Jobcentre plus

I’ve just completed four weeks of unemployment. It continues to be very emotional. But I do think that I’m starting to get the hang of it.

Today I went to a jobs fair. I went mainly on the suggestion of the nice man at the job centre. I can’t knock what the jobs fair was about because if it helps just one person find employment then I think that it could be measured as a success. Many of the stalls were promoting jobs or volunteering in the care/service sector. Sadly there was nothing to help the recently redundant Materials Manager from the engineering sector. Although, I was tempted to apply for a job with M&S (nice uniforms) who seemed to be recruiting (avoids cheap joke about working in ladies underwear). Failing that there’s always Morrison’s who were also there looking for staff.

I had big plans for when I was made redundant but so far none of them have come to fruition. Things seem to take longer to happen than I’d hoped and also I think I was born with a yellow streak down my back as I too often plump for playing it safe. I have ambitions but seem powerless or lacking in the courage to take the risks that could enable me to prosper. Imagine someone standing on the edge of a high diving board over a swimming pool. I’m the one that turns around and goes back down the steps. Perhaps one day I will have the courage to jump.

I feel I must speak out in praise of the Jobcentre Plus staff. It can’t be easy working under the yoke of the sadistic Tory government with the culture of fear that they have engendered. The Tory bastards have created that climate of fear to oppress hard working government employees. But despite all that all the staff at my local Jobcentre in Norwich have been friendly, polite and as helpful as they are able to be. I kind of think that there is only one thing worse, in the jobs market, than being unemployed, and that’s working at Jobcentre Plus. So under the circumstances they do a good job and are, in my experience, nice people.

The morons who subscribe to and repeat Tory propaganda ad nauseam would do well to get from behind their Daily Mails and experience the full effects of the Conservative parties own peculiar brand of fascism first hand as I have done.

Job Centre Plus. But plus what?

I’ve been to the job centre again today. Had my first work search review. If I’d have blink I could easily have missed it. So far on two visits I’ve spent more time sitting around waiting than your actually being interviewed and ting. They seem to specialise in keeping people hanging around. It’s a waiting game.

Architecturally they through the rule book out when they built this excuse of a public building in the eighties/nineties. It has windows. But those windows are large but next to useless; one side looks out to a shear concrete wall of another building literally a few feet away; the other side brick and concrete with a hint of daylight. It must be horrible to work in. And that’s without having to deal with the clientele!

There can only surely be one thing worse in the employment stakes than being unemployed and that’s working in a job centre. God that really must be soul-destroying. Apart from a few bewildered folk like myself, who sit wondering what to make of it all and what they have done in a previous life to deserve this, most of the punters are either clinically obese or malnourished and radiating varying shades of miasma/effluvia. A lot of these people seem to have given up all hope of a meaningful life, with or without gainful employment. It makes you want to weep. But it would seem that rather than helping them this evil government of ours just wants to beat people with a stick and generally grind them down.

As far as my future is concerned I feel very up and down about it. Today I feel quite upbeat but Monday and Tuesday I felt very down. What’s changed? I don’t really know. My employment prospects haven’t greatly changed but my attitude towards dealing with it is currently realistic but upbeat. And that’s how it is; you win some you lose some. The emotional roller coaster continues its white knuckle ride. Deep joy!

Banking for the future

Today I made an investment in my future; a deposit at a nearby clothing bank. Pretty soon someone in Eastern Europe or the Third World could possibly be wearing my ex-work corporate clothing.

I finished work yesterday although my official leaving day is today. As of now, and for the first time in my working life of 42 years, I am redundant; unemployed; no longer required; on the scrapheap!

As I didn’t have to work today my first task was to ceremonially remove my work clothes from my life; hence the contribution to the clothing bank.

I have no idea what might lie in store for me work wise. Given that there aren’t enough jobs to go round and given my age it’s going to be very difficult to get any kind of employment I suspect. I’d be more than happy to do a series of temporary jobs or contract work if I can get something as I just really need enough to pay the bills and not much more. If at least the hint of an opportunity doesn’t present itself in the next week or two I have decided to take myself off to an industrial city and absorb myself in my art and attempt to get any job, even a minimum wage one, just to get by. I need to move forward.

The darkest hour is just before dawn

You can’t help but absorb some of the bad vibes from around yourself, unless you are a person of iron will. I am not a person of iron will.

I have a month left to work for my current employer. On the whole I’m pleased that I’m being made redundant. Yes it means that I’m losing my income and I know not when and if I’ll be able to get another job but I loathe my job with a passion. It’s a hateful soul-destroying job that apart from a wage in no way fulfils me; so a result. Unfortunately many of my co-workers (also losing their livelihoods) are not quite as philosophical and sanguine about it. Their stress and general unhappiness manifests itself in many different forms and it rubs off. As a result I soak up some of their pain, like blotting paper.

