there's £24 on top of it for participating in the Work-Related Activity. I understand this is the bit that gets withdrawn if you "refuse to co-operate" by, for example, being stubbornly too ill to leave the house on more than one morning.
I suspect there are very few people reading this who would consider working full time for £85 a week, but disabled people will have a choice between that and real heat-or-eat poverty. You see, there are two good reasons why Incapacity Benefit at the long-term rate is more than Jobseeker's Allowance. The first reason is that a disabled person generally has to cover more costs than an able-bodied person. DLA (supposedly) accounts for the additional personal-care-related and mobility-related costs, for instance Meals on Wheels and taxi fares, but there are also increases in general costs - things like having to do more laundry due to frequently spilling things, buying more trousers because they wear through at the knees as you crawl around your home, or having to have an internet connection because you do not have the capacity to get to and around the local shops nor the supermarket for your essential groceries. The second reason is that it generally takes longer for a disabled person to secure a job, during which time they will have more household expenses of the sort that the able-bodied person on short-term JSA could defer until they'd got a job. I'll explain. Even putting aside issues of access and discrimination at the interview stage... let's say that the odds of getting a job are one in a hundred, so if you apply for a hundred jobs you will get one of them. While an able-bodied person could, technically, apply for every job in the paper that they were qualified for and hit the hundred in a few weeks, a disabled person with the same level of qualifications will only be able to apply for the few jobs that also match their physical capabilities - it could take a year or more to find a hundred suitable jobs to apply for during which time the boiler will still need repairing and the wheelchair will need a service.
Even Reasonable Adjustments and Access to work can't make everything possible. A reminder of a post I made before I got my job:
"I still have certain limitations. The obvious physical symptoms of my illness rule out quite a lot of things, especially in terms of the usual easy-to-get minimum-wage flexible-hours jobs. I don't think I'm in any way 'above' cleaning toilets or serving fast-food or collecting trolleys from a supermarket carpark, but I would do such an ineffective job of those tasks that really, another person would have to be employed just to pick up my slack."
Which brings me to my final point. Even with the job that I do, which looked possible enough to make it worthwhile applying, it costs quite a bit of money to keep me in work. I need taxis to and from work. There are no other transport options available to me so the taxpayer contributes about £40 a week to my taxi fares (I pay the rest). I also have a special machine, a mechanical press, bought by the taxpayer as I cannot use the hand-press my co-worker uses. That was £500. Other people need different things - Lilwatchergirl needed a wheelchair, an office chair, an ergonomic keyboard and mouse, and a PDA; Lady Bracknell's Editor needed a laptop and "Secure Remote Access System" to enable her to work from home when necessary, plus however many man-hours were required to untangle the inevitable snarl-ups; various other people have required voice recognition software or Braille displays or even actual human assistants to help with certain parts of their work. That's before we even get started on the costs of things of uncertain merit like DEAs and Remploy. All things considered, I suspect there are more than a couple of us who cost more money "working" than they did claiming IB. How will the costs of enabling us to attend and accomplish "work-related activity" be met on top of paying full ESA?
I don't have all, or indeed any of the answers, but what I have heard so far about the reforms strikes me as badly-thought-out and more than a little scary.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Remploy and MPs
Finally, a response regarding the Remploy problems. My MP referred the matter to Anne McGuire, the erstwhile Minister for Disabled People. The response consists of a letter from Anne McGuire to my MP regarding the matter (dated approximately two weeks before she was replaced by Jonathan Shaw), and a covering letter from my MP, as it went via his office.
As you'll see from that article, whilst in office Ms McGuire was all about welfare-to-work. And my MP is James Plaskitt, the Benefit Fraud Minister. Surely if anyone should be up in arms about a company like Remploy skewing the stats for disabled people entering employment, it's these two.
Oh dear. While I like having faith in humanity, and believe that people as individuals are generally good, fair, and basically nice, I really must stop being so naive as to extend this to politicians.
According to my MP, "It appears that there has been a genuine and unfortunate error in the handling of your case, for which Remploy and the Government offer their sincere apologies."
Not fifty quid, then. Nor any thanks for my honesty in not taking the money and running, or for alerting them to the problems. And I wonder, Mr Plaskitt, if you uncovered a Benefit Fraudster on the claimant side rather than the government side, would you let them off with "apologies"?
No. Even if a benefit claimant made a "genuine and unfortunate error", they'd be hounded through the courts and at the very least, be required to pay back the funds which they had received on the basis of the erroneous information.
The letter from Ms McGuire was a little more illuminating. Sort of. I'm not going to reproduce any of it here as it's full of management gibberish and unashamed weasel-speak, but ten years as a fan of Dilbert has enabled me to boil it down and so I present the basic content in English.
1. Contacting me: Oops.
2. Only sending the signature pages: Oops.
3. Wrong dates: Oops.
4. Telephone call: Oops.
It seems Remploy contacted a whole list of clients to try and get them onto the Workstep programme. The list contained the details of 16 people, myself included, who should not have been on the list. No one noticed until I spoke up. The other 15 are being 'reviewed'.
For each point there's a lot of meaningless flannel about "ongoing continuous improvement programme" and references to undefined "additional measures" which will be put in place. Oops is about the size of it, though.
As for the '£50 for returning some forms' business: apparently £50 is considered a perfectly reasonable "incentive" for people to return information. Neither Remploy, nor the DWP, nor the wider government see anything dodgy about that at all. My apologies to Wat Tyler and Dr Crippen.
As you'll see from that article, whilst in office Ms McGuire was all about welfare-to-work. And my MP is James Plaskitt, the Benefit Fraud Minister. Surely if anyone should be up in arms about a company like Remploy skewing the stats for disabled people entering employment, it's these two.
Oh dear. While I like having faith in humanity, and believe that people as individuals are generally good, fair, and basically nice, I really must stop being so naive as to extend this to politicians.
According to my MP, "It appears that there has been a genuine and unfortunate error in the handling of your case, for which Remploy and the Government offer their sincere apologies."
Not fifty quid, then. Nor any thanks for my honesty in not taking the money and running, or for alerting them to the problems. And I wonder, Mr Plaskitt, if you uncovered a Benefit Fraudster on the claimant side rather than the government side, would you let them off with "apologies"?
No. Even if a benefit claimant made a "genuine and unfortunate error", they'd be hounded through the courts and at the very least, be required to pay back the funds which they had received on the basis of the erroneous information.
The letter from Ms McGuire was a little more illuminating. Sort of. I'm not going to reproduce any of it here as it's full of management gibberish and unashamed weasel-speak, but ten years as a fan of Dilbert has enabled me to boil it down and so I present the basic content in English.
1. Contacting me: Oops.
2. Only sending the signature pages: Oops.
3. Wrong dates: Oops.
4. Telephone call: Oops.
It seems Remploy contacted a whole list of clients to try and get them onto the Workstep programme. The list contained the details of 16 people, myself included, who should not have been on the list. No one noticed until I spoke up. The other 15 are being 'reviewed'.
For each point there's a lot of meaningless flannel about "ongoing continuous improvement programme" and references to undefined "additional measures" which will be put in place. Oops is about the size of it, though.
