Two WP Visits - Double The Pain

UPDATE: Hey post number 250 wowzers

2 WP Visits, Twice the Pain

So welcome back to Shaftsword VS SEETEC or my ongoing dealings with all aspects of the Work Programme. This post will cover my fifth and sixth visits mainly because the fourth was quite quick and not worth a whole post. So let us get to it.

The fourth visit was an early morning visit to a BDC advisor, which I had no clue about as it wasn’t explained. Basically the BDC advisor is in charge of looking out for jobs for me, jobs not placements as I checked that at the time to make sure. Anyway we had a talk about the kinds of jobs I was interested in and any restrictions to that work, commuting distance that sort of thing.

Overall it was a very pleasant experience, the only glitch was in the discussion of my CV once again we fell into the WP Waltz (I’m working on a snappy title) where he talked about sending out my CV to jobs. I then informed him that he could not send my CV out for jobs, he was like “But you signed the waiver” to which I responded no I didn’t, that caught him out a bit and he asked why yadda yadda yadda. They always use the what if a job appears and you are not at home when we e-mail.

I really have no idea where all these strange advertised-for-24-hour vacancies come from but apparently SEETEC has some sort of deal with them. I once again told them I was more than capable of applying for any jobs that came up, plus I got the advisor to e-mail me a job he wanted to send my details to.  I applied for it when I got home well before the deadline which was the day after.

MY REVIEW – DUN DUN DUN!

When I went to my first proper SEETEC meeting I was given a list of tasks to go through including things like, sending them my CV (which I did after some changes), listing companies I wanted to work for and a few other things. When I came in for my fortnightly review I was informed that I would be changing advisors to a new person.

ONCE AGAIN there was discussion about using their e-mail address, I refused arguing that I have an e-mail address and I am not happy to share that information with the WP provider. They were very insistent about it to the point of becoming rather aggressive about it. I was in the unfortunate position of being seated with my current advisor right next to the new advisor who felt the need to butt into our conversation and make snarky remarks when I talked about not wanting to use their e-mail, pretty much saying that as I am on the WP now I have to do EVERYTHING they say “You’re on the Work Programme now”. Rude is understating how she was with me, way to start off the relationship in the right manner.

Basically I am going to have to go into the next meeting on Wednesday on my toes and ready to wholeheartedly defend my reasoning for not signing the data waiver and wanting nothing to do with their e-mail address system. Wish me luck.

One other thing I thought I would mention was signing on the register of the WP, something we are asked to do as soon as we step through the door. I had just been initialling my name without putting in a signature and the manager at the WP confronted me over it. She said that if I didn't use my correct signature then I was not attending. