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hi every one,i am struggling 2 find a job,i have spent all my time bringing my son up and have never had a proper job,altho i did voluntrey work,i spend every day trawling through various job sites,and most days like today im lucky if i find anything,the job centre are constantly on my back 2 get a job.i am on job seekers allowance and they want me 2 phone 6 jobs a week what am i supposed 2 do make jobs magically appear! lol,this is on my mind everyday and some days it really gets me down,i know there are no jobs out there at the mo but i feel like a failure.i want my son 2 be proud of me and not think my mum cant even get a job,i applied for 3 jobs 3 weeks ago but havent heard anything,is anyone else here going through the same thing cant get a job? and would like 2 have a moan or a rant about it!!
Hi elle81. I am in the same boat. I will not take a job unless it is in son's school hours, and I get holidays off with him!! I have done voluntary work in his school, hoping for a position, but there is nothing. I won't send him to a child minder, as he was abused by a friend's foster son, and I don't trust anyone. It is very difficult. I am on my own, with no support at all. I think the whole thing stinks. It should have remained the same, not once the child reached 7!!
hazeleyes - are there no playschemes at all local to you? I have my kids going one day a week for my sanity... (not great - I walk in and they're like 'he hasn't been in front of tv all day!' and he tells me how he watched toy story... but whatever, it's not like I wouldn't have tv on if he were home)
and as to jobs.. yes it is hard.. before i had kids I did voluntary work, applied to a job that had 6 interviewees and 2 jobs. I didn't get it. soul destroying.
I can't do cleaning because I am allergic to the chemicals, but other than that, I did see a sign in a window saying 'glass collectors needed'... but I'm not yet in town and this would be too awkward to get to.
Have you tried the whole knock on doors method? It is hard but there are options. Even telesales:) high turnover = high intake. I do feel like ya have to sell your soul to work... thank goodness we in a country that makes it possible not to huh?
anyways... my plan - to move to town. get kids going to nursery at least one day a week at same time. look for job. apply. repeat. A friend of mine was looking, she said she applied to over 20 before she got a job at hospital. So that's my bench mark set.
hi hazel eyes thanx 4 your message i am so sorry 2 hear what happened 2 your son i cant write on here what i think of the person that did it but in sure you know what i mean,i dont blame you you want to keep him close 2 u i hope something turns up 4 you i think you should wait 4 the rite job 2 come along that suits you and your son,yep it does stink im sick of getting down cos there is no jobs out there and then at the job centre you get treated like a second class citizen! do u have friends and family?
thanx louise i will def have a look,
Hi elle. Yes I do have friends, and I'll cough a little bit about the word 'family'. Long story. I don't have any support. Most days/months, that is fine, but just once in a while I crave some help, but wouldn't dream of asking the ones that I speak too. No worries though, I'm used to it now. My first signing on day is 6th September, but I won't put up with how some of the advisors speak to the claimants. I have already stated to them that I'll only work 16 hours. Will wait and see what the 6th brings. GGGGRRRRR
Glad you are feeling assertive about it, hazeleyes.
Lets hope I can stick to it 
On the side point of child minders, I can understand that - think that's why I only use local child minder as a back up when there is no other choice of care. but I 100% trust her.. she runs two local toddler groups and I practically know her week's schedule as she is busy going to other local toddler groups/children centre run things herself.
I went to latch key as a child and really valued time spent with other children 'free playing' without the burden of routine or learning. I wish I had gone more but I went as an older child and got tired of all the younger ones and ended up taking myself home after school instead (my mum worked long hours and for this reason as well I am totally pro a mother who can be there for her child around the clock). My child minder before latch key was good. But she smoked. In a living room with a door shut, when I brought up this point - she brought up the fact that there was a kitchen I could take myself to if I wanted.
And... on abuse... I was abused by my grandfather in the same room whilst my mother and nan played cards. I'm not sure it is possible to truelly avoid the chance of it happening.. much as we would like to. Might explain why my approach to life is very devil may care. I use gut feeling a lot of the time... stranger topic came up with S couple weeks ago - we were heading home after picking him up from the holiday care and this guy said hello to me in ... an odd way (gestures/body language/gut feeling) and S said he was friendly... I was going to let it pass but then decided to try to teach him 'stranger' and how no, that wasn't friendly, and how his dad would never say 'hello' to random women on the street etc etc.
very confusing cos next few days some lady says hello to us and i have to explain how yes she was being friendly and i couldn't really find words to explain the difference... was hoping he was just 'grokking'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok
so yeh... really need a job... so sick of talking to no one.
Aha a new word for me, Jane Hope, thank you for that. I wonder what my counselling clients would say if I said I am just trying to grok you, lol.
Your experience with your grandfather sounds horrific....and your mum and grandmother in the same room. Have you ever had some proper support around that or is it something you have never felt you wanted to go into?
hi hazel i can cough a little about the family side of things 2.meaning my mum! lol.yes thats what hours i am looking 4 too but no luck as yet!,well good luck on the 6th it annoys me that we are just another statistic 2 the job center and dont see us as individuals struggeling looking 4 work i could do there job standing on my head lol.
Hi all, JaneHope sorry to read about your experience, it really surprises me how many women have experienced some sort of abuse when they were young girls. When you are talking with your son, please remember that the majority of perpetrators are known to the family, it is quite rare for a perpetrator to be a stranger.
I think the conversation is so important, to give the words and the topic open to discussion means that our children are more likely to be bolder in an unpleasant situation.
Anyway back to the thread topic! Back to work - I can't find a job! Stick to your guns, do not let advisors bully you. If you feel you are being treated unfairly, put a post onto the Benefit Changes and You (I know that we are talking work here, but bear with me!) and our Parliamentary Officer can find out more and report back to politicians and policy makers.