As for the '£50 for returning some forms' business: apparently £50 is considered a perfectly reasonable "incentive" for people to return information. Neither Remploy, nor the DWP, nor the wider government see anything dodgy about that at all. My apologies to Wat Tyler and Dr Crippen.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Still working
It's been more than a week now since I started work. It's going well. I am getting very sore and tired, true, but the work gets easier to do as I get more used to it. I've learned the job pretty well and am hardly getting brainflustered at all any more. Co-workers continue to be lovely, and I'm now 'officially' an employee rather than the casual see-how-it-goes thing we started out with.
Things at home are settling out nicely as well. The Roomba (or 'Bloop' as he is coming to be affectionately known) is doing well - not only does he clean the carpets, but I think he also makes us a bit more inclined to keep the place tidy, as roombas aren't really compatible with floors full of trailing wires, shoelaces, knitting, paperwork and whatnot. The shopping delivery from Sainsburys the other day was great, everything well in-date and only a couple of substitutions which I was perfectly happy with (eg "we didn't have the pack of two pain au chocolat that you ordered. So we're substituting a pack of four," OH NOES). Steve has been making more of an effort to do stuff around the house, especially the washing up, which has been an enormous help. Of course when he goes back to work, I'm going to have to pick up a bit more of that, but I'm not panicked about it. The only bit that worries me is the kicking him out of bed in the mornings, which is not a task for the easily discouraged. Steve is reading this, but I honestly think he would have to be among the first to admit that first thing in the morning he Does Not Want To Know about the world outside the duvet.
Knitting is seriously slowed at the moment. I did manage to go to knitting group on Tuesday for about an hour after work, but found myself regretting it a bit. I think it might be better to do what Steve suggested - finish work at 5.30, come home, have a nap, and then go out again to knitting at maybe 7.30 if I'm up to it. I turned down this suggestion last week on the basis that it seemed a bit silly for Steve to have to drive into town and back three times in an evening (1 pick up from work, 2 drop off at knitting, 3 pick up from knitting) but it might be the only realistic way to do it.
As you will have noticed, we're still talking about Steve taking me to and from work. On Friday (the 16th) we went to the council offices and got my ID and Blue Badge and whatnot photocopied, and the plan then was that the council would refer me to Community Transport, and then Community Transport would send me a form to apply to them, and once they had that form back, we could see about transport. However, I haven't had the form yet.
Today, I got through to Access to Work on the phone. Someone answered, took my name and number and a brief run-down of what I wanted, and said he'd arrange for an advisor to call me back.
A few minutes later, Yay, points for speedy actualisation of promises, T, the advisor called me back to tell me that he was going to go through a form with me and it would take 15 or 20 minutes. OK, so far so good, it was mostly stuff like name, address, NINo, do you claim this, do you claim that, what help do you want... great.
An interesting question was "do you claim Incapacity Benefit?" to which my answer, which should have been yes or no, was "not since I've started the job. However, when I first tried to call you, between getting offered the job and starting, then yes, I did get Incapacity Benefit. But your phones were down." Surprisingly enough there wasn't a box for that. T couldn't backdate my AtW claim, so he had to put "no" because at the time of our conversation, I was no longer on benefit. But he did ask what number I had been trying, and apparently "that number" was down for about six weeks. Which implies that they have a second number, which the DEA didn't give me, with which I might have got hold of them sooner. Do we think I should make a complaint about this DEA yet?
Fifteen minutes later, the questions were all answered, so now what? Well, T will post the form to me today. If it isn't with me by Monday, I should call them back. When I get the form, I must check it, sign it, date it, and send it back to them. Once they have the signed form back, then another advisor, a notch up from T, will look at the form and phone me to discuss things in more detail.
In the mean time, the DWP and the council and everyone else official are happy for me to be attempting to get by on £20 a week because of the cost of transport to and from work soaking up most of my earnings - it really is just exceptional luck for me that I have someone who can give me financial support and transport for the short-term immediate future. Dear Peter Hain, THIS is why disabled people who are technically capable of doing some jobs get stuck on Incapacity Benefit...
Things at home are settling out nicely as well. The Roomba (or 'Bloop' as he is coming to be affectionately known) is doing well - not only does he clean the carpets, but I think he also makes us a bit more inclined to keep the place tidy, as roombas aren't really compatible with floors full of trailing wires, shoelaces, knitting, paperwork and whatnot. The shopping delivery from Sainsburys the other day was great, everything well in-date and only a couple of substitutions which I was perfectly happy with (eg "we didn't have the pack of two pain au chocolat that you ordered. So we're substituting a pack of four," OH NOES). Steve has been making more of an effort to do stuff around the house, especially the washing up, which has been an enormous help. Of course when he goes back to work, I'm going to have to pick up a bit more of that, but I'm not panicked about it. The only bit that worries me is the kicking him out of bed in the mornings, which is not a task for the easily discouraged. Steve is reading this, but I honestly think he would have to be among the first to admit that first thing in the morning he Does Not Want To Know about the world outside the duvet.
Knitting is seriously slowed at the moment. I did manage to go to knitting group on Tuesday for about an hour after work, but found myself regretting it a bit. I think it might be better to do what Steve suggested - finish work at 5.30, come home, have a nap, and then go out again to knitting at maybe 7.30 if I'm up to it. I turned down this suggestion last week on the basis that it seemed a bit silly for Steve to have to drive into town and back three times in an evening (1 pick up from work, 2 drop off at knitting, 3 pick up from knitting) but it might be the only realistic way to do it.
As you will have noticed, we're still talking about Steve taking me to and from work. On Friday (the 16th) we went to the council offices and got my ID and Blue Badge and whatnot photocopied, and the plan then was that the council would refer me to Community Transport, and then Community Transport would send me a form to apply to them, and once they had that form back, we could see about transport. However, I haven't had the form yet.
Today, I got through to Access to Work on the phone. Someone answered, took my name and number and a brief run-down of what I wanted, and said he'd arrange for an advisor to call me back.
A few minutes later, Yay, points for speedy actualisation of promises, T, the advisor called me back to tell me that he was going to go through a form with me and it would take 15 or 20 minutes. OK, so far so good, it was mostly stuff like name, address, NINo, do you claim this, do you claim that, what help do you want... great.
An interesting question was "do you claim Incapacity Benefit?" to which my answer, which should have been yes or no, was "not since I've started the job. However, when I first tried to call you, between getting offered the job and starting, then yes, I did get Incapacity Benefit. But your phones were down." Surprisingly enough there wasn't a box for that. T couldn't backdate my AtW claim, so he had to put "no" because at the time of our conversation, I was no longer on benefit. But he did ask what number I had been trying, and apparently "that number" was down for about six weeks. Which implies that they have a second number, which the DEA didn't give me, with which I might have got hold of them sooner. Do we think I should make a complaint about this DEA yet?
Fifteen minutes later, the questions were all answered, so now what? Well, T will post the form to me today. If it isn't with me by Monday, I should call them back. When I get the form, I must check it, sign it, date it, and send it back to them. Once they have the signed form back, then another advisor, a notch up from T, will look at the form and phone me to discuss things in more detail.
In the mean time, the DWP and the council and everyone else official are happy for me to be attempting to get by on £20 a week because of the cost of transport to and from work soaking up most of my earnings - it really is just exceptional luck for me that I have someone who can give me financial support and transport for the short-term immediate future. Dear Peter Hain, THIS is why disabled people who are technically capable of doing some jobs get stuck on Incapacity Benefit...
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Transport to work.
Fun and games trying to arrange transport to and from work.
I can't drive, due to the effects of my condition. It would be unsafe for me and everyone on the roads and pavements anywhere I was driving.
