The Fairy Jobmother on channel four has to be one of the most depressing TV shows I've watched. The 'fairy jobmother' is incredibly patronising and I do not believe that she would do any of the jobs she forces the people she claims to help. It's even worse since I became a job seeker myself and have been signing on.
When I first walked through the doors of my local jobcentre, the woman asked me if I was a single mum (I had the boy with me), asked if I worked and how old my son was. She then said "well you need to make an appointment, but I'm sure you'll get sommat." Yeah, a job, I hope!
I felt pretty positive about signing on initially, thinking that I would get career advice and help to find a job that I could fit around the boy and would make sense for me financially. After my first visit...I cried. What an awful, depressing environment the job centre is and I challenge anyone to go there and feel positive about job hunting on their way out.
You are interviewed first by your 'key worker' who finds out a bit about you and then shows you where you could be looking for work. Except, my 'key worker' asked me what hours I could work, how old I was and how old my son was. He didn't listen. He asked what I would like to do. He told me I wouldn't find jobs like that here. He then showed me a list of categories and said choose two that you would be interested in doing. He took no notice. Turning the computer round he asked me "how about applying for this?" 'This' was a job that was minimum wage, every weekday between 11 - 2, in a category I'd not ticked. Now perhaps I was being a job snob, but I had told him, I already worked part time (but less than 16 hours a week, I wasn't committing fraud!) and needed a job that paid at least the same, I have no childcare so need to work hours the man is home (which is not in the middle of the day!)
I felt very disheartened. I was hoping someone was going to show me all the options I had available. Talk me through perhaps retraining, going back to university, what childcare I would be entitled to if I did a certain job. Instead I was given my documents, asked if I'd looked for a job that week and taken back to the lift.
Each time I went, I became increasingly angry and defensive. My personality changed as I walked through the doors; knowing that I was going to be looked at by the people that worked there like something they'd stood in, spoken to like I was an idiot, and treated like I was there just to get money (when in fact I wasn't entitled to anything) meant that I behaved differently.
My last experience was the worst. I had to take the boy with me, who was unhappy about having to sit there while the woman I was waiting for chatted merrily to her colleague for half an hour. (Perhaps she was rubbing it in to all the surrounding job seekers that even though she was doing bugger all at least she had a job, unlike the dole scum she was looking down her snooty nose at - see what happens to me!) As the boy became more restless a man came over and said he would try to get my name to the top of the list (get his colleague to stop chatting) and then said "you shouldn't bring him here, he'll get bored." I nearly exploded with rage, but was afraid I'd be escorted out by one of the security they employ to control the riff raff. Then the woman who I'd been waiting for repeated what the man had said. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next. "Don't you think I know that! I don't have anyone to look after him, I'm not stupid! And if you hadn't sat around on your arse chatting for the last half an hour we would have been out of here!"
And with that I signed off.
I am one of the lucky ones. I pity anyone that has to sign on, not because you get a small amount of money to live on and not because it's hard trying to find a job but because going to sign on at the job centre even for a few weeks is depressing, sad and no help at all. You leave with no confidence, no self worth, and no job. For people that have been signing on for a long time, the job centre is the biggest barrier to them getting a job.
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