Unemployment

Congrats!

That river isn't so stupid.

sometimes i imagine unemployment >>> my current job, but then i think better

...but maybe

fun bit: my unemployment claim finally went thru, just in time for me to finally get a check two days after i'd started the new job. Great.

Also, new job has an office cat!

That river isn't so stupid.

getting back home across it in the evening sure as fuck is

office cat can't be beat. fantastic.

It may not be stupid, but that river definitely smells weird.

JESUS CHRIST DID I GET THE GODDAMNED MONEY OR NOT YOU BASTARDS

at this point i don't even care if i got denied. or if i have to appeal and drag the fucking process out even more. i just want to know.

checking email 100x per day in hopes that job i applied for/really want/would be good for me responds...

interview tomorrow for part time work at beer and cheese store tho! so that would rule, even if i never heard back from the speciality mystery/crime bookstore.

do you know how many jobs there are for people who 'coach' executives to be more high-performing?

there are a lot

i need to figure out if there is a linkedin setting that makes it hide all the jobs you can't even understand

Being able to hide oil companies and defence contractors would be a start.

Here's to 2014, the year of '25 job-seeking steps a week' to get your JSA (in the UK)

I just finished printing out all the evidence that I'm going to need for my signing on appointment tomorrow. That no fucker will ever read.

Thing is, I was already applying to more or less that number of jobs in that timeframe anyway, give or take two or three. All this does for me is rack up the tension a bit more. But at least I've got the internet at home. Hoo boy, what happens to people who don't?

What they really need to do, and what I doubt they will do for some time under the condems, is allow you to be on JSA and be doing some kind of work experience/volunteering, and as long as you do enough hours of that per week, you count as having done all your requirements, because in all honesty, people without much work experience applying to jobs isn't going to get anywhere but if doing unpaid work experience cancels yr fortnightly income you're never going to look into it

go america!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/unemployment-benefits-wont-be-extended-until-at-least-late-january-as-senate-deadlocks/2014/01/14/42b239a2-7d68-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html

Good luck to Cardamon and Snoball, don't let these worthless arseholes grind you down.

Yes, so I should really do something about this!

But my shrink keeps telling me not to pressure myself, and I should not go back to work until I'm ready, or I will end up right back in the same place.

And yet, I feel so *guilty* about my idle state, and the current political environment doesn't help this. (Why do I get this luxury, when people in much worse states than me are being cast back into the hell of JSA?) And the guilt and the feeling of "oh god I mustn't pressure myself to do something I'm not ready to do" coalesce into this vast ball of inability to do much of anything except argue on the internet and read long Victorian novels.

But, basically, shout out to the other unemployed people. What a weird, empty, fraught place to be.

You shd probably rely on shrink's advice, I mean as an unemployed person on JSA I rarely feel irritated with people on ESA. Mind you when I work I don't feel irritated by people on JSA either.

Didn't phrase that very well - what I mean is, if you're on one of the less intrusive benefits I for one wdnt hold that against you

Cut from long-term federal unemployment here! No income whatsoever! Working on my last check now, interviewing for two jobs today....

I believe in a safety net, though, and I haven't felt guilty for a second. I had that job for 10 years to earn this right to be protected when joblessness happens, and the fact that ppl are worse off than me is a reason for me to look for ways to help and advance their rights, not spend that energy wringing my hands and feeling worse about myself. I took the time I needed, it must have looked like indolence (and much of it was, let's be honest--I didn't know what it felt like to sit in my own house in daylight hours 8 months out of the year), but my time not working a full-time job has delivered MASSIVELY in letting me reorganize my head, embed myself into my community, try new pursuits with an eye to my next career, develop skills, make contacts. Now I know what kind of life to choose, when before it was a dead-end of sameness.

God it feels so much better.