I can't walk any significant distance. Particularly, I can't walk to useful places like my workplace in the town centre...
...or the nearest bus stop even, so I can't use the buses either. Public transport is cut off for me.
I can use a mobility scooter. What I can't do is safely use a mobility scooter in the dark/cold/wet for the 45 minutes it would take to trundle from work to home after having done four hours work.
I can use taxis. Taxi fare from this house to the town centre is about £7. Taxi fare to and from would therefore be about £14. I am on minimum wage. My four-hour day earns me £20-odd quid a day, after tax and NI that will be more like £18 or £19 a day - call it £95 a week. I am prepared to make the effort to do this working thing, but I'm not prepared to throw away 75% of my earnings just on getting there and back, working myself into agonising pain and utter exhaustion for a profit of £20 a week - and neither would you. Especially when the government will give you £80-odd a week to NOT work.
The DEA told me Access To Work would pay for my transport. But I cannot get hold of them.
I *have* got hold of the local community transport people at the council. At last.
Because I have a Blue Badge, I can use community transport, and because I can't use the buses, I can get something-or-other Tokens instead of a bus-pass.
This is where we discover that community transport isn't set up for the idea of disabled people WORKING at all. Apparently all these Tokens mean is that I get 20 trips at a cheap rate of 55p a mile.
ME: Twenty trips?
Council Lady: Yes, and then it's £1.05 a mile.
ME: So given that I work five days a week, that's two weeks transport?
CL: Yes, that's right.
ME: Wow.
Still, it's 3 miles to work, so that's £3.15 per trip, or £6.30 per day, which is still half the taxi rate and leaves me with about £12 or £13 per day profit, or £65 a week. So I'll still be worse off than I was on benefit, but not *quite* so drastically. Okay, Council Lady. How do I get on this scheme?
I have to:
- Go into the council offices that are hidden round the back of wherever.
- Wait about while they photocopy my blue badge and a couple of utility bills.
- Go away hoping desperately that they will be competent.
Then Council Lady will start a referral to the transport scheme, confirming that I am resident in the area and that I am mobility-impaired and therefore need community transport.
Then Community Transport will send me a form, which I have to fill in and send back to them, and THEN I might be able to actually arrange some damn transport. God knows how long this will take. If it wasn't for Steve still being on his study break I would be screwed. If I lived alone, couldn't wangle an occasional lift, needed to really turn a liveable-on profit... this is probably the point at which I would have given up and decided to live on benefit ad infinitum.
Your (and my) tax dollars at work, people.
I can't drive, due to the effects of my condition. It would be unsafe for me and everyone on the roads and pavements anywhere I was driving.
I can't walk any significant distance. Particularly, I can't walk to useful places like my workplace in the town centre...
...or the nearest bus stop even, so I can't use the buses either. Public transport is cut off for me.
I can use a mobility scooter. What I can't do is safely use a mobility scooter in the dark/cold/wet for the 45 minutes it would take to trundle from work to home after having done four hours work.
I can use taxis. Taxi fare from this house to the town centre is about £7. Taxi fare to and from would therefore be about £14. I am on minimum wage. My four-hour day earns me £20-odd quid a day, after tax and NI that will be more like £18 or £19 a day - call it £95 a week. I am prepared to make the effort to do this working thing, but I'm not prepared to throw away 75% of my earnings just on getting there and back, working myself into agonising pain and utter exhaustion for a profit of £20 a week - and neither would you. Especially when the government will give you £80-odd a week to NOT work.
The DEA told me Access To Work would pay for my transport. But I cannot get hold of them.
I *have* got hold of the local community transport people at the council. At last.
Because I have a Blue Badge, I can use community transport, and because I can't use the buses, I can get something-or-other Tokens instead of a bus-pass.
This is where we discover that community transport isn't set up for the idea of disabled people WORKING at all. Apparently all these Tokens mean is that I get 20 trips at a cheap rate of 55p a mile.
ME: Twenty trips?
Council Lady: Yes, and then it's £1.05 a mile.
ME: So given that I work five days a week, that's two weeks transport?
CL: Yes, that's right.
ME: Wow.
Still, it's 3 miles to work, so that's £3.15 per trip, or £6.30 per day, which is still half the taxi rate and leaves me with about £12 or £13 per day profit, or £65 a week. So I'll still be worse off than I was on benefit, but not *quite* so drastically. Okay, Council Lady. How do I get on this scheme?
I have to:
- Go into the council offices that are hidden round the back of wherever.
- Wait about while they photocopy my blue badge and a couple of utility bills.
- Go away hoping desperately that they will be competent.
Then Council Lady will start a referral to the transport scheme, confirming that I am resident in the area and that I am mobility-impaired and therefore need community transport.
Then Community Transport will send me a form, which I have to fill in and send back to them, and THEN I might be able to actually arrange some damn transport. God knows how long this will take. If it wasn't for Steve still being on his study break I would be screwed. If I lived alone, couldn't wangle an occasional lift, needed to really turn a liveable-on profit... this is probably the point at which I would have given up and decided to live on benefit ad infinitum.
Your (and my) tax dollars at work, people.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Job Offer
Got the phone call at lunchtime today, and I have been offered the job.
Amazing. One application, one interview, one job offer. I had been under the impression it wasn't meant to work like that.
The manager asked if I could start Monday but I've said Tuesday because I need to go to the Jobcentre and get all that stuff sorted out.
It's sort of casual to begin with - so if I end up after a week or even an afternoon of it going "owww, eeek, I cannot do this after all" then I can just leave, no harm, no foul, which is good, but does add a little to the nervousness.
I am very excited and nervous. I also have this panic on about how I must get all the housework done in the next two days because once I'm working I won't have the energy any more.
A little bit of help in that direction though - the Roomba is now up and running and as I type, is cleaning the bathroom and landing. Well, the carpets, anyway. It seems to be having fun. I still think it's cute. It is still trying to attack Steve periodically. The cliff-sensor works, so it's not falling down the stairs, but there is one of the bedroom doors that doesn't shut as securely as the others and the Roomba keeps trying to nudge it open.
It seems to put Steve in mind of the Luggage from Discworld - pottering about with homicidal tendencies.
Oh, and from what I hear, my friends and relatives in Lowestoft are all okay. Which is good.
Amazing. One application, one interview, one job offer. I had been under the impression it wasn't meant to work like that.
The manager asked if I could start Monday but I've said Tuesday because I need to go to the Jobcentre and get all that stuff sorted out.
It's sort of casual to begin with - so if I end up after a week or even an afternoon of it going "owww, eeek, I cannot do this after all" then I can just leave, no harm, no foul, which is good, but does add a little to the nervousness.
I am very excited and nervous. I also have this panic on about how I must get all the housework done in the next two days because once I'm working I won't have the energy any more.
A little bit of help in that direction though - the Roomba is now up and running and as I type, is cleaning the bathroom and landing. Well, the carpets, anyway. It seems to be having fun. I still think it's cute. It is still trying to attack Steve periodically. The cliff-sensor works, so it's not falling down the stairs, but there is one of the bedroom doors that doesn't shut as securely as the others and the Roomba keeps trying to nudge it open.
It seems to put Steve in mind of the Luggage from Discworld - pottering about with homicidal tendencies.
Oh, and from what I hear, my friends and relatives in Lowestoft are all okay. Which is good.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Very quick post
Interview went ok. I don't think I embarassed myself or cocked it up in any especially spectacular way. I'm fairly sure I could do the job - my guess about what's involved was pretty accurate, apparently it's already been being done by someone else for quite some time but now they have a bit more than he can manage on his own.
There were two interviewers - Chris, a fairly young bloke who is the manager, and Maurice, an older bloke who is the owner. They seemed a bit uncertain about how my health would affect my ability to do the job... I was honest about stuff like not being able to go up and down the stairs all day and not being able to spend all day on my feet. They asked about my health in a conversational kind of way ("are you alright with the stairs there?" followed by "so were you in an accident or something?") and I told them in nice, simple, nonspecific terms that a couple of years ago I got loads of viral infections which kind of overloaded my immune system and led to long-term illness to the point where I had to leave work, but that now I am recovered enough to look at part-time work again. I pointed out that I'm getting good at finding ways of doing things and working around the restrictions imposed on me by my illness, and also that I wouldn't say "yes, I can do this/that/the other" if I can't, because I have no interest in making myself more ill again.
They are interviewing two other people, one this afternoon and one tomorrow (Friday) morning. They will contact me on Friday, to say yes, no, or "we need to think about it over the weekend" but they've assured me they will let each of us know either way.
More importantly, the Roomba has arrived, and it is SO cute! It needs to charge for 16 hours, so all we've done with it so far is set up the docking station, pulled the battery tab, and told it to go find home. I pressed the button too long initially so it was about to start the demo and ran off to nibble Steve's shoelaces, but having read the manual I knew how to stop it.
It goes "bloop!" It is so full of cute! I love it!
Tomorrow, it will be charged, and I will play...
There were two interviewers - Chris, a fairly young bloke who is the manager, and Maurice, an older bloke who is the owner. They seemed a bit uncertain about how my health would affect my ability to do the job... I was honest about stuff like not being able to go up and down the stairs all day and not being able to spend all day on my feet. They asked about my health in a conversational kind of way ("are you alright with the stairs there?" followed by "so were you in an accident or something?") and I told them in nice, simple, nonspecific terms that a couple of years ago I got loads of viral infections which kind of overloaded my immune system and led to long-term illness to the point where I had to leave work, but that now I am recovered enough to look at part-time work again. I pointed out that I'm getting good at finding ways of doing things and working around the restrictions imposed on me by my illness, and also that I wouldn't say "yes, I can do this/that/the other" if I can't, because I have no interest in making myself more ill again.
They are interviewing two other people, one this afternoon and one tomorrow (Friday) morning. They will contact me on Friday, to say yes, no, or "we need to think about it over the weekend" but they've assured me they will let each of us know either way.
More importantly, the Roomba has arrived, and it is SO cute! It needs to charge for 16 hours, so all we've done with it so far is set up the docking station, pulled the battery tab, and told it to go find home. I pressed the button too long initially so it was about to start the demo and ran off to nibble Steve's shoelaces, but having read the manual I knew how to stop it.
It goes "bloop!" It is so full of cute! I love it!
Tomorrow, it will be charged, and I will play...
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
-ulp-
Just had a phone call from the manager at the music shop, offering me an interview tomorrow (Thursday) at 9.30am.
Even as my mouth replied in my best telephone manner that yes, that would be marvellous, thank you very much, my brain was whirling on the priorities, namely, that my lovely new Interview Suit Trousers which needed leg-shortening adjustments won't be available until November 15th. I am disturbed by how my brain works sometimes.
I still has jacket, but must bully Steve into taking me shopping for suitable trousers ASAP. It must be the very special sort of shopping that doesn't leave me too knackered for an interview first-thing tomorrow morning.
A little semi-secret... I have never successfully interviewed for a job for myself. All the jobs I've had, from teenage babysitting to telesales to my most recent job before I got sick (helping disabled people into work) were offered to me directly or were promotions/upgrades from what I was doing before.
In mitigation I have only done about three or four interviews in total for myself, but still.
I am trying to keep giving myself all the advice we used to give clients about interview prep and technique. This includes the difficult balance of positive thinking ("of course I will get this job. I am the person they want. All I have to do is Not Cock It Up," and so on) versus not getting so hung-up on it that it is a horribly crushing blow when rejection happens.
But before all that, I really must find some trousers.
Even as my mouth replied in my best telephone manner that yes, that would be marvellous, thank you very much, my brain was whirling on the priorities, namely, that my lovely new Interview Suit Trousers which needed leg-shortening adjustments won't be available until November 15th. I am disturbed by how my brain works sometimes.
I still has jacket, but must bully Steve into taking me shopping for suitable trousers ASAP. It must be the very special sort of shopping that doesn't leave me too knackered for an interview first-thing tomorrow morning.
A little semi-secret... I have never successfully interviewed for a job for myself. All the jobs I've had, from teenage babysitting to telesales to my most recent job before I got sick (helping disabled people into work) were offered to me directly or were promotions/upgrades from what I was doing before.
In mitigation I have only done about three or four interviews in total for myself, but still.
I am trying to keep giving myself all the advice we used to give clients about interview prep and technique. This includes the difficult balance of positive thinking ("of course I will get this job. I am the person they want. All I have to do is Not Cock It Up," and so on) versus not getting so hung-up on it that it is a horribly crushing blow when rejection happens.
But before all that, I really must find some trousers.
Monday, November 05, 2007
I can has job plz?
Yesterday evening one of the local papers dropped through our letterbox and, as one does, I had a leaf through it. The usual small-town 'news' stories, a couple of advertorials, skip the property section, glance at the entertainment section, and there we are at the jobs pages.
I've been doing this for a while, but there hasn't really been anything suitable. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong papers. Some jobs are out because of distance (Access to Work will do a taxi to the town centre or the industrial estate, but not to Rugby or Coventry). Some jobs are out because they require a drivers' licence. A lot of jobs (double glazing doorstep canvassing, being a carer, delivering leaflets, etc) require a degree of mobility and physical strength/stamina that I simply do not possess.
Then the pickiness sets in. I don't want to "work from home and earn $$$$ in my spare time!!!", partly because considered as an hourly rate, home-working can be less than minimum wage; partly because it takes over your house; and partly because a major point of this exercise is to get me OUT of the house.
Telesales has been considered, and there was an ad for a telesales position in the paper doing 'research' for Barclays Bank (I suspect it may be researching the question 'do you want a loan or credit card? Let me help you with that...'). I've done telesales before, but from what I gather it's changed quite a lot, with automated systems ensuring you are constantly talking to customers, one after the other, bambambambambam, with no chance to take a deep breath after someone difficult, much less to turn away from your terminal and put your head between your knees for thirty seconds because of a killer headache. I could do telesales from home, or maybe in a small team of like six people in an old-fashioned set-up (like with actual phones and a printout wodge of numbers to dial), but I'd be stuffed within minutes of entering a big call-centre factory with dozens of people competing to be heard.
But, there was one other part time job, in the town centre, that didn't appear to require abilities or qualifications that I don't possess. The advert was maybe thirty words, including the "please send a CV and covering letter to...", so a lot of this is guesswork, but. The job is 'CD dispatcher working above a small independent music shop. Good computer skills essential. Mon-Fri 1.30pm - 5.30pm".
IF that means they want someone to drive/cycle/whatever around hand-delivering packages of CDs, then no, this is not the job for me.
