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Help AB find a new vocation

axe battler

axe battler

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Aug 4, 2009
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Trying my best to protect my tits from Fubz
Hi y'all.

So unemployment is looking imminent. I hate my job and manager anyway, and it's a very ungratifying office job anyway, on the phone all day with no satisfaction.

The only perk is an ok government pension and every weekend and bank holiday off. Pay is only a quid or so above minimum wage.

Being quite a severe addict with anxiety might keep the jobcentre off my back for a bit, but I think I need a job.

So - at nearly 39 I'm looking to re-train or even study in something a bit more satisfying with decent renumeration preferred.

Any tips on how i should increase my government income whilst I figure out to do? Any inspirational stories? I'm freaking out a bit.

You can tell I'm desperate when I'm asking you degenerates for careers advice. 😉
 
You'll be ok, and yeah from all I've heard from you and others, working for Uncle Sam takes it's toll on ya. Do you have any better options right now? if you haven't already (and if your income would increase because of it.) an associate's degree can help you land some jobs (many of my colleagues use their associate's in science to land sales jobs). Yes college is a neo-scam that is becoming less and less profitable to attend by the minute, but you might be able to get some value out of it before an associate's is as common as a high school diploma. That's a LOT of work though and i'm not sure you have 2 years to spare.

Forklift certs don't take too long, but you'd have to do drug testing probably. You'll find that drug tests are necessary for most jobs that make anywhere more than 40-60k a year.

I can't think of any way to increase your gov income besides asking for a raise or getting a promotion.
 
axe battler said:
Hi y'all.

So unemployment is looking imminent. I hate my job and manager anyway, and it's a very ungratifying office job anyway, on the phone all day with no satisfaction.

The only perk is an ok government pension and every weekend and bank holiday off. Pay is only a quid or so above minimum wage.

Being quite a severe addict with anxiety might keep the jobcentre off my back for a bit, but I think I need a job.

So - at nearly 39 I'm looking to re-train or even study in something a bit more satisfying with decent renumeration preferred.

Any tips on how i should increase my government income whilst I figure out to do? Any inspirational stories? I'm freaking out a bit.

You can tell I'm desperate when I'm asking you degenerates for careers advice. 😉
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear about your possible upcoming unemployment, but sometimes in can be a good thing in the long run. Especially when you hate your current job.

Are you being made redundant, or getting sacked if you dont mind me asking? If the former then you should be entitled to a redundancy payment, if you've been there more than 2 years.

If you claim contribution based JSA, which you will be entitled to for 6 months, if you've got full NI contributions from employment for the previous tax year, you get a much 'softer touch' from the job centre. They just phone you every couple of weeks and ask how things are going. You have to say you're applying and attending interviews etc, but you dont have to prove anythimng. This is what Ive done last couple of times Ive signed on, and its so much better than universal credit, where you have to record every job search action making up 37 hoiurs on that fucking website, and go in to the job centre to sign on and tell them about your job search. It's so demeaning. The contribution based JSA is like heaven in comparison. The money is still pretty much the same, and after being in work for some time, its easy to forget how extremely low benefits are - like £320 a month! I mean, that doesnt even cover all the bills, let alone anything else. It's crazy!

Contribution based JSA is the best way of keeping the job centre off your back imo, because unless you can medically prove that your unable to work, I don't think that they'll care about yor anxiety or addictions. I've never gone down that route with them though, maybe some others on here have. I do know that it's becoming increasingluy difficult to prove a medical inability to work. I'm not sure if even Drs notes are sufficient any more, the job centre have their own assessors, who are notoriously harsh and strict. They seem to decline everyone as a matter of course and force them to go through the appeal process. It seems the whole system is designed to be as stressful and unplesant as possible they way they treat people.

As for any other government income, I'm not aware of any such thing, except maybe certain grants and or loans for specific job related training or education, but you'd have to do your own research on that. Maybe have a look on you tube and there might be something relevant on there.

