Billy Young's Blog - Posts Tagged "unemployment"

Phoned the Jobcentre today to get signing back on. Like most of us it’s not something I like doing though there is little option. As I said last week, my job came to an end on Wednesday. Now I start looking for more work or win the lotto, which is not likely. Anyways in the mean time I can get on with my writing though I didn’t do any yesterday as I was working on my garden. Finishing of the fence I was putting up. I’ve still got to put a gate on it but I don’t have the materials to do that or the money to get them, so it will wait till I can. My daughter volunteered to paint the fence as well as the hut which I got up at the weekend as hoped. She did a great job; my son helped at first but couldn’t put up with me telling him how to do it. I gave them both a fiver for the effort though my daughter did wonder why I gave her brother the same as she got. That was until I pointed out the fact that he had helped with the fence, mind if it hadn’t been for my mate Mickey I doubt if I would have got it up at all.
This weekend I’ll need to see if I can check on all the links from this site. I believe some have moved or become dead, so I need to check them all again and get them sorted. I also need to add some that I have been planning to add for a while though not found the time to get the work done. So a lot of fun as you can imagine messing about trying to avoid the frustration such things cause.

Friday the 13th and my internet went on the blink, don’t you just hate that? I do. In the end I had to delete my software before reinstalling. It didn’t go smoothly though. After searching for the disk I had to download it with another computer but it wouldn’t install. Each time I tried it would just hang there doing nothing. In the end, after another more fruitful search, I got it back up. What caused the problem in the first place I will never know but reinstalling seems to have fixed it for now.
It’s been a wasted week as I have done nothing more than read a book, which I still have to write a review for. Scarecrow by Darren G. Burton kept me glue for several days. I also went to the interview at the jobcentre, I don’t sing on for over a week. I got the letter today telling me how much I’m entitled to; of course they are taking money off till December because of Tax Credit rollover. Though the rollover is good, it comes in a lump sum and never seems to go far enough. This leaves a few very tight weeks ahead but as always we’ll get through it. As usual the government gives and then it finds a way to take it back, at least from those that need it the most. Or am I being unfair?

You may have noticed that last week I put the wrong date for the title. Why? Well I don’t have a reason, just somewhere in the week I must have lost a couple of days. How did I not change it? Simply because I believe if you make a mistake you have to live with it. It isn’t like it’s a real big issue that would bring the world down. It does show one of the consequences of unemployment, losing track of time. Another thing which is strange is that you feel tired even though you struggle to find things to do.
When I was younger I was jobless for many years. The longer I remained out of the job market the harder it seemed to be to find the motivation to get out of bed. Really you would have put me down as a lazy good for nothing. In some ways I am but when I do work I put a lot of energy into the job. Yet when I’m back in the list of jobless I do find it hard to drive myself. There is one thing that doesn’t suffer though and that is writing, where when I work there is less time so less gets done. Of course that is too be expected after all.
We all dream of what we would do if we could give up work because of winning the lottery or something. I suspect that most of us would soon become very bored with little to do. Of course with that kind of money we would soon find some way to fill our days, all you need if the incentive. The opposite is the case for the rest of us I suspect. We may have the incentive but the funds are lacking in many cases.
So what do you do? You pull up your socks and do the best you can with what you have. Or if you seem to lack the motivation then when you realise that you’re wallowing, give yourself a good kick up the rear. If you don’t then get a friend to, though that may prove more painful because they may actually kick you behind.