Our guess is that it's to do with their online shop, and that they want someone who can look at an order, get together the CDs required, package them appropriately, complete the paperwork on the computer, put the right address on the right package, and put it in a box/sack/wheelybin to take to the post office/give to a courier/attach to delivery pigeons.
The hours are longer than I'm looking for, but whether that's a problem or not just depends on how much actual work there is to do. If it's like "we have an enormous backlog and need a team of people to send out CDs on a production-line basis, go go GO" then I'd be stuffed after an hour. If it's more "we send out about twenty packages a day, and need someone to be here for a few hours every day just so that the orders can be processed As They Come In without the shop-floor staff being overstretched" then it's bloody ideal. The only bit where I fall down is that I really don't have terribly much interest and enthusiasm for music.
Anyway, as the advert requested, I've polished off my CV, made sure it's got an appropriate title (NOT 'myCV.doc') and is definitely in .doc format, and emailed it to them. The only problem with that is that although the paper with the advert in only arrived yesterday evening (Sun 4th), the paper itself was actually several days old (Thurs 1st). I'm hoping against hope that the different jobs climate here (as opposed to Lowestoft) means that the shop didn't receive 100 CVs on Thursday evening and had already filled the position by the time I saw the advert.
This morning I awoke to the horrible thought that with this job-quest I shall have to go clothes-shopping for a suitable interview outfit - if not for this vacancy then for the next one, or the next one, or the next one after that. Call me crazy but I somehow don't think jeans will cut it. I suppose that is at least better than having awoken from a terrible dream where I turn up for interview naked or something.
I've been doing this for a while, but there hasn't really been anything suitable. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong papers. Some jobs are out because of distance (Access to Work will do a taxi to the town centre or the industrial estate, but not to Rugby or Coventry). Some jobs are out because they require a drivers' licence. A lot of jobs (double glazing doorstep canvassing, being a carer, delivering leaflets, etc) require a degree of mobility and physical strength/stamina that I simply do not possess.
Then the pickiness sets in. I don't want to "work from home and earn $$$$ in my spare time!!!", partly because considered as an hourly rate, home-working can be less than minimum wage; partly because it takes over your house; and partly because a major point of this exercise is to get me OUT of the house.
Telesales has been considered, and there was an ad for a telesales position in the paper doing 'research' for Barclays Bank (I suspect it may be researching the question 'do you want a loan or credit card? Let me help you with that...'). I've done telesales before, but from what I gather it's changed quite a lot, with automated systems ensuring you are constantly talking to customers, one after the other, bambambambambam, with no chance to take a deep breath after someone difficult, much less to turn away from your terminal and put your head between your knees for thirty seconds because of a killer headache. I could do telesales from home, or maybe in a small team of like six people in an old-fashioned set-up (like with actual phones and a printout wodge of numbers to dial), but I'd be stuffed within minutes of entering a big call-centre factory with dozens of people competing to be heard.
But, there was one other part time job, in the town centre, that didn't appear to require abilities or qualifications that I don't possess. The advert was maybe thirty words, including the "please send a CV and covering letter to...", so a lot of this is guesswork, but. The job is 'CD dispatcher working above a small independent music shop. Good computer skills essential. Mon-Fri 1.30pm - 5.30pm".
IF that means they want someone to drive/cycle/whatever around hand-delivering packages of CDs, then no, this is not the job for me.
Our guess is that it's to do with their online shop, and that they want someone who can look at an order, get together the CDs required, package them appropriately, complete the paperwork on the computer, put the right address on the right package, and put it in a box/sack/wheelybin to take to the post office/give to a courier/attach to delivery pigeons.
The hours are longer than I'm looking for, but whether that's a problem or not just depends on how much actual work there is to do. If it's like "we have an enormous backlog and need a team of people to send out CDs on a production-line basis, go go GO" then I'd be stuffed after an hour. If it's more "we send out about twenty packages a day, and need someone to be here for a few hours every day just so that the orders can be processed As They Come In without the shop-floor staff being overstretched" then it's bloody ideal. The only bit where I fall down is that I really don't have terribly much interest and enthusiasm for music.
Anyway, as the advert requested, I've polished off my CV, made sure it's got an appropriate title (NOT 'myCV.doc') and is definitely in .doc format, and emailed it to them. The only problem with that is that although the paper with the advert in only arrived yesterday evening (Sun 4th), the paper itself was actually several days old (Thurs 1st). I'm hoping against hope that the different jobs climate here (as opposed to Lowestoft) means that the shop didn't receive 100 CVs on Thursday evening and had already filled the position by the time I saw the advert.
This morning I awoke to the horrible thought that with this job-quest I shall have to go clothes-shopping for a suitable interview outfit - if not for this vacancy then for the next one, or the next one, or the next one after that. Call me crazy but I somehow don't think jeans will cut it. I suppose that is at least better than having awoken from a terrible dream where I turn up for interview naked or something.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
"Access" to work
I had my appointment with the Disability Employment Adviser (DEA) at the Jobcentre yesterday. We spent about an hour talking about what I would like to do, what my limitations are, what help I want, and the various rules about work and Incapacity Benefit. So that's pretty much the same conversation I had with the IB adviser last week, except the DEA seemed to know a bit more about the IB/work rules, or maybe she just felt more inclined to show off her knowledge.
The upshot is that I've been referred (surprise!) to Remploy, who hopefully will get in contact soon. I remain unsure about exactlywho they will refer me to what they will do for me.
Remploy or otherwise, the DEA thinks I should be eligible for an Access to Work grant for my transport, assuming I can get my doctor to confirm, in writing, that I do need the exact physical help that I am requesting.
I have registered at the local surgery, and I've had a kind of introductory appointment with the nurse, so that if I turn up because I'm oozing disturbingly, the system won't just throw up a blank - they have my height, weight, blood pressure, brief family history, that sort of thing. But I can't have a routine appointment with a doctor until my notes arrive from Lowestoft. This could take some weeks. When they arrive, the surgery will contact me and then I can make a routine appointment to see my named GP.
Then I get a ten-minute appointment slot to try and persuade said GP - who may or may not pay attention to my previous GP's notes, and whose standpoint on the veracity of my symptoms may well be unsympathetic - to write a letter saying "Mary can't actually walk very far at all and is unfit to drive". I'm trying not to think about that bit. Let's assume I'm successful.
This letter combined with the geographical fact of the house being some distance from the nearest bus route, should persuade the AtW gatekeepers that I am eligible for their scheme. After that I'm on my own until I have obtained a secure job offer to show them, and then the DEA will do the paperwork to apply for the grant for...
*curls up and sobs* Can someone tell me again why it is that I am doing this instead of simply being Steve's housewife?
Anyway. Once I have a GP's letter, I will finally be able to apply for jobs while feeling about 80% certain that when I begin a job I will be able to get to and from the workplace while remaining in profit.
Here's the rules:
1. If I do voluntary work for less than 16 hours a week, I must tell the Jobcentre, but it doesn't affect anything much - mostly it just covers my back if someone tries to report me for fraud saying "she works at [charity]!" I can get my expenses reimbursed by the voluntary-employer, but must not be paid for my work.
2. If I do paid work earning up to £20 a week, I must tell the Jobcentre, but I can keep the money and keep my benefit.
3. If I do paid work for less than 16 hours a week, earning up to about £80 a week, I must tell the Jobcentre, but I can keep the money and my benefit, for either 6 months or 12 months** depending on what my support status is deemed to be. After that time I must choose to (a) give up my benefit or (b) give up the job and not work again for a year.*
4. If I do paid work for more than 16 hours a week... well, that's all irrelevant really, there is not a snowball's chance in hell of me being able to do that any time in the forseeable future.
