This whole situation is devolving into a farce.
The rule about signing off after sixteen hours seemed crazy, considering I didn’t even have a sniff of work for the following week and beyond. So I decided to contact the Job Centre and ask them about it.
“Well, that’s a difficult one, Miss. If you sign off, Miss, you’ll have to go through the whole procedure again, Miss. So what I would suggest, Miss, is that you tell them that you only worked fifteen hours, Miss.”
I was stunned. Wasn’t that illegal?
“Well, just don’t tell them, Miss. They’ll be so surprised that someone’s actually declared work, Miss, they won’t take any notice.”
In the absence of any safe, logical advice, I decided to contact Equity, one of the very few benefits (sic) of belonging to a castrated union. The officer was aghast at what had been suggested and told me to that I had only two options: to sign off and then do a Rapid Reclaim, a mechanism by which people who have intermittent work over a twelve week period may sign back on again without going through the whole rigmarole of form-filling and interviews; or ask for Averaging. If your core hours of work are under sixteen a week but unforeseen variables force that figure up, you may ask for your hours to be averaged out over a period. I was warned, however, that Averaging is complex, and calculated by a formula that would put particle physics to shame. The Job Centre neither likes nor encourages it, which is why it is not mentioned on the official website.
I realised then that I was entangled in a structure whose sole purpose was to wedge people into a standard pattern of employment in order to regularise government statistics. There has been little incorporation of the considerable demographic changes in working arrangements that have evolved over the past couple of decades.
It was also obvious that the system was not designed to support anyone in a middle-income bracket – those too rich to qualify for significant help but too poor to ride out the bad times on their savings. People with their own homes are only eligible for help with mortgage interest, which is tough on those who have tipped the mid-term fulcrum for repayments and now pay back more capital than interest. Yet these are the people who are currently being made redundant in droves. I qualified for the princely sum of £60.50 a week, which included Jobseekers Allowance, mortgage and living expenses. Grim. I was determined to apply for anything within my spectrum of talents.
Now, I’ve always prided myself on my versatility and can turn my hand to most things – but …but … what the hell was the Job Centre thinking?
Today I received by mail details of two jobs, embellished by a little yellow post-it with “found these vacancies but unsure if they are of any use to you” from my dear friend, the pointed talon.
They are as follows:
Job 1
Internal Communications Manager for the Inland Revenue, permanent job, salary £53K. Must have had previous business experience and a good understanding of communications as a strategic business tool.
Job 2
Cleaner, permanent job, working between 7am-11pm weekdays, £5.52 per hour. Previous experience desirable. Duties include hoovering, sweeping, mopping, dusting, window cleaning, emptying bins and cleaning toilets.
I’m still laughing – but only because, right now, I can afford to.
