Job Centre Experiences

I have had several periods of unemployment. Who hasn't. Going to the Job Centre has to be somewhat daunting, to say the least. When I lived in Bedford the Job Centre had several locations. It used to be in the centre of the town, not far from the bus station in Allhallows. The unit in which it was situated is now a Nationwide Building Society branch. It was then moved to Zurich House, in Goldington Road, which is on what amounts to a large roundabout when the traffic system was introduced several years ago. Then it moved to Ashburnham Road, in a building hidden from the street by flats and approached through a rather forbidding entrance. Then, years later, the Government decided to merge the D.H.S. with the Department of Work and Pensions (which was a separate building in Bromham Road at another rather forbidding building called Wyvern House.) In the early days you would have to sign on at the Job Centre and then get an appointment at Wyvern House, and if you needed Housing Benefit you had to make another appointment at the Town Hall. All of these take time and effort on your behalf and it took a great deal of walking between each to get from one to the other. If you managed to get the initial form from the Job Centre and you then managed to wade through this, filling in each section and then returning it (having managed to make an appointment with the Job Centre) and going through your application with a member of their staff and then making a separate appointment at Wyvern House and THEN going to the Town Hall to do an application for Housing Benefit (meanwhile, gathering together the various documents such as bank statements, proof of employment etc etc, as well as your National Insurance number etc. As the Job Centre and D.H.S. were eventually merged under one roof this to-ing and fro-ing was cut to a minimum. In more recent times you had to ring a telephone number in order to get the initial application moving, and they rang you back and some of the application was done over the phone (this might sound an improvement but if you don't have a phone you are in a difficult situation. It is quite difficult to do this using a mobile phone, as I can attest.) At that time they set up an appointment at the Job Centre, which is usually around a week ahead. Not that easy if you have a hearing impairment or if the mobile connection gets cut off or it's just a poor connection. Why can't you just go in and collect a form from the Job Centre? It would have made life a good deal easier, although I suppose if it's done partially before you go for the Job Centre interview and application, it might be said to be a little easier.

Nowadays you are expected to be 'actively looking for employment' when you claim what is now called 'Jobseekers' Allowance' (formerly known as 'Unemployment Benefit.') You have to show that you are actively looking for work and have to take paperwork to prove you are looking for a job. This is all part of your application and you have to sign the documentation to this effect.

After several months you had to have what is called a 'Restart Interview.' I think it was to find out how you are doing as regarding finding work. A good idea in a way as it means that you can't expect to stay on 'Jobseekers' indefinitely. I got a letter to that effect and went along to the office in Ashburnham Road. I think, if memory serves, at about 12.45 on the particular day, but don't recall the date. The woman who was due to do the interview wasn't in the office so I had to wait. I had bought the relevant documents with me as required and more forms filled in. Then the interview started. I have to say this woman wasn't very good at her job, or so I thought. She never once gave me eye contact. It was as if I wasn't there and she wasn't very interested in me. It seemed as if I was merely another number, another person on her list of other interviewees for the day and she went through the motions of the interview as if she was just ticking off a list of objectives on a list she had in order to fulfill certain targets. I don't know, but as far as I was concerned it was rather a lack lustre job she did and after all the efforts I had made to be at this interview I wasn't very impressed. Maybe I was the last person on her list and she was desperate to get to her lunch break. To say I was annoyed would be untrue as I was, so, once I got home I wrote a letter of complaint to the manager of the Job Centre. I did receive a reply and as far as I know this woman was disciplined. I don't suppose you want to get letter of complaint from your customers, or clients as I expect you'd be called or perhaps 'end-user' which is a term I detest.