5. If I earn more than the aforementioned £80 a week... this is probably irrelevant too although I suppose it could happen. If it does, I'm simply telling the Jobcentre to stick it where the sun doesn't shine, as I wouldn't have a problem with taxi fares.
*Incapacity Benefit is about £80 a week. Wages for ten hours work at £5 an hour is £50 a week. So basically, I would have to decide whether to work my backside off for £50 a week plus my personal pride, or sacrifice my pride and sit on aforementioned backside for £80 a week**. What would you do?
**The idea of the time limit is that itforces encourages claimants to increase their hours to more than they can handle, sending them crashing back onto full-time benefit again more than 16 hours per week, and claim Working Tax Credits instead. Believe me when I say that the Tax Credits system is even more of a nightmare than the Jobcentre system, and that I would sooner work in the sex industry and live on the streets, than attempt to deal with Tax Credits again.
The upshot is that I've been referred (surprise!) to Remploy, who hopefully will get in contact soon. I remain unsure about exactly
Remploy or otherwise, the DEA thinks I should be eligible for an Access to Work grant for my transport, assuming I can get my doctor to confirm, in writing, that I do need the exact physical help that I am requesting.
I have registered at the local surgery, and I've had a kind of introductory appointment with the nurse, so that if I turn up because I'm oozing disturbingly, the system won't just throw up a blank - they have my height, weight, blood pressure, brief family history, that sort of thing. But I can't have a routine appointment with a doctor until my notes arrive from Lowestoft. This could take some weeks. When they arrive, the surgery will contact me and then I can make a routine appointment to see my named GP.
Then I get a ten-minute appointment slot to try and persuade said GP - who may or may not pay attention to my previous GP's notes, and whose standpoint on the veracity of my symptoms may well be unsympathetic - to write a letter saying "Mary can't actually walk very far at all and is unfit to drive". I'm trying not to think about that bit. Let's assume I'm successful.
This letter combined with the geographical fact of the house being some distance from the nearest bus route, should persuade the AtW gatekeepers that I am eligible for their scheme. After that I'm on my own until I have obtained a secure job offer to show them, and then the DEA will do the paperwork to apply for the grant for...
*curls up and sobs* Can someone tell me again why it is that I am doing this instead of simply being Steve's housewife?
Anyway. Once I have a GP's letter, I will finally be able to apply for jobs while feeling about 80% certain that when I begin a job I will be able to get to and from the workplace while remaining in profit.
Here's the rules:
1. If I do voluntary work for less than 16 hours a week, I must tell the Jobcentre, but it doesn't affect anything much - mostly it just covers my back if someone tries to report me for fraud saying "she works at [charity]!" I can get my expenses reimbursed by the voluntary-employer, but must not be paid for my work.
2. If I do paid work earning up to £20 a week, I must tell the Jobcentre, but I can keep the money and keep my benefit.
3. If I do paid work for less than 16 hours a week, earning up to about £80 a week, I must tell the Jobcentre, but I can keep the money and my benefit, for either 6 months or 12 months** depending on what my support status is deemed to be. After that time I must choose to (a) give up my benefit or (b) give up the job and not work again for a year.*
4. If I do paid work for more than 16 hours a week... well, that's all irrelevant really, there is not a snowball's chance in hell of me being able to do that any time in the forseeable future.
5. If I earn more than the aforementioned £80 a week... this is probably irrelevant too although I suppose it could happen. If it does, I'm simply telling the Jobcentre to stick it where the sun doesn't shine, as I wouldn't have a problem with taxi fares.
*Incapacity Benefit is about £80 a week. Wages for ten hours work at £5 an hour is £50 a week. So basically, I would have to decide whether to work my backside off for £50 a week plus my personal pride, or sacrifice my pride and sit on aforementioned backside for £80 a week**. What would you do?
**The idea of the time limit is that it
Friday, October 26, 2007
Seeking gainful employment
The time has come to search for a job. I am settled in one place, with a partner who earns, so I don't have to deal with the &%#£ing Tax Credits level of Dante's Inferno department to make sure I can still afford to pay my bills. And, the new living conditions mean that I am no longer using most of my precious "up-time" just on essential things like keeping my housework done and my fridge stocked.
Of course, I still have certain limitations. The obvious physical symptoms of my illness rule out quite a lot of things, especially in terms of the usual easy-to-get minimum-wage flexible-hours jobs. I don't think I'm in any way 'above' cleaning toilets or serving fast-food or collecting trolleys from a supermarket carpark, but I would do such an ineffective job of those tasks that really, another person would have to be employed just to pick up my slack.
The other big barriers are transport and hours, which sort of link together. I certainly won't be able to manage a full-time job. I think I can probably work 10 hours a week, but it will have to be spread over several days rather than one ten-hour day once a week. I just don't have that much uptime all at once.
There's the field narrowed quite a bit already. But then there's the transport issue.
I can't walk or cycle to work, or even to the nearest bus stop. The mobility scooter provides a lot of freedom but is somewhat weather-dependent - it's in no one's interests for me to short-out in the rain halfway between work and home and need rescuing. I can't drive, and it would be unsafe for me to learn - it's one thing to get woozy as a pedestrian, even on the scooter, and stop and move to the side of the pavement until it passes, but quite another to get suddenly woozy at the wheel and semi-consciously pilot a ton and a half of metal automobile up the pavement into a wandering mums and toddlers group. It wouldn't be good. The remaining option is taxis. The taxi fare from my house to the town centre is about £6 or £7 each way. So if I'm working three hours at a time, at £5 an hour... then after transport costs I will have about £2.50 left to show for each day I knacker myself out. If I have to buy work clothes too - which I probably will - then we're looking at months of work before I so much as break even on this deal.
So really, I need some kind of scheme, some kind of assistance, to help me access work. Luckily, there is such a scheme, run by Jobcentre Plus, called Access to Work. How handy.
With this in mind, I traipsed into the local Jobcentre Plus, and after some considerable effort and negotiation (see last post) I was offered a seat and told that the Incapacity Benefit advisor, C, would be with me shortly...
As several readers know, my job used to be helping disabled people into work (although not for JC+), and I really wanted C to help me, so I figured I would try to come across as the sort of client that would have made me do the "getting this person a job will be a piece of cake" grin. As C walked into the waiting area I put my walking stick in my left hand, and when she called my name, I stood up, made eye contact, smiled, stepped towards her, confidently introduced myself as "hi, I'm Mary, you must be C, nice to meet you" and held out my right hand.
Oh dear. I've had better handshakes from half-used balls of yarn. I'd thrown her completely off balance with my impression of an incredibly confident and totally employable person and now she didn't know what to do. (A cruel person might suggest she didn't know what to do in the first place, but I am lovely and suggesting no such thing.)
Our encounter went from bad to worse when she asked what sort of work I used to do. I put it as gently and nicely as I could, cushioned with lots of "obviously I'm not up to date like you are with the current rules and legislation," and "I only know what was available two years ago in Lowestoft, I have no idea what's available locally here in 2007 except what I've gleaned off the web," but it didn't help. The terror shining in her eyes was somewhere between wondering if she was being tested, and wondering how she'd feel if it was her who had suddenly landed on the other side of the desk.
