Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

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Just had my ‘welcome to jobseekers allowance filling in the form over the phone’ call. What a bizarre experience, they obviously don’t trust me to fill in the form myself. Next I get to meet with an advisor on friday who will put me through some ritual humiliation of some sort before I can claim benefits to which I am entitled.


Categories: Livejournal, Memories, Source.

/ 11 Comments

11 comments

  1. beermat

    why are you putting yourself through the pain-in-the-arseness that is the Jobseakers Allowance, if you’re off to furrin climes in a bit?

    Reply
    • neilh

      Mainly because I can. I’m expecting it to be the last
      time in my life I’ll be entitled to claim, so I may as
      well make the most of it while I can.

      Besides, theres some entertainment value in it as I
      used to work in a benefits office, many years ago,
      in the time before I got a real job. Oh, happy
      memories. Or something.

      Reply
      • beermat

        As long as you;re doing it for a laurf, I approve :)

        Having done exactly this myself 7 months ago. Still the 6mths JSA did pay a bit of the rent…

        Reply
    • neilh

      Yeah, why not? I’m not working at the moment, I am
      ‘seeking work’. I happened to find some but that doesn’t
      start yet, so in the mean time I can be seeking something
      else to tide me over until then. It should pay the rent
      for a couple of weeks, which is mildly better than a
      poke in the eye.

      Reply
  4. hsb

    I always found it quicker to get a crap typing job, myself. Of course, you don’t get the spare time and the rent paid, but the actual cash in your hand is still more. And the forms are hideous.

    H

    Reply
    • neilh

      Or maybe they’ve got me on record as being daft as a brush.

      I suspect they fill in the form for me, then send it to me
      so I can make sure theres some misinformation on it before
      I submit it to the people who will sit on it for a couple
      of months before rejecting it for not having a curly enough
      signature. Or some such madness.

      By which time I’ll have skipped the country and forgotten
      all about it.

      Reply
  6. venta

    A few years ago I was claiming incapacity benefit (having more or less lost the use of my hands). The people at the benefit office are obliged to ask you if you need help filling in the forms – I said yes, as I couldn’t really work a pen very well.

    Now. Bearing in mind that I was talking to "my" benefit person who was specially clued up on my case, I assumed this didn’t need explaining.

    She was quite surprised to discover that I had GCSEs (never mind a maths degree) as she’d deduced from me needing help that I couldn’t read/write.

    Lesson: you will have to explain everything. To everyone. Repeatedly. And they will get it wrong anyway.

    I wish you patience :)

    Reply
    • neilh

      I would like to think I can do patience. But of course,
      this may be a test. Having worked in a housing benefit
      office some years ago I know how easy it is to make
      assumptions about people based on limited information
      gleaned from a single tick-box on a 32 page form – the
      third form they’ve filled in, following the application
      for the application form and the application form itself.

      Reply

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