girlofprey

The more I think about it, the less the temporary work thing makes sense to me. Because if I actually do find temporary work, I'll have to come off Jobseeker's - and the whole point of it at the moment is to stay on so I can get some help up until my job starts, bus passes and the like. I could look for work that's under 16 hours, so I can stay on benefits - but there's not a lot of that out there, and I'm not sure that's the kind of job hunting the Jobcentre are really happy to pay out for. Plus I've got holidays planned in October, and I'm going to have to do some training shifts for my permanent job. So I think I'm going to put it on hold for now, and discuss it with my advisor tomorrow.

If I really do have to search for temporary work though, it would help if the government's actual website made it possible to actually filter jobs in that way. It would also help if they didn't somehow let a self-proclaimed 'full time position' into the Part Time filter. And also if they didn't post the same job five times, or if they were reposting a job because the formatting made it gobbledegook, if they deleted the actual gobbledegook one. I might write to them and tell them that.

ETA: Just saw a job with a legal firm offering £10.666 per hour. O_o

It's my sister's birthday and I went for lunch with my mum and my sister and my sister started being racist about Polish people and I argued with my sister and my sister said this was her birthday I'd been invited to and I was ruining it and I walked out. Fuck my sister.

But - I did go into town and speak to the Jobcentre, and they said that if I actively look for temporary work until my new job starts, I can still get paid, and if I'm still on JSA when the new job starts they can help me out with a train pass and work clothes and stuff. The lady I spoke to didn't know about the tax credits thing, but she said my advisor is a disability expert so she ought to know, and I'm seeing her on Wednesday, so. Anyway, it's nice to have options. Also my mum paid me back another £500 of the money she and dad owe me from my savings, and I went into my local games shop to ask for advice about possibly buying a cheap gaming PC, and it turns out his mum has one that she's basically never used and is looking to sell for about £200, so he's going to call me about the specs and stuff on Sunday. Result.

I finally joined Imzy! I am girlofprey on Imzy.

I feel like the two gifs that could sum up my job-hunting process are one of Zohan, from You Don't Mess With The Zohan, saying "I have the skills - I have the desire". And the other would be that one from Brooklyn Nine Nine of Jake playing a guitar for a criminal, and then screaming.

But anyway. Trial shift tomorrow. Wish me luck! I have to get up at about 6.30, but I'm going to give it my best. And right now, the video for the Playstation Meeting that happened earlier tonight has finally gotten to the Meeting part, so I'm going to watch that and learn All The News.

So, yes. Anyway. I have an interview. We're in a slight panic about what I'm going to wear, since my interview suit is actually a bit baggy on second glance, and it's a little bit heavy for the warm weather, but I've got a dress that'll work too. As long as they don't take offence to the fact I don't shave my underarms. But it's nice to have the opportunity, and the fact they got back to me immediately and the woman on the phone sounded really surprised I wouldn't have a problem working till 7pm suggests to me there might not be a lot of competition for it, which would be nice. I also applied for a receptionist job with our local NHS, which would sort of mean being sent to 3 different hospitals in the area, but still. I'd forgotten that writing application forms basically meant making yourself sound like the most amazing, capable person in the world. So I mostly did that. It helps to actually have the experience they're asking for, as well, which I do (aside from the RSA qualification - but I've explained I'm super even without that). I do actually think I'd really suit the job, and the receptionist at my mum's hospital seems to think I'll get an interview at least. Applications aren't closing until 7th September though - after my interview with the other company. But still. It's nice to feel like I might have options. Especially given how few job vacancies there really are once you narrow down a field, say you want part-time work, and ignore all the jobs the website sends you that are in Sheffield or Manchester. Not sure how I'm going to fill five hours a day if I have to keep doing that.

But anyway. I have the weekend free now, and I have finished Trails of Cold Steel. There are no Machias/Jusis fics, bizarrely. There are actually more Jusis/Rean fics. Rean isn't so bad, he's just dull. And I think I accidentally got the Machias/Rean ending, because I developed a 'strong bond' with him, spent time with him at the school festival dance, and then at the end he gave Rean a speech about how he was great and they were going to build a country which was great for everyone, together. Whoops. I did really enjoy it though.

But the game is finished. So what am I going to do now? I'm going to Nuka-World!

I am now onto applying for a job on the NHS website. It has all these weird pages where you just basically insert new entries for every qualification you have or job you have had. It told me to only put the relevant qualifications down, but didn't say which ones were relevant, and now it's asking about my most recent job and I don't know if volunteering counts. I'm going to assume it does.

I have decided to livepost my first day of job-hunting, out of misery.

First up: referring myself to Rightsteps again, as my job advisor suggested. I looked up their phone number at about 11 o'clock. It turns out you can't really apply over the phone anymore, you have to fill in an online form. The thing I love to do. I called them anyway, but by the 5th 'would you like to stay on hold?' message I decided to give up. So I am currently doing a virus scan on my computer, because I freak out about filling in personal information otherwise, in order to do that. I was going to have to do that anyway, for job applications. In the meantime, I am reading the work diary my advisor gave me, which is mostly about all the sanctions they can and will apply to you. The minimum is 4 weeks, rather than the 1 week it was last time I was on Jobseeker's. The maximum is 156 weeks. Three years.

Also they have removed the part about how you can't apply for JSA if you've received an ESA payment within the last calendar month from the 'are you eligible?' page. Which is odd. I'm definitely sure I saw it. That might hurt my claim to have my JSA backdated a little bit, although that probably wouldn't have gone through anyway, I was not 'actively seeking work'.