Anyway. The upshot is, she has referred me to the Disability Employment Adviser (DEA). I got the standard patronising letter from the DEA today. An appointment has been arranged for me at the end of the month.
"The main purpose will be to find out more about your current situation, your job goals and to see if I can give any additional advice that may help you to move into employment. Please bring with you a current CV or details of past employment..." I have done my best with my CV. Unfortunately it still effectively reads "I used to do what you're doing now," which will make it even more obvious that I am less interested in her advice and more interested in accessing the practical help that I know is available. I am hoping against hope that she will be able to deal with that.
My back-up plan, if the Jobcentre continue making me despair, is to get in touch with volunteer groups in the area. OK, so financial gain is nil, but expenses are generally paid, work hours are flexible, and I will get a reference and the gap on my CV covered over, so I can apply for jobs that pay *more* than minimum wage and thus the transport costs won't be such a scary percentage of my earnings.
The temptation to be "just" a housewife is quite strong at the moment, I'm not so scared of working but I really, really HATE dealing with the bloody Jobcentre.
Of course, I still have certain limitations. The obvious physical symptoms of my illness rule out quite a lot of things, especially in terms of the usual easy-to-get minimum-wage flexible-hours jobs. I don't think I'm in any way 'above' cleaning toilets or serving fast-food or collecting trolleys from a supermarket carpark, but I would do such an ineffective job of those tasks that really, another person would have to be employed just to pick up my slack.
The other big barriers are transport and hours, which sort of link together. I certainly won't be able to manage a full-time job. I think I can probably work 10 hours a week, but it will have to be spread over several days rather than one ten-hour day once a week. I just don't have that much uptime all at once.
There's the field narrowed quite a bit already. But then there's the transport issue.
I can't walk or cycle to work, or even to the nearest bus stop. The mobility scooter provides a lot of freedom but is somewhat weather-dependent - it's in no one's interests for me to short-out in the rain halfway between work and home and need rescuing. I can't drive, and it would be unsafe for me to learn - it's one thing to get woozy as a pedestrian, even on the scooter, and stop and move to the side of the pavement until it passes, but quite another to get suddenly woozy at the wheel and semi-consciously pilot a ton and a half of metal automobile up the pavement into a wandering mums and toddlers group. It wouldn't be good. The remaining option is taxis. The taxi fare from my house to the town centre is about £6 or £7 each way. So if I'm working three hours at a time, at £5 an hour... then after transport costs I will have about £2.50 left to show for each day I knacker myself out. If I have to buy work clothes too - which I probably will - then we're looking at months of work before I so much as break even on this deal.
So really, I need some kind of scheme, some kind of assistance, to help me access work. Luckily, there is such a scheme, run by Jobcentre Plus, called Access to Work. How handy.
With this in mind, I traipsed into the local Jobcentre Plus, and after some considerable effort and negotiation (see last post) I was offered a seat and told that the Incapacity Benefit advisor, C, would be with me shortly...
As several readers know, my job used to be helping disabled people into work (although not for JC+), and I really wanted C to help me, so I figured I would try to come across as the sort of client that would have made me do the "getting this person a job will be a piece of cake" grin. As C walked into the waiting area I put my walking stick in my left hand, and when she called my name, I stood up, made eye contact, smiled, stepped towards her, confidently introduced myself as "hi, I'm Mary, you must be C, nice to meet you" and held out my right hand.
Oh dear. I've had better handshakes from half-used balls of yarn. I'd thrown her completely off balance with my impression of an incredibly confident and totally employable person and now she didn't know what to do. (A cruel person might suggest she didn't know what to do in the first place, but I am lovely and suggesting no such thing.)
Our encounter went from bad to worse when she asked what sort of work I used to do. I put it as gently and nicely as I could, cushioned with lots of "obviously I'm not up to date like you are with the current rules and legislation," and "I only know what was available two years ago in Lowestoft, I have no idea what's available locally here in 2007 except what I've gleaned off the web," but it didn't help. The terror shining in her eyes was somewhere between wondering if she was being tested, and wondering how she'd feel if it was her who had suddenly landed on the other side of the desk.
Anyway. The upshot is, she has referred me to the Disability Employment Adviser (DEA). I got the standard patronising letter from the DEA today. An appointment has been arranged for me at the end of the month.
"The main purpose will be to find out more about your current situation, your job goals and to see if I can give any additional advice that may help you to move into employment. Please bring with you a current CV or details of past employment..." I have done my best with my CV. Unfortunately it still effectively reads "I used to do what you're doing now," which will make it even more obvious that I am less interested in her advice and more interested in accessing the practical help that I know is available. I am hoping against hope that she will be able to deal with that.
My back-up plan, if the Jobcentre continue making me despair, is to get in touch with volunteer groups in the area. OK, so financial gain is nil, but expenses are generally paid, work hours are flexible, and I will get a reference and the gap on my CV covered over, so I can apply for jobs that pay *more* than minimum wage and thus the transport costs won't be such a scary percentage of my earnings.
The temptation to be "just" a housewife is quite strong at the moment, I'm not so scared of working but I really, really HATE dealing with the bloody Jobcentre.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Yet more moving faff
...but first, a knitting update. I have embarked on my first adult-sized jumper. The yarn (Colinette "Cadenza" 100% merino wool in "slate") is gorgeous, the colours are beautiful. It's mostly blue tones, but with patches of rainbows. Meanwhile, Left Mitt v1.0 has been tried on, the only adjustment needed is for the fingers-bit to be a little longer. So I've done that, and have nearly completed the matching Right Mitt too. After that, will be another identical pair for when this pair are in the wash (or lost), and a similar but smaller pair for my mum. Basically I'm reckoning that at any given time for the rest of the year I will have one project on regular needles (the jumper) and one on DPNs (the mitts).
Now. Today being the first working day after my Official Move Date, a certain number of things had to be done. I had to go to my bank and my building society to update my details (understandably enough, these institutions won't let you do that over the phone), and I wanted to go to the Jobcentre in order to check that everything was as it should be with my benefit (I still get the same amount of Incapacity Benefit but it has to come from a different regional pot) and find out about help available for disabled jobseekers in the area.
The mission started off quite well, really. Steve drove us into town, and then, fortified with tea/coffee and scones, we went to my Building Society, which I would be naming here to praise their good customer service to all and sundry, except I'm not sure how sensible it would be to put any of my financial details on the internet, so let's just call them my Building Society and I promise to email them direct.
Stepped up to the reception desk, queued for about a minute while the person ahead of us was dealt with, then was greeted by a friendly, smiling member of staff, the conversation went thus:
HER: Can I help you?
ME: Yes, I've just moved house and I'd like to update my address details for my account.
HER: (fishing sheet of paper on a clipboard out of a drawer) No problem, have you filled in one of these change of address forms yet?
ME: Um, no.
HER: Is the account a joint one, or just yours?
ME: Just me.
HER: Then you only need this one form. Would you like to fill it in now, or take it away and come back another time?
ME: (taking form and noting it is a single side of A4) Um, now is fine, we're not in a rush.
HER: Okay, here's a pen, there's seats round here, oh, or there's a desk over there if you'd like to use it, just bring me the form once you're done, and I'll be here if you need anything.
ME: Marvellous, thank you.
Sat at the desk, filled out the not-too-complicated form, queued again for a minute or so, gave form and pen back to smiling lady who thanked me, assured me it would get sorted out today, and we left.
