Dole... make you feel degraded for £60pw ffs

[Derekftm]

The company i worked at for 22 yr went into liquidation last week
suited me cos i now have a good lumpa, and i start work tomorrow for a lot more cash
i have to drive thro the tunnel, but hey, so what
Anyway i had to register with the dole to keep things right.
What a terrible experience that was.
Apparantly every week you get a bit of paper and you have to fill in 3 different things about what you have done to find work that week
you have to be willing to travel for 90 mins from home to take a job
thats 3 hours on top of your working day, and all for minimum wage
then after 3 month you have to take a test, one of the questions is
How do you spell SHOP
and they give you 3 different ways to spell it

Come on Blair, its bad enough being unemployed, but to have to go thro this is insulting people that are down enough to start with
Even when you sign, you just have to be there at your appointed time and wait for some snot nosed kid to shout your name

Im gonna take great pleasure in handing my card back, and if the snot nosed kid has any comments, he better have security behind him

i did use my dole card to get a starcard for the leisure centre tho
A years worth of cheap sessions at the gym

[sherri]

My daughter, when she was applying for a job, went to centrelink here in the meantime and her experience left much the same feeling with her.
Here, if you apply for the dole, you have to front up each fortnight with evidence you have applied for 10 jobs in that fortnight.
Never mind if you can't find 10 half way decent jobs, you have to apply for anything.
My daughter was not granted the dole-they told her she had saved too much money and could live on that for 8 weeks before she would qualify, but she had to start visiting them and following their rules in the meantime. She got a job a few weeks later, so she never got any cash benefit at all from it but had a lot of paperwork to sort out anyway and had put in about 40 applications-often for jobs paying about $7 an hour for the next 3 years, jobs in fields where she really was not interested in working..
She has a uni degree and 2 TAFE courses behind her. Tell me she really wants to start as a florist assistant apprenticeship on low pay with a max of $31,000 after 3 years. But that is an example of what she was applying for!
She was given no help and total disinterest-they treated her like some sort of idiot.

She worked for 18 months for the company where she got the job but left recently and is overseas for a couple of months and will be looking for a new job when she gets back, but her experience was so bad she has said she would rather live on nothing and have no dole than have to apply for jobs under their rules. She won't be reapplying-she will do it her way.

[Jarrow Pete]

In April 2000 I took early retirement after 30 years with a firm. I had never been out of work since leaving school at 15, when I went to sign the dole they said I did not qualify for any payments and that I had to sign once a fortnight for my stamp to qualify for my old age pension when I was 65. The second time I signed a young lad asked me what I was doing to look for work, I told him I looked at the newspapers every day, he said have a look on the boards they have on the walls in the dole. I looked at them and saw a job open for male or female applicants to demonstrate beauty products and organise parties, I went back to him and told him there was a job I fancied, his eyes lit up as he asked me for the reference number, when he pulled the card out and read it he asked if I was taking the p*ss and he was getting his supervisor to see me. When she came over she said the job was not suitable for me, I asked was I too old for it, she then asked the same question was I taking the p*ss, I said no but I was sick of being treated like a child when I signed, she then said can we come to some arrangement, we will not bother you if you do not bother us. Anyway my old employer kept pestering me to go back to train their engineers and they made me an offer I could not refuse, so after 7 weeks on the doal I called in to sign off. When I told them they asked who my employer would be, I told them I was not prepared to tell them, I was told it was the law as they had to inform the Inland revenue so any payments would have to be put on my tax code, I said just tell the m you paid me F.A. and left it at that.