Otherwise the only way to not be living in abject poverty from day 1 is to use your savings, which hopefully you have some of. Or hopefully you'll get a redundancy package, and or payments in liue of notice etc, which can alladd up to make a tidy pay off.
 
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Bleaney said:
Sorry to hear about your possible upcoming unemployment, but sometimes in can be a good thing in the long run. Especially when you hate your current job.

Are you being made redundant, or getting sacked if you dont mind me asking? If the former then you should be entitled to a redundancy payment, if you've been there more than 2 years.

If you claim contribution based JSA, which you will be entitled to for 6 months, if you've got full NI contributions from employment for the previous tax year, you get a much 'softer touch' from the job centre. They just phone you every couple of weeks and ask how things are going. You have to say you're applying and attending interviews etc, but you dont have to prove anythimng. This is what Ive done last couple of times Ive signed on, and its so much better than universal credit, where you have to record every job search action making up 37 hoiurs on that fucking website, and go in to the job centre to sign on and tell them about your job search. It's so demeaning. The contribution based JSA is like heaven in comparison. The money is still pretty much the same, and after being in work for some time, its easy to forget how extremely low benefits are - like £320 a month! I mean, that doesnt even cover all the bills, let alone anything else. It's crazy!

Contribution based JSA is the best way of keeping the job centre off your back imo, because unless you can medically prove that your unable to work, I don't think that they'll care about yor anxiety or addictions. I've never gone down that route with them though, maybe some others on here have. I do know that it's becoming increasingluy difficult to prove a medical inability to work. I'm not sure if even Drs notes are sufficient any more, the job centre have their own assessors, who are notoriously harsh and strict. They seem to decline everyone as a matter of course and force them to go through the appeal process. It seems the whole system is designed to be as stressful and unplesant as possible they way they treat people.

As for any other government income, I'm not aware of any such thing, except maybe certain grants and or loans for specific job related training or education, but you'd have to do your own research on that. Maybe have a look on you tube and there might be something relevant on there.

Otherwise the only way to not be living in abject poverty from day 1 is to use your savings, which hopefully you have some of. Or hopefully you'll get a redundancy package, and or payments in liue of notice etc, which can alladd up to make a tidy pay off.
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Thanks a lot mate, really helpful advice.
I don't think I get a choice as my city is a 'UC area' or whatever.
I think I'll be getting the boot mate.
Yeah I'm aware of how harsh they can be, but don't underestimate how much of an unemployable fucktard I can come across as ☺️
The whole process has me rattling for booze and pills so badly, in fact I'm off for some now.
I really would consider re-training in something that doesn't involve customer service and pays well.
 
Customer service jobs are the worst. Especially if you're not naturally suited to them, as in someone like me, a sometimes introverted Autistic with social anxiety, I couldn't be any more unsuitable really, and I don't know how or why I ended up in customer service for so long. They seem to be the most abundant jobs going I guess.

But glad to be out of that field now. Admin is better. Or even warehouse, although that is boring as fuck as its so mindless. I've often just done some more open ended job searched and applied for everything and juest ended up taking whatever offer came through first.
 
Good thing I saw this; picked up a load of flyers at a job fair for exactly anyone in this position, I knew friends would be interested.

I'll post them up. Level 2 apprenticeships, 2-3 months, city center of town (Newcastle). This is exactly what you need.
 
axe battler said:
Thanks a lot mate, really helpful advice.
I don't think I get a choice as my city is a 'UC area' or whatever.
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I could be wrong, but as far as I understand it, it's a national thing as the benefit application process is done online.

So instead of applying for Universal credit online, just apply for contribution based JSA instead.

If you have full contributions from employment for the previous tax year, I think you should be eligible.

I applied for it because due to all my redundancy payouts it meant that I had quite a lot of savings at that point, and wouldnt have been entitled to any UC.