At that point I felt wonderfully positive. So I kissed Steve and sent him off to the local park to take photos of ducks while I attended to my Bank and dropped in at the Jobcentre.
Ha.
At my Bank, I was waiting for what seemed like ages (by the clock, probably not much over five minutes, but when standing is agony, your sense of time gets skewed) while a woman about my age grumpily dealt with the two or three customers ahead of me in the queue for reception, including going and having a rather unprofessional argument with one of the tellers behind the cashier windows. Eventually it was my turn, and she glanced up at me and opened proceedings with an abrupt "Yes?"
ME: Um, hi, yes, I've just moved house and I need to update my address details.
HER: Have you got ID?
ME: Yes, (opens foolscap folder) I wasn't sure what you'd need so I've brought all the ID I've got.
HER: Driver's licence or passport.
ME: I don't have either of those. (leafing through folder) I've got a full birth certificate, and my marriage and divorce certificates, several recent utility bills in my name, a bank statement, National Insurance card, P60...
HER: We only take driver's licence or passport.
ME: I can't drive and I haven't travelled abroad in years. To the best of my knowledge, neither of these things preclude me from having a bank account, or an address.
At this point she made a noise I'm more accustomed to hearing from Sister Dearest when she's in a moodypants. However, she finally deigned to poke my assorted paperwork and put my details into her computer.
Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly sweetness and light 24/7, but then, I don't work in customer service.
Onwards to the Jobcentre, where no less than three advisors were standing about by reception - fair enough as there was no queue. I started with "I've just moved to the area and I want to double-check my incapacity benefit has moved with me," but before I'd finished, one of the advisors had moved to a phone kiosk on the wall, picked up the phone, and was impatiently holding it out to me. Confused, I took it. It was the all too familiar sound of the standard Jobcentre helpline, inviting me to press 1 for income support, or 2 for Jobseekers Allowance... I pressed 3 for Incapacity Benefit and a couple of minutes later, a friendly voice at the end of the phone was making sure that the "push", as they term it, was happening. I checked and re-checked that this meant there is nothing else I need to do and the friendly voice confirmed that yes, everything is fine, there is nothing else I need to do. Grand. I thanked her and hung up.
Back to the ThreeStooges Advisors, interrupting their chat to ask about local provision for helping disabled people to access work, training, services, etc. The person who wordlessly shoved the phone at me before, stomped to the wall of leaflets and wordlessly shoved the generic national leaflet for Access To Work at me. By now I was quite cheesed off, so I flipped open the leaflet and said "you see here where it suggests that I contact my nearest Jobcentre? That is what I am doing. I have come here, to my nearest Jobcentre, to ask about what specific help there is available in this specific town, yes? I've already read this leaflet, it's in every other Jobcentre in the country and online too."
I immediately felt bad about being so snappy, but Wordless Guy didn't seem to give a monkeys and one of his colleagues had decided to join us. As Wordless Guy wandered off, Colleague asked if I'd like to speak to the Incapacity Benefit advisor, C, who might know more about the sort of services I was after. He ushered me to a seat and said he'd find out if C was available now or if I needed an appointment. A moment later he was back to tell me that C would be with me shortly, but that's another blogpost.
Now. Today being the first working day after my Official Move Date, a certain number of things had to be done. I had to go to my bank and my building society to update my details (understandably enough, these institutions won't let you do that over the phone), and I wanted to go to the Jobcentre in order to check that everything was as it should be with my benefit (I still get the same amount of Incapacity Benefit but it has to come from a different regional pot) and find out about help available for disabled jobseekers in the area.
The mission started off quite well, really. Steve drove us into town, and then, fortified with tea/coffee and scones, we went to my Building Society, which I would be naming here to praise their good customer service to all and sundry, except I'm not sure how sensible it would be to put any of my financial details on the internet, so let's just call them my Building Society and I promise to email them direct.
Stepped up to the reception desk, queued for about a minute while the person ahead of us was dealt with, then was greeted by a friendly, smiling member of staff, the conversation went thus:
HER: Can I help you?
ME: Yes, I've just moved house and I'd like to update my address details for my account.
HER: (fishing sheet of paper on a clipboard out of a drawer) No problem, have you filled in one of these change of address forms yet?
ME: Um, no.
HER: Is the account a joint one, or just yours?
ME: Just me.
HER: Then you only need this one form. Would you like to fill it in now, or take it away and come back another time?
ME: (taking form and noting it is a single side of A4) Um, now is fine, we're not in a rush.
HER: Okay, here's a pen, there's seats round here, oh, or there's a desk over there if you'd like to use it, just bring me the form once you're done, and I'll be here if you need anything.
ME: Marvellous, thank you.
Sat at the desk, filled out the not-too-complicated form, queued again for a minute or so, gave form and pen back to smiling lady who thanked me, assured me it would get sorted out today, and we left.
At that point I felt wonderfully positive. So I kissed Steve and sent him off to the local park to take photos of ducks while I attended to my Bank and dropped in at the Jobcentre.
Ha.
At my Bank, I was waiting for what seemed like ages (by the clock, probably not much over five minutes, but when standing is agony, your sense of time gets skewed) while a woman about my age grumpily dealt with the two or three customers ahead of me in the queue for reception, including going and having a rather unprofessional argument with one of the tellers behind the cashier windows. Eventually it was my turn, and she glanced up at me and opened proceedings with an abrupt "Yes?"
ME: Um, hi, yes, I've just moved house and I need to update my address details.
HER: Have you got ID?
ME: Yes, (opens foolscap folder) I wasn't sure what you'd need so I've brought all the ID I've got.
HER: Driver's licence or passport.
ME: I don't have either of those. (leafing through folder) I've got a full birth certificate, and my marriage and divorce certificates, several recent utility bills in my name, a bank statement, National Insurance card, P60...
HER: We only take driver's licence or passport.
ME: I can't drive and I haven't travelled abroad in years. To the best of my knowledge, neither of these things preclude me from having a bank account, or an address.
At this point she made a noise I'm more accustomed to hearing from Sister Dearest when she's in a moodypants. However, she finally deigned to poke my assorted paperwork and put my details into her computer.
Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly sweetness and light 24/7, but then, I don't work in customer service.
Onwards to the Jobcentre, where no less than three advisors were standing about by reception - fair enough as there was no queue. I started with "I've just moved to the area and I want to double-check my incapacity benefit has moved with me," but before I'd finished, one of the advisors had moved to a phone kiosk on the wall, picked up the phone, and was impatiently holding it out to me. Confused, I took it. It was the all too familiar sound of the standard Jobcentre helpline, inviting me to press 1 for income support, or 2 for Jobseekers Allowance... I pressed 3 for Incapacity Benefit and a couple of minutes later, a friendly voice at the end of the phone was making sure that the "push", as they term it, was happening. I checked and re-checked that this meant there is nothing else I need to do and the friendly voice confirmed that yes, everything is fine, there is nothing else I need to do. Grand. I thanked her and hung up.
Back to the Three
I immediately felt bad about being so snappy, but Wordless Guy didn't seem to give a monkeys and one of his colleagues had decided to join us. As Wordless Guy wandered off, Colleague asked if I'd like to speak to the Incapacity Benefit advisor, C, who might know more about the sort of services I was after. He ushered me to a seat and said he'd find out if C was available now or if I needed an appointment. A moment later he was back to tell me that C would be with me shortly, but that's another blogpost.
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