Middlesbrough jobcentre are completely useless

I find it interesting that after my last rant about the jobcentre on Twitter, I got the following message:

k_faulkner:@williamtheblood Hi, I’m a reporter, doing a story on jobcentres that would rather give out benefits than find people jobs-hav u found this?

Now I didn’t reply. Partly because I think that this is lazy journalism, simply searching Twitter and replying to people in the off chance. Not to mention the last part of it. (Hav? Really? It would kill you to add one fucking letter?)

The main reason, however, is that Middlesbrough jobcentre seems determined not to do either.

Now, I’m pretty sure that some of you can remember the entry I wrote a couple of weeks ago. Well, after that situation, I decided to insist on being shown every time I signed on that the note had been put on the system. at the moment I sign weekly and I’m planning to do this for the next two months.

So, I started last week and discovered, to my surprise, that I got a weeks money on Thursday. I thought that it was because I had insisted on seeing them log the note and the same would happen this week.

Well, I signed on today. And, again, I asked them to prove that it was logged on the system that I had. Only to be told that, as I wasn’t due to be paid this week, that would not be happening.

Which was a bit of a surprise, as I certainly was supposed to be getting paid this week. When I pointed this out, they told me that I was not due to be paid this week.

They changed my fucking payment date without letting me know.

It’s not as if this is important. It’s not as if I’m talking about the money I need to survive on. It’s not even as if I budget very precisely, so that I have enough food, money, etc to last me through till the next time I get paid, is it?

Oh. Wait a minute…

Which begs the question: if I hadn’t insisted on seeing them log the information today, how long would I have had to keep going into the jobcentre to get same day payments? Cos they apparently weren’t logging the note the weeks I was supposed to get paid otherwise I would have got paid those weeks.

As usual, there is no explanation as to why this has happened. They seemed to be blaming it on Pertemps, or me being sent back from there. But they KNEW that was the situation. They KNEW that I was being treated as a new claim due to THEIR POLICIES. How hard would it have been, really, to ask me in the interview I had about going back to them when I was next due to get paid and what the situation is?

Too hard, apparently. And, as per bloody usual, they are completely unwilling to admit that they are even remotely to blame.

I have another interview with them next week. I’m going to bring the matter up then stating that I want a full apology and an explanation as to what went wrong. If I don’t get that, I’m going to file an official complaint.

I also now need to go see about a crisis loan, which I’ll have to pay back. They should give me the loan. Cos it’s either that or they explain how they expect me to survive for a fortnight on one weeks worth of money. Especially as I wasn’t expecting to be.

Will