It has been a really nice week. The sun has been shining and I finished the first draft of my next book. Well it will be if I can get the money to publish it but before that I have a lot of editing, proof reading and all the usual to get through. Mind there is no rush as it will be some time before I can go forward with publishing. That’s all down to have no job for so long. The big cloud in an otherwise good time. Adding to it all is the jobcentre because I have been unemployed for six months now. As if I didn’t know but where are the jobs, they can’t tell me. It’s not really their fault, yet you do get the sense that some of them actually blame you for not having a job. I saw this all back in the eighties as well but there wasn’t much they could do. Now they seem to have power of life or death, well money or empty pockets, same thing really.
It’s alright for them though, on £35000 a year, job secure and union watching their backs. And there is the rest of us on less than £5000 a year benefits for me and the wife. What can we do though but struggle on and hope that I get a job soon. That my former employer needs workers soon.
I’m best not thinking about it, think of the good week I had cutting the grass and hedges. Watching my veg growing slowly and learning for next year how best to get them started. That I finally got Banshee 2 complete or at least down on a memory card. No good thinking on things that aren’t in your power to change. :~)

I have had a summer cold this week sapping my energy. Nothing worse. It hasn’t stopped me from the daily job hunt with little in the way of success. I expect that when I head to the jobcentre on Monday to get more than the normal hassle after handing in my complaint, not much I can do though. And things look like they are going to get even tougher for those of us struggling to find work with the government announcing more measures to punish those who are deemed not to be doing enough to look for work. They said that people could face up to three years ban from receiving unemployment benefits. Who makes the decision on who is not trying hard enough? A jury? No. A judge even? No. An advisor that is supposed to help the unemployed, that is who. At the same time they will now be able to force you onto training courses with the threat that you will get sanctioned if you don’t take the course. Now if you have never been on a government training scheme then you wouldn’t know how bad most of them are. They are only training in name and then where are all the schemes going to come from? With the expected rise in unemployment and government cuts, they must be dreaming that they will hide the figures as they did in Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister. It reminds me of the Disney song, “The Circle Of Life,” hehehe.
Looking on more enjoyable things I have managed to get on with editing some more of my new story Banshee 2. I have also added some more to it. It seemed to me to be missing Susie McLean in the early part of the story. She is a reporter for the Standard in my tale and plays more of a role later in the story but was needing more of a presence earlier, which I have now done. Though I will need to build on what I have this weekend. I have plenty of time to edit and improve on the story with no job to fund publishing it. Let’s hope that changes soon.

I thought my job had come to an end yesterday after finishing the last order. Last night though while playing Civ 4 I got a phone call to tell me I was needed next week after all, which is great news. I was so dreading having to back on unemployment benefit. What makes it worse is that the staff, who is supposed to be there to help, make you feel as if you are something they have stepped in. I know that is unfair as some are helpful but just too often I have had to deal with those that treat the client badly. Well I don’t have to worry about that for at least another week and I have a long weekend to add to the good day it has been.
I still have a touch of the cold I had last week. It seems to just want to hang in the background, but I seem to be over the worst of it now. It really ruined my weekend last week though it had shifted mostly by the start of the new week, that is something to be grateful for. Nothing worse than working when you have a cold weighing you down.
I ordered a new graphics tablet as since my computer upgrade last year my old one doesn’t work with my new system, no serial port. Anyways I have a new one on the way, and I am looking forwards to using it to create the cover for Banshee 2. Talking of which my wife is still reading through it but there will be some editing to some areas near the start before passing it onto my son to read. In the mean time I will soon be able to work on the front cover though I haven’t worked out what I will do for it. Still that is part of the joy of self publishing, isn’t it?

Got my SIA badge Thursday. I had checked on the SIA website earlier in the week and was happy when I saw that they had finally cleared me for it. Since I got it I have updated my CV. I've also started sending out the newest version of this to employers via email. Hopefully now I have the card it will lead to me earning a living again. Unemployment is driving me mad. I mean days merge into one. My energy levels seem to be dwindling. It takes more effort just to do anything. Take this week, I had the chains I'm doing for Calum. All that has to be done as I said last week is the catches. Somehow the week has past me by and I still haven't even started those catches. How long would it take me? Maybe a couple of hours a day for possibly three days at most. That would be me taking it easy. So not much time yet I have done nothing on the chains. Not even looked at them. I have continued the important part of looking for work. Though that has been me forcing myself to keep up on that. I did manage to do the garden this week which is a something. Yeah keeping your spirits up after months of joblessness is not a simple thing. I really will need to push myself now.