[jimmywizz]

derek i am sure your wrong because when you on the dole your called a scrounger just because your get £300 a week and a free car etc etc, yer welcome to the real world, once you walk through them doors to sign on your arse is theirs and if they want to call you worse then s**t then they will, i hate the b*stards because of what they done to me when i was on the dole about 6 years ago and took bad, i was fooked big style, i could not even walk up the stairs to sign on and when i pointed this out i was told that unless i had cancer and was dying "that was her very words" i would have to go in or my money was stopped, i pointed out that she was not a doctor and i was on a waiting list to see a specialist at hospital, she still said if i did not turn in then my money was stopped, so i had to pay for a taxi to go down there which i could not afford in the first place living on £50 week, it took me about 5 mins to get up the stairs as i was still that ill and took my seat, the woman who was supposed to do my interview took one look at me and seeing how bad i was sent me straight home, even to this day i still hate the evil cow who had forced me to go in and at the time i would have taken the matter further but i was just to ill and had to drop it

[Ugly Betty]

Horror stories, all. Yours especially, Jimmy. It was cruel of that woman to put you through what she did. A Pathetic excuse for a human being let alone a social worker.

Good luck on your new job, Derek.

[bluekats]

Seriously, you guys should come to australia.. shack up with some bird, have half a dozen kids and live a good life… they’ll give you rental assistance, extra child assistance on top of the normal child endowment, a medicare card that allows you practically free medical and cheap d*ugs, cheap electricity and gas, cheap travel on trains and other public transport.. oh, and make sure the bird you shack up with has had a previous marriage so that you can claim child support as well.. I tell you, I know a person like this and they have a big family car… the latest flat screen computer, (at which they sit on their lazy ass in front of all day) the latest mobile phone (although they don’t even need one) …. they don’t even bother hanging their clothes out to dry.. just chuck them into a drier even though it’s perfect weather… (cheap electricity remember)
and if you want to train by doing Tafe courses, they’ll even pay for the training… not that many do as they have a career floating on forums… LOL… I tell you, it doesn’t get any better than here in austrailia..

and that’s why illegal immigrants spend six months in a leaky boat just to get to australia… so hurry on down.. the more the merrier… we seem to have plenty of people working their guts out to pay tax to support bludgers.. but shhhhh… don’t let the secret get out.. wink wink..

[bluekats]

the trouble is betty, is trying to pick the real cases due to their being so many cheats… they know all of the ins and outs of being a bludger and its innocent people like Jim that cop the brunt…

[mrp]

All the refos (Nigerians) I see here work blue. Good incomes too.

Asian boat people are some of our greatest entrepreneurs.

The Muslim, Aboriginal and Anglo communities appear to the worst welfare abusers.

Means testing should end*, remove the minimum wage** and get rid of income tax.

*People can play the system already - get over it.

**It causes unemployment. Deal with this unfortunate fact.

***Removes poverty traps, disincentives to work and aids in capital accumulation which gives workers jobs and higher wages.

[max Headroom]

The subject of free health has been forgotten, low income people wait for up to 2 years to get a appointment to see a public hospital doctor / dentist, they are then placed on a waiting list usualy 6 months, should by some chance they are unable to meet those appointments they are scrubbed from the list and have to be re-referrred to the system again.

If one is either aged or disabled this system is harse, the present caretaker government detests supporting people who do not contribute to the economy, as for seeking employment and if you in the mid 40's tough luck.

It boils down to productivity and the $, not compassion.

[bluekats]

*People can play the system already - get over it.

doesnt mean i have to like it and sit quietly about it... especially when some drink heavily as well..

give me your thoughts on Hawards new IR laws while you're at it... he says that he is 100% against any employer sacking an employee only to replace them with someone that will do the job cheaper but then fully backed Priceline when they sacked a guy only to replace him with someone on 25 grand a year less.. errrr come again?

if he is against it then why is it in the law to be able to do it in the first place?

we will get what they are seeing in the UK today, hard working countrymen being given the ass and being replaced by cheap immigrant labour that have no intention of embracing the culture of that land..