My flat was in a block of flats in Beauchamp Court, in Greyfriars, Bedford. I was owned and rented from Pilgrims Housing Association. When I eventually got to a position whereby I wanted to leave the house I was in which was in Rutland Road, Bedford (owned by Louis Fussell. See earlier post.) I was very surprised when, one day, I discovered that someone (no doubt from Pilgrims Housing Association) had left a key for me to the flat in Beauchamp Court, on the hall stand in Louis's front hall at 35 Rutland Road. Amazing, as it had the flat number and everything on a label. It could easily have been taken by anyone and it makes me wonder why they didn't give me the key personally to prevent it being taken by anyone but me. But no, it wasn't. I eventually moved in and was then told by Pilgrims that I could paint the flat any colour I wanted. They would provide me with an allowance of so much so that I could buy paint. I think I could have tokens to a certain value which I think could be exchanged in Wilkinson's store in Bedford High Street. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the point where I wanted to buy the paint I wanted they informed me that the allowance scheme had ended and if I wanted I could buy the paint myself. A bit mean of them I thought. I didn't actually paint the flat in the end, in all the four years I lived there.

Another incident comes to mind whilst living at this flat. One afternoon a couple of my friends came to visit. Part-way through the visit one of them went to use the toilet in the bathroom. There was suddenly a crash, and it turned out that, when he'd gone to flush the toilet (which was one of those old fashioned toilets with a cistern high up on the wall over the toilet bowl.) the chain had broken off and the plastic cistern had broken. Pilgrims had  a telephone number you had to ring in emergency, a helpline if you had a maintenance issue with your property, so I rang this number. It was called a 24-hour helpline, but when I rang there was no human to answer, just a recorded message saying 'please ring back during office hours, Monday to Friday.' So, why was it called a '24-hour helpline' and why even a 'helpline.'? I was then stuck with a toilet that wouldn't flush and I couldn't do anything to repair it until Monday morning after 9, when the Pilgrims office opened again. When I did eventually get through they told me to just flush the toilet with a bucket each time I used it.

That flat was really bad as regards damp. Some of the walls had terrible damp in them, in particular the bathroom. Pilgrims eventually dealt with it by installing an electric extractor fan, but instead of putting it in the bathroom so any steam and condensation would be taken out by the fan, for some unaccountable reason they put it in the kitchen, which didn't suffer with damp half as much as the bathroom. Then there was the issue of quite a lot of moisture running down the wall near the front door of the flat. It got so bad that the door itself began to bow out, to such an extent that the bottom rail of the door fell out and they had to come out and replace the door, but I they never actually dealt with the moisture running down the walls. There was a lot of black mould on the walls and I begin to wonder whether it wasn't that which lead to me having my heart attack. The flat was on the top floor of that block of flats and the damp must have been caused by the fact that it had a flat roof. Apparently each flat had a communal television arial, and at one point, when the roof had been refelted and the workmen had used hot tar as part of the refelting process, the cable for the television ariel had got burnt. I learnt this when someone had come to my flat to tell me that they were going to replace all the cable to each flat and it was then that I learnt that I could then get Freeview digital television in my flat and I eventually bought the required equipment to receive these digital channels at around the time the entire country was going over to digital television. Why I mention all this is that the damp in the flat may have been a direct cause of the refelting of the roof of the block of flats, but I'm not entirely sure about this.

After I had my heart attack in May 2006 I had to sign on for benefits. But, not being in a fit position to get myself out to the D.H.S. office in Bromham Road (about a 5-minute walk from my flat in Beauchamp Court, incidentally.) someone else had to get the relevant forms for me, a member of Rutland Road Church. If he hadn't helped me then I would have been without any income for the period I was ill. I think I was put on sick pay from the agency I worked for when the heart attack happened, which was for something like 27 weeks, although I don't know how they arrive at that period to receive sick pay. I don't think, looking back, I got any income support or anything. The joke of it was that I couldn't have free prescriptions for the medication I was on (around 6 items which worked out at around £30-£40 a month.) Doesn't make sense, as you get free prescriptions if you are on any sort of benefit, Job Seeker's Allowance, Income Support. Considering that I needed that medication to control my heart condition, to prevent another heart attack happening, this seems ridiculous. When I left hospital I was given all the medication I would need for around a month, but I had to go back to the hospital pharmacy as the hospital sent me an invoice for the prescription. I remember being in Milton Keynes Hospital a few years ago and when I left they gave me the medications and I was not expected to pay. Fortunately now, being over 60, I do not have to pay for my repeat prescription. At around £8.20 per item that would work out to around £50 a month!

