NOJOMO 1 – Jobcentre hatred

 So…I’m doing NOJOMO. Though to make it an ever greater challenge, I am planning to make all my NOJOMO entries public. I’m a bit worried about this because I do talk about some confidential things.

I did want to litter this entry with pictures of Cassie trick or treating but Dan will not upload them. He’s too tired. So here’s a picture of our pumpkins on the porch last night:

Cassie dressed in her Rapunzel costume and wig and over the course of the night acquired a foil crown, some bling red jewellery and a gold sequin clutch from her auntie Karen. She looked ridiculous but the few old ladies who opened their door to her absolutely loved it. 

Most houses were not taking part in Halloween this year. Cassie was pretty crestfallen when people didn’t answer their doors to her. We only knocked on people we knew and people who had decorated their houses for Halloween because that’s fair game. 

When we got home, I let her stay up and eat her Halloween chocolate. She got through 3 treatsize bars before deciding she’d had enough. We don’t normally really allow her to eat chocolate but it was a special occasion! 

You will probably get the photos of Cassie in her Halloween costume next week when I get back from Ireland, after everyone has lost interest. 

Today has not been a great day, headspace wise. 

Firstly, our tax credits have been cut by half. That is £250 a month we’ve lost. Granted, this year we earn £200 more a month than last year…so because Dan works harder and puts in more hours, we are out of pocket by £50 a month. I’m grateful that we are in a position where we can pay our way a bit more but it still seems wrong that we were financially better off when we worked less. So basically we are going to have to tighten our belts again. 

I have big issues with the fact that national minimum wage is not really a living wage. Dan doesn’t earn minimum wage, he earns the "average wage" per hour now but he has to work the hours his dad does when he could be working more. Plus I’m not earning money, which means our total household income including benefits is about £15-£16k a year. We are also very lucky to live in a part of the country where living costs are a little lower. We only pay £350 a month in rent. I was really excited this month to work out that we are no longer classed as being in "fuel poverty" – thanks to good insulation in this house, we spend less than 10% of our income on fuel now. 

I do not know how they expect anyone to be living off minimum wage without some kind of help. 

Also, the Jobcentre are pissing me off. Big time. Every little thing seems to be geared in order to trip you up. For example, I’m a postal candidate. I sent my postal forms back in time, my local Jobcentre claimed that they’d never received them – I lost 2 weeks of benefits. They told me that I didn’t need to see an advisor at the Jobcentre for 3 months, then 2 weeks later sent me an appointment at a time before my bus gets in, because you see my nearest Jobcentre is over 20 miles away and no buses get in before 10.30am in the morning. They know this, it’s on my file and I’m a postal candidate – I’d be coming in to sign on if it was easy to get there. I informed them I couldn’t attend a second appointment because I was going to Ireland for a week – they sent me out a holiday form. In order to qualify to receive my weeks Jobseekers, I have to declare that I will fly home from Ireland immediately if a job offer presents itself and I have to be contactable to the Jobcentre by phone at all times. 

I have filled in the same form, 3 times about my volunteering. On paper, the Jobcentre are fine about you volunteering as long as you can demonstrate that it improves your employability. In reality, the system cannot handle it. Today I received a form saying "please fill in and return by the 31st October" – I received it on the 1st November. I rang the Jobcentre and spoke to two different advisors both who seemed pretty dim. I quoted the reference at the bottom of the form and they had no idea what the form number was I was on about (Catriona – it was a B7: declaration of work form). Eventually one of them spoke to his supervisor and then apologised to me, it had been sent in error – I wasn’t supposed to receive one. BUT – because it had been issued, I now needed to fill it in and send it back, otherwise my benefits would be stopped. Even though the form was not relevant – I had been doing no part-time paid work. I couldn’t even fill it in – there was nowhere to state that I wasn’t doing part-time paid work because it was a form for part-time paid workers. Apart from filling in my name and national insurance number everything else was about tax deductions and take-home pay – I ended up in my frustration, reading the entire form down the phone to the lad and asking him how he expected me to fill it in. He said – "put your volunteer work in" and I said "but it says paid work" and he replied "but we consider volunteer work to be part-time work" and I replied "I didn’t say that, I said paid work" and he sighed. In the end I wrote NOT APPLICABLE across everything and "I DO NOT HAVE ANY PAID WORK" at the end of every question and because it said I could also submit writing on plain paper to supplement it, I wrote the Jobcentre a letter telling them that I had been sent this letter in error, an advisor had confirmed this but said I still needed to fill it in and that I did not appreciate the waste of time or paper that this exercise had caused. That I had already filled in many volunteer forms and already sent a declaration every 2 weeks stating that I was looking for work and had no paid employment and I wanted my discontent with the service noted. 

I will probably have my Jobseekers money docked on some pretext now. 

Also, my referee still hasn’t done my reference. I don’t like things not being out of my control. 

Volunteer work is going alright. Yesterday at CAB I was at the Publicity team and then I was out contacting and calling on local business owners to help us out with our raffle by providing prizes. I managed to get some really good ones, I even got some mild praise on my return to CAB. After that I did a couple of initial interviews, they both went well. I’m still feeling a little nervous when I do them but it’s getting better.

I was manning the office by myself at the Hospice today. I’ve never done a Thursday there before. It was really quiet. I ended up setting up a tombola by myself – my fingers now ache from folding over 600 pieces of paper and sti

cking paper to prizes. I also did laminating, counting money and receipting when I wasn’t answering the phones and directing calls. 

I haven’t been very good on the diet this week. I was dreading weigh in, but I’d lost a pound and a half again, which is very slow for two weeks but I’d been scoffing chocolate last night and I ate a pizza this week so I’m not surprised. I’m having a week off for going to Ireland so I suspect a small gain will happen next week. 

Right better go because it’s almost midnight and we have a long journey tomorrow. I will be doing NOJOMO but if I have no internet in Ireland I shall write in my paper diary and upload en masse when I get back.