[Rosie]

Seriously, you guys should come to australia.. shack up with some bird, have half a dozen kids and live a good life… they’ll give you rental assistance, extra child assistance on top of the normal child endowment, a medicare card that allows you practically free medical and cheap d*ugs, cheap electricity and gas, cheap travel on trains and other public transport.. oh, and make sure the bird you shack up with has had a previous marriage so that you can claim child support as well.. I tell you, I know a person like this and they have a big family car… the latest flat screen computer, (at which they sit on their lazy ass in front of all day) the latest mobile phone (although they don’t even need one) …. they don’t even bother hanging their clothes out to dry.. just chuck them into a drier even though it’s perfect weather… (cheap electricity remember)
and if you want to train by doing Tafe courses, they’ll even pay for the training… not that many do as they have a career floating on forums… LOL… I tell you, it doesn’t get any better than here in austrailia..

and that’s why illegal immigrants spend six months in a leaky boat just to get to australia… so hurry on down.. the more the merrier… we seem to have plenty of people working their guts out to pay tax to support bludgers.. but shhhhh… don’t let the secret get out.. wink wink..

Blue I think you need to do a stint at your local community center and take a look at the real world.

Some of the things I see would make your hair curl and I can assure you people don't get themselves in these situations deliberately.

[bluekats]

Blue I think you need to do a stint at your local community center and take a look at the real world.

Some of the things I see would make your hair curl and I can assure you people don't get themselves in these situations deliberately.

the trouble is, is trying to pick the real cases due to their being so many cheats… they know all of the ins and outs of being a bludger and its innocent people like Jim that cop the brunt…

[Derekftm]

your certainly correct blue
the ones that know how to play the system certainly do ok
there was no advice for anybody when the company went down
im lucky that my job entails skills that are sought after, but some of the guys i worked with dont have a chance of getting a decent job
we went to work at 8.00am and at 9.00 we were out of the building and out of a job
luckily the company went into insolvency, so everybody gets whats owed
but even the 90 days notice isnt paid until AFTER the 90 days
so you are infact at the mercy of blairs employment policy right away
then after 90 days, you get your 90 days notice cash, but have to repay any benefits paid to you (which is fair enough)
But people that have worked for years have a standard of living keyed to that income
So how are they supposed to keep commitments made in time of employment

the whole thing really does stink, and i thank god that i start work today (in 50 mins time)

Certainly one helluva shock to my system

[Globalmyths]

It all depends which way you look at it. I was in a good paid job in Townsville Australia-Queensland got pneumonia hospitalized the pneumonia then aggravated my asthma and from that time on for nearly eight years I spent month in and a month out of hospital with Asthma and or pneumonia and heart problems and was put first onto sickness benefits then a disability pension. So even if I was not lucky health wise I was lucky in that I never had to go onto the dole in Australia.

[Jake]

Derek wrote, " How do you spell SHOP
and they give you 3 different ways to spell it "

And northern would still get it wrong.

[Globalmyths]

Hey Jake where and when did you get a doctorate in Psychology so you can analyze people.

[sherri]

Blue, I am sure there are some who rort the system. I am positive of it.
But for all others, getting a cent out of the govt isn't easy.
My daughter, when she did get a job, was working for a private company that had to place people with disabilities into work.
Half the people there should have been on some sort of disability pension. Their problems were too severe either physically or mentally for them to work. Yet they had to front up at the agency to stay on their dole.
It was a waste of everyone's time.
Only half of them should have been there.

Now re free medical etc etc
True to some extent.
But do you know what one of the best indicators of class differences is, apparently?
Teeth.
Don't kid yourself any govt looks after every need of poor people.
Or that they are on a gravy train health wise.

Only the middle to wealthy classes have enough to look after their teeth.
And poor teeth have been linked with heart disease.
So the poor do much worse in the health stakes.

[northern]

Derek wrote, " How do you spell SHOP
and they give you 3 different ways to spell it "..

And northern would still get it wrong.

[Jake]

No, Still cannot understand a word, northern.
illiterate idiot.

[Jarrow Pete]

No, Still cannot understand a word, northern.
illiterate idiot.

Jake at least he now knows how to use spell check, even if he is still spouting rubbish.