Working In Care- Part 8

You know, I had really very few problems with the people I actually cared for. I enjoyed the work. It did give me a sense of actually doing something worthwhile. So why were the problems that I did encounter have to do with members of staff? I think it might be that some people are under the impression that care work is easy. It might be if you are working with the elderly and infirm, but when it is those with learning disabilities and especially challenging behaviours it can be quite difficult and to be honest it takes a special sort of person to deal with the challenges that do reveal themselves. As a temp you are expected to fit in almost from the first time you appear at a home or unit. I think some of the permanent staff can be somewhat off-hand, for whatever reason, maybe because you are on a different hourly rate or come from an agency. It takes a while to build up any sort of relationship with the residents/client group, and in some cases you need to read the careplans that have been written for the residents before you can go 'onto the floor' and actually do any caring.

I worked for another agency in Bedford, whose name I shall not reveal here as it might be traced back to those members of staff involved.

I did shifts at a home in Bedford and another in Biggleswade. Generally the work there was fairly straightforward, but to get to Biggleswade did mean quite a bit of driving as it's a good 15 miles out to Biggleswade from Bedford. I used to have to take a minibus load of the residents to Bedford and deliver them to a number of places in and around Bedford, Kempston and out to Sharnbrook, a village to the north of the town and just off the A6. The first time I went I was taken by another member of staff, to show me the way. She turned out to be quite an awkward person, and constantly criticized  my driving and other things, much to my annoyance. One particular resident who had autism and needed particularly special care went out to a unit in Sharnbrook. As I was coming out I had to have help reversing into the road, mostly because I had not got used to driving the minibus. This woman, the member of staff who had come to help me find the various places, jumped down my throat and told me I didn't need help. Not a very helpful person at all. She was generally not very pleasant to work with and at one point during one shift which she worked with me on was annoyed and somewhat rude that I didn't want to  cover a another shift she was scheduled to work because she wanted to be somewhere else that particular day. I must say I was glad that I didn't do too many shifts in that house with her.

One afternoon I had to pick up some of the residents from Barnfield College in Queen's Park in Bedford. This day seemed to go as easily as any and I was just driving away from the college when I was about to turn out into Bromham Road and towards the centre of Bedford on the way back to Biggleswade. That turning is quite difficult as you can't see very clearly in both directions to make sure it is safe before making the turn as it is a very busy road at the best of times. As I bought the vehicle to a halt and applied the hand-break to make sure it was stationary and then was about to release the clutch in order to make the turn out, I couldn't get the vehicle into gear. I shifted the gear-shift several times, but with no success and then the vehicle came to a halt. It is quite a stressful operation on your own, but with a bus-load of people with varying degrees of learning disability, even more so on this occasion. I tried a few times more, but still no success. I then realised that I wasn't going to get the vehicle out of this situation and certainly not going to get the residents home safely. I thought that I was going to have to get assistance from some form of breakdown service. I eventually remembered that the was serviced by a company in Kempston and managed to ring the company and they eventually sent out a breakdown truck to pick us up and take us to their workshop to have the vehicle repaired. They had to put it on a low-loader and it took some persuasion to get all the residents into the bus (along with another agency staff member, I seem to recall.) We eventually got to the workshop and the vehicle unloaded.) Then there was the problem of us all getting back to Kempston. I called a taxi firm and the whole groups of residents, myself and the agency staff member were transported back to the house in Biggleswade. 