... Not really much to discuss... never really (got) stuck with a councillor long enough to open it up. And yes, My circle of friends in school 3 out of 5 of us had experienced some form of abuse... their's on worse scale cept only happened once... not really sure it is something you measure.
And yes, Anna, I am aware that most abuse comes from within 'family'. I didn't really teach him 'stranger' word so much as that when he grows up I don't want him saying hello to random women on street! There were a couple girls who overtook us and they looked peed off too so figured he'd annoyed them as well. (I read The Jigsaw Man by Paul Brittan, and whenever certain creeps do stuff on street always reminds me of some of his profiles...)
And to work, hope y'all a)find something and b)like it :)
Like Anna says, it does happen to a lot of people. One thing I discovered when I was studying to be a counsellor was that there are loads of self help books on this topic. I will just highlight a couple, know this may not be your thing JaneHope but these boards are read by many so I always like to provide some resources for people who may be too shy to ask.
Here is a very helpful workbook for people who were sexually abused as children and while we are on the topic, here is a book to be read to young children teaching them that it is their own body and what sort of "touching" is not acceptable. And I would encourage anyone who has suffered abuse to get some support, as it often colours future relationships and can lead to all sorts of issues.
Anyway!! back to the topic in hand. It was mentioned above about a job giving us adult conversation/interaction. Do people agree that this is an important element of working?
I've been searching for work for many years now but with little success. In fact, I've become deeply suspicious of the advice I was given, to always declare my hearing disability, and wonder if it has led to discrimination. Not that I can prove it, of course!
Of course, since I lost most of my hearing, my inability to cope with heavy phone work or noisy environments, does limit the sort of work I can realistically apply for. Call-centre work is out of the question. Also, like Jane, I am allergic to chemicals so no cleaning work is possible. Nor can I set foot in newly-painted buildings with newly-fitted carpets, for that matter.
I've generally always worked, though mostly for free in voluntary fields. Yes adult interaction IS important. That's one reason why I'm doing voluntary work! :o)
In spite of having an excellent CV (confirmed by the Work Program), excellent referees, good qualifications including a degree, enough experience to fill job application forms and enough accomplishments to put on them, etc, I have not had a single reply to my applications for at least 2 years now. Since December I've noticed an even more worrying trend - there simply ARE less in the way of suitable jobs being advertised. Sure, the number of highly-paid senior management and senior consultancy jobs, and high-end IT/programming jobs does not appeared to have suffered much. It's the every-day cleric jobs which have taken a thrashing.Also, my local job email alerts are now arriving with less frequency and, when they do, are for security jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan! WTF!! How, does that fit my search-terms of 'local'?
Round here scarcely a week goes by without news of yet another company having to downsize, which they do by laying off most of the clerical workers (who generally are women). The local RBS branch got the chop recently and over 170 women lost their jobs. I should imagine that, having been in recent paid work, they'll be much more attractive to an employer than someone like myself who has been out of paid work for years.
The Work Program advises that job-seekers stand a much higher chance of success by simply cold-calling companies. Apparently many jobs are not formally advertised. A lot of pressure is being put on me to make these phone calls but I'd love to know just how I'm supposed to do it!!!
Yes, that is ridiculous when you have a hearing difficulty. I think that is something we have made Laura aware of in her researches about the Work Programme.
I agree about the adult interaction, it wasn't a facetious question, I asked it because lots of jobs are quite insular these days (call centre staff talk but to a script, lots of work online, lots of homeworkers) and I am wondering if this is a sociological change
Thank you Louise, I'm gonna buy those books form your links cos if I think too hard I won't and I do think they'd be helpful.
The Interaction side is really important for me cos I have worked by myself in an office, or as close to it, and I ended up finding myself crying in the toilets...
Even Call centre work, you're in a room with others, which is helpful, there is a bit of banter, and everyone is doing the same spiel and you get a board to check your stats with... BUT ... I hate selling something I don't believe in. I was in a debt consolidation call centre for a day... I didn't like that we were to put the caller on hold for about a minute and lie to them and say we were waiting for the computer to run it's checks - I didn't get the reason behind it besides being mental mind torture for the caller.
And Harissa, that must be a daily bane with the hearing problems - I lose my hearing frequently if I forget to avoid over intake of dairy (ie drink my favourite drink - a milkshake!) but have been good about this lately as it is so frustrating to not hear kids, and then when my hearing recovers, the fall out of hearing kids say 'what?' all the time is really annoying! ( I have seen ENT and they provided me with what appears to be my first ever succesful nasal spray...)
And, with that side to things - I am surprised to hear they are pressurising you - which will not help at all with mental health etc. Really struggling with ideas for jobs that don't make this factor a negative. BTW, I thought your reply was very good at outlining exactly what are the problems currently with looking for work, especially if like me and you, you're coming from an already disadvantaged point - it sounds like your CV and volunteer work is much stronger than mine so I think you'd get the job if it was between the two of us!
I'd like to do volunteering again, but I think I'll try and do it with Mind as I felt a bit wobbly when working in charity shop.. Which I was gonna say was my last work position. but I lie. My last job - I went to cafe/art gallery closest to me and asked if they were looking for staff, and they were, but their busy hours were when I had to pick kids up and didn't really get enough hours to warrant that... also they wanted flexibility - as in call and 30 mins I could turn up... which with kids not in school yet I couldn't commit to.
So yeh.. Think I prefer the knocking on doors method to telephone BUT, as proven by the Ugly series not so long ago, what you look like plays a big part on what you'll find...
hello elle81
Quite a few members have said similar things, that they are being expected to apply for a certain number of jobs, and either the jobs do not exist or they are not viable with children eg evening work
We have some online course which might help you when planning your job search. I am thinking in particular of Ways into Work but look at them all here