I had that job for 10 years to earn this right to be protected when joblessness happens

To be clear, I don't think this protection is something ppl should have to "earn," but even under the current crappy system, ppl getting UI have fulfilled the necessary conditions to have support and there is no shame attached to that.

you shouldn't feel guilty. we should have a basic income

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

and stop living like savages

Yeah, agreed.

it's totally medieval that the son of a congressman (rand paul) would go off about how unemployed people are disincentivized to look for work by unemployment insurance and lots of people (are paid to?) agree. do tax cuts disincentivize rich fucks from working? say we survive climate change, people will look back 500 years from now on the feudalism of the USA the way we do the middle ages . . . hopefully not caught up in their own neo-feudalism

Basic income looks to me (open to disagreement of course) like a really good way of giving power back to workers (relative to the power employers have to pick and discard potential employees). Which would surely function as an incentive to work.

Also, it looks as though it would let people stay on in education. Think of all the people who could train in, say, fork-lift truck operating, engineering, mechanics, etc, and the broadening opportunities for employment that would give them.

I'm deliberately choosing vocational studies for that example, of course, but at a guess that's what the majority of workers would use the new educational opportunities for, once they were opened up by BI.

pre-emptively shitting myself thinking of what i'll do when my phd funding runs done with the phd unfinished. don't think i'll even be able to claim any benefits, i'll have to survive by eating my least useful books.

Would the remaining PhD work allow you to take up part time shifts somewhere? Is that viable?

I wrote out a longer post explaining my current economic situation and precarities. But then deleted it, as I don't think I can expect sympathy or understanding, and it just comes off as moaning.

Hope that you guys can affect changes both in your individual circumstances, and your wider spheres.

xp yeah it should be, I just need to get myself in a decent enough position with the thesis (e.g. not having to work eight hours a day on it) by September or so. Looking around it seems that the PhD writing-up period remains an odd loophole in terms of claiming benefits, it's not strictly the same as being a full-time student and I don't think the Job Centre or many councils have specific regulations on it, so it seems to often be a matter of persuading whichever employee you find yourself talking to.

Going to update this thread every so often as a self-motivator.

So has anyone here ever worked in a warehouse?

just lost my job earning 70K. feeling really, really awful. I hope I can do something to make this up to my family. feeling so hopeless.

oh man i am sorry

I also lost my job last week. Lucky in that I'm a single 23 yr old so don't have anyone else to support but still terrified of it.

Is it sensible to work out some kind of daily routine while unemployed? Something like job hunt from 9-12, lunch, go for a walk, job hunting 3-6, dinner, read for a bit, job hunting 8-10?

ILX all day, every day, mate.

So has anyone here ever worked in a warehouse?

― cardamon, Friday, January 24, 2014 6:26 PM (1 week ago)

Yes.

Being here feels absolutely futile. I don't really want to talk to my colleagues, can't be arsed to do any work, really do not care about toner issues or blue roll that needs re-ordering...but I need the cash. Oof.

Have they offered any outplacement services as part of your redundancy package?

if you're the sort of person that can set yourself a routine and stick with it then i reckon that's the way to go

if you're the sort of person that will beat yourself up about not sticking to your own routine then i'd give it a miss tbh

Expecting you to work on through the notice period when they made *you* redundant is p much them just asking for sabotage.

Do the bare minimum, take two hour lunches, and if anyone complains, just say, point blank "what are you going to do, sack me?"

Not a great idea if you want a reference, tbh.

Is it sensible to work out some kind of daily routine while unemployed? Something like job hunt from 9-12, lunch, go for a walk, job hunting 3-6, dinner, read for a bit, job hunting 8-10?

I still have my self-enforced schedule post-it note here on my desk.

Never been asked for a reference until after the job offer stage.

I've never worked a notice period; but then again, considering I'm in IT, and usually responsible for data integrity, it's p much part of my job to tell them that it would completely irresponsible to let someone with system wide access back on the network after being made redundant. That's just a classic security risk.

The best ways of sabotage are things they don't even find out until after you're long gone. Set up a repeating order for 200 extra batches of blue roll to kick in about 6 months down the line.

idk, education management / university admin is such a small world there's always a chance you'll end up working with some of the same people again in the future, or even working at the same institution, if you want to stay within the industry.

I've been told I'm "very lucky" to have been given a notice period at all. And that my four years of working here shouldn't count for anything because "we don't owe anybody anything". Morale is at an all time low; my ousting has led to several colleagues thinking about leaving. Not sure if they're just saying that to cheer me up though.

NV: I *try* to stick to routines but usually get distracted/frustrated/bored - will really make of a thing of this one though because I've got nothing else to do. Don't think I could take the guilt that'd come with lazing around all day on ILX/Xbox. Having said that, my best friend was unemployed from May-November last year and he tried to do a similar thing but the lack of an actual routine did his head in and he ended up pretty pretty depressed. I wish we - I lived with him - had tried to be more helpful at the time rather than just trying to "let him get on with it". He's a bit more stubborn than I am so would have chosen to downplay any concerns we had. I've asked him to tell me if he notices any correlation between his behaviour then and mine in the upcoming weeks/months so I can be open about things and talk to him properly about it.

SV: Nothing of that ilk was offered, no.

sabotage ultimately feels like too much of an arse. the one time i was made redundant (from my...one proper job ever) i wasn't going to a competitor so there was no reason to put me on gardening leave, but after a week of me half-heartedly coming in for a token couple of hours every day, openly fucking around on the internet then drifting away when i got bored (nb: it took a couple of days of this for them to realise i was behaving any differently :( ), it was quietly agreed that i should just do a handover note and then forget about working the notice period. absolute best thing was being able to let a couple of ongoing huge and awful tasks i was meant to do and was being ostrich-like about just...go. really feel sorry for whoever had to clear up those messes.

if you really have to go in i'd just use the office time to do job searches tbh, or if you come in five hours late/leave five hours early tell em it's for an interview. bare minimum of effort only, and only to avoid overt unpleasantness.

Yeah, OK, I guess sabotage is always better in imagination than in reality. I certainly get a kick out of fantasising about it, but IRL, bare minimum work and half-assing and 2-hour lunches for "interviews" is a much better way to go about it.

Awful that they didn't offer you the chance to talk to someone about your future options. Are they at least giving time off for interviews and stuff?

Do you want to stay in the sector?

who says you have to judge them like that?

btw among the other jobs i have applied for in the past year i keep throwing in applications for low-level library jobs that do NOT require library degrees (hs diplomas is all), and every single time i get rejected with something like 'we chose from the people who had relevant experience'. now probably they know some people and are hiring from within, but if not then that shit is intolerable for a duly executed duly applied-for job search. like there is relevant experience for these jobs that couldn't be picked up in a week or two. if you've got way overqualified people willing to do your job just cut one of them a break and don't bullshit the unfortunate ones!

this could be hella 'basic' as they say but despite receiving unemployment benefits more than once (and researching it anxiously etc as one does) this is the best thing i've ever read about how it works

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1466

Huh that's helpful. My parents absolutely INSIST that rather than being a mandatory tax per employee, that when my dad laid someone off 15-20 years ago he had to pay the guy's UI, like, DIRECTLY. Which he's still bitter about bc apparently dude was going on vacation, not looking for work, etc (as one is entitled to do because fuck it).

Maybe there's some kind of different thing for very small corporations? Or maybe my dad is a batshit conservative, that's always an option too.

(inspired by the onion 'finally i have achieved pay equity with men while on unemployment' gag, which is funny but i think probably not true anyway, even then, since benefits depend on prior pay, work history, etc. though the capping of taxable contribution levels might have an equalizing effect?)

apparently dude was going on vacation, not looking for work, etc (as one is entitled to do because fuck it)

as soon as the sev sum comes in, i will be fucking it