The next day I was again on shift at the Biggleswade house and I was given an ear-bashing by the manageress who told me that I'd taken the bus to the wrong place to have it repaired. As it turned out there wasn't much wrong with it and she told me I'd have to get a bus to Kempston and bring the vehicle back. No 'thank you' or 'you used your initiative' or 'you looked after the client-group.' Just one load of negatives which didn't exactly endear me to the woman, as you can imagine. Yes, I know I might have taken the bus to the wrong place, but how was I to know where the CORRECT place was, as I wasn't a permanent member of staff? My main concern was the safety of the residents, which I think I managed to maintain throughout the whole ordeal.
Several of the residents in that house could be quite challenging in various ways. I mentioned the young lady who I took to the centre in Sharnbrook. She was autistic and when she got up in the morning had a routine which you didn't dare to disrupt. She could be quite violent if provoked, so when she was taken anywhere in the bus it was advisable for her to be at the back and as far as possible away from the driver. In some cases she had to be transported with another carer to act as escort, but generally she was very good and I didn't see too many incidents.

Another male resident could also become quite challenging, which I saw one particular evening when I was on shift. We were on the point of serving up their evening meal and I was sent to his room to tell him that the meal was ready. I knocked on the door and I was then confronted by his with waving fists. I moved rapidly out of the way, as you can imagine, and he proceeded to run after me down stairs. I had to spend the rest of the shift hiding from him in the room provided for sleep-in staff and had to go home without him being aware, but the next time I was on shift with the manager of the house I was berated by her for not being on the 'floor' of the home for the remainder of the shift, but I wasn't putting myself in danger from being injured by this gentleman, regardless of what this woman had to say on the matter. How would she like to be injured, possibly permanently, but not keeping out of his way? I don't think she actually did any caring of any sort and managed to stay in her nice warm and comfortable office, cleverly avoiding the actual realities of caring for people with learning disabilities.
Another incident is brought to mind in the run-up to Christmas around 2003 or so. I was scheduled again for a shift at the Biggleswade house at a time when some of the residents were involved in a show that they had been rehearsing during some drama classes they had gone to at Oakley village hall. Several new members of staff had been taken on, including a young man who was supposed to be a senior support staff member. I was scheduled to drive the mini bus once more and this young man was supposed to be escort, as there was the distinct possibility of some sort of 'incident' between the residents during the journey across Bedfordshire. This young man arrived at the beginning of the shift and I was introduced to me, but on one exchange we had he was quite rude to me. There was something distinctly no quite right about him, his speech was slurred and he had a look of not being exactly engaged. He then sat down on an armchair at a bottle of vodka fell out from under his coat and onto the floor and rolled across the carpet. It was quite obvious that he was very much drunk, from drinking the aforementioned vodka. It was then that the rest of the staff and myself decided that he wasn't going to be a suitable escort on the journey to Oakley village hall. I think it may have been in his contract, as with most companies not just those in care, that the drinking of alcohol on duty was a sackable offence. The shift-leader decided that the situation was so serious that the area manager should be informed so a phone call was made  and very quickly this young man appeared in the house and to keep the Christmas show from being put into total disarray without the attendance of the Biggleswade house residents, he came with us on the minibus as escort, but looking back I don't recall what happened to the drunk support worker, whether he came with us to Oakley, but I know he didn't survive as an employee at that home as he was sacked immediately. You need to have all your wits about you in care and the thought of him not being in complete control during that journey was not something I would wish to go through.
On arriving back in Biggleswade my problems didn't end, because where I had managed to park my car, in a carpark which belonged to some sort of hall, I soon discovered that I was blocked in. No amount of enquiries would discover whose cars were responsible, so I had to return to the house and spent the night sleeping on he lounge floor. Things were made worse still because it was a very stormy night with howling wind and rain pouring down. By the morning the weather had improved and I was able to drive home because the cars that had blocked mine in had gone, thank goodness. But the last day had certainly been an eventful one, not exactly helped by not being able to drive home as planned at the end of the shift.