The whole of the branch of the company I work for is being closed down, eventually. Our redundancies are staggered. Different people going at different times depending on the job that they do. I am reminded of pictures from World War One of blinded soldiers from the front shuffling along in single file one after the other a hand on the one in front and a sighted person leading the way. Hardly the same thing I know and I have no intention of playing down the horrors of war but the whole process does upset people profoundly.

We are in a queue waiting to be pushed off the edge. It’s the waiting that is the most upsetting. People want to move on.

N.E.X.T.

 

No longer playing it safe

It’s possible that I’ve made a very big mistake. I think I may have come very close to getting a new job. A job with more money doing what I know best. Doing what I can sort of do with my eyes closed. I have decided against it!

Am I mental?
Possibly!

I’ve done purchasing type jobs for over thirty years and quite frankly I’ve had enough. I think I’d rather stack shelves in a supermarket than carry on in supply chain solutions. Virtually all my life I’ve played it safe. Safe is no longer an option. Not enough of us take the risky option I fear. Sometimes we have to take risks. Sometimes it’s the only way to get what we want!

When I’m finally made redundant (sometime early in the New Year) I’m going to head north. Well north-ish. I’m no longer a young man so going west is out of the question.

I’m heading north in search of gritty creativity.

Life begins at 58!

The fog is lifting

For the first time since I learned that I was being made redundant I feel that I’m in a better place emotionally. My outlook is starting to be a bit more positive. This is quite unusual for me.

I suppose I’m more fortunate than many in that I don’t feel that I have to find a job at a certain level. Within reason any job (if I can find one) will do. I now see redundancy as potential freedom. All my life I have harboured a desire to create; to paint, to draw, to write; all my life I’ve allowed life to get in the way and stop me from immersing myself in my art. Now there will be nothing to stop me. Yes I will need to find some kind of employment but that’ll be all I’ll need, some kind of employment.

The other thing is that I won’t be tied down necessarily to where I live. Looking for inspiration I could well go off and live elsewhere. How liberating is that?

I’m not pretending that it’s all going to be a bed of roses. I have no doubt that I won’t get everything I want. There will be things I’ll need to do without but I’m going to set myself free.

I think the most exciting thing is that I’ve no idea where my life is going to go. All I know is that it’s going to change. I need to harness that change and use it as a catalyst for a more interesting life. I will have doubts, and I will have panics but I can see that my life could well be enriched by it.

As one door closes, another one opens.

Tip toe

I hope upon hope that once I am made redundant I can find other employment. I fear for the future. I can’t see that, at my age, I’ll be able to earn what I have been earning. I will probably have to take a much lower paid job. But regardless of any future salary I am determined to live my life in a simple and frugal way. I very much want to reduce my material footprint.

All the fun of the fair

Life is like being on a rollercoaster at the moment; a mixture of a few highs and a great many dramatic lows. Work is so painful now as I know I’m going to be without a job but don’t actually know at the moment when I’ll leave. I am feeling terribly misunderstood.

Emotionally I am more often than not at low ebb. I am finding it hard to concentrate on anything for long.

On the occasions I’m feeling up or optimistic it rarely lasts as something happens or someone does something to put the dampener on life.

I so want to move forward.

Scrapheap challenge

When we were told at the beginning of last week that the branch of the company I work for was closing it really didn’t come as any surprise to any of us. It had sort of been on the cards for quite a while. In fact for me it came as a relief. When you have something like that hanging over you it’s often good to have the certain imminent truth rather than a speculative possibility. Others did not take it in quite such a sanguine way.

The next day and reality set in. the emotions of it and of life brought me down to earth with a bump. I went into a deep decline. Life seemed pointless; nobody loved me, everybody hated me, so to speak. I was preparing myself to go down the garden to eat worms. I’m not good with rejection, especially when I feel that rejection is unjustified. On the scrap heap at 58!

Its 41 years since I left school and not once have I been registered unemployed. There was a brief period in my earlier days when I had three weeks off when I was between jobs but apart from that I’ve been a wage slave all of the time.

I’m scared. I’m scared for my future and I’m sad for my colleagues that are also losing their jobs, some of whom I know will suffer quite badly financially. But I’m coming to terms with it. I now see it as an opportunity, albeit not necessarily an easy opportunity. I’m hoping it will afford me the opportunity to be more creative and perhaps find employment in a different sphere, and perhaps even in a different location. I’ve never overly been fearful of change and it could well make life much more interesting. I’ve come to realise that material wealth is not the be all and end all of life. There is more to life than trinkets.

I’m coming to terms with the soon to be ‘bereft of employment’ situation. My future path is a stony one, but compared with many persecuted souls it will hopefully be no great hardship either. I’ll keep you posted.