I didn't know that it's something like a 'first class'' benefit, at least in terms of how you get treated, as in they're not implying they think you're a wastrel and not forcing you to prove 37 hoiurs of job seeking per week etc etc...
 
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axe battler said:
Hi y'all.

So unemployment is looking imminent. I hate my job and manager anyway, and it's a very ungratifying office job anyway, on the phone all day with no satisfaction.

The only perk is an ok government pension and every weekend and bank holiday off. Pay is only a quid or so above minimum wage.

Being quite a severe addict with anxiety might keep the jobcentre off my back for a bit, but I think I need a job.

So - at nearly 39 I'm looking to re-train or even study in something a bit more satisfying with decent renumeration preferred.

Any tips on how i should increase my government income whilst I figure out to do? Any inspirational stories? I'm freaking out a bit.

You can tell I'm desperate when I'm asking you degenerates for careers advice. 😉
Click to expand...

Interesting thread mate 🙂

I recently decided that due to similar issues with addiction and mental health, I needed to retrain in something where I could work for myself. So I applied for a barbering course and few massage courses (aromatherapy and head massage, later i plan to do acupuncture).

I figure with this kind of thing there should be less stress. In theory you can open your own business and even work from home too. Obviously there are lots of other options where you could do similar. What I mean is for someone with anxiety issues not having to work with a large group of people or boss hassling you relieves alot of the associated stresses.
 
Bleaney said:
Customer service jobs are the worst. Especially if you're not naturally suited to them, as in someone like me, a sometimes introverted Autistic with social anxiety, I couldn't be any more unsuitable really, and I don't know how or why I ended up in customer service for so long. They seem to be the most abundant jobs going I guess.

But glad to be out of that field now. Admin is better. Or even warehouse, although that is boring as fuck as its so mindless. I've often just done some more open ended job searched and applied for everything and juest ended up taking whatever offer came through first.
Click to expand...
I used to work for the Inland revenue and it was the shittiest 6 years of my life. I left it to work as a laboratory technician, which convinced me that I could teach. Any job involving customer services is as crap as it gets (unless you enjoy being treated like shite)
 
fastandbulbous said:
I used to work for the Inland revenue and it was the shittiest 6 years of my life. I left it to work as a laboratory technician, which convinced me that I could teach. Any job involving customer services is as crap as it gets (unless you enjoy being treated like shite)
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How'd you become a lab tech? Seems like a hard field to get into without a degree or experience and I'm approaching 40.
I do find chemistry and pharmacology fascinating, as with everyone on here.
 
fastandbulbous said:
I used to work for the Inland revenue and it was the shittiest 6 years of my life. I left it to work as a laboratory technician, which convinced me that I could teach. Any job involving customer services is as crap as it gets (unless you enjoy being treated like shite)
Click to expand...
Yeah customer services wouldn't be quite so bad if all you had to do was answer the phone, as that would be bad enough getting grief from 75 people a day on average.

But that's not enough, you usually have a full time job's worth of tickets, emails, or admin, to get through on top of the phone calls. "Multitasking" they call it. Fucking slave labour I call it.

So you have the hell of constant interruptions to deal with while trying to get through a demanding workload. All that stress for not very much more than minimum wage, sometimes only minimum wage.

Never again will I apply for such awful jobs.

My current job pays better and is miles easier and more enjoyable. I love it but my hours have just been capped at 30 hours per week, (barring occasional potential overtime), which is still enough to live on, but it doesn't leave much left over for savings or pension contributions etc......

Not happy that I've finally found one job where I could easily and willingly work long hours, and then that option gets taken away.

May not be able to stay long term now, although it is only a temporary contract anyway. Now being renewed month by month, so it's definitely not very secure for the long term.
 
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axe battler said:
Murder detective would be a cool job actually, but I've a snowballs chance in hell there.
No real record but let's say I'm known to the local po po.
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Shame, I just suggested that as it's a brilliant way to get free drugs if you have your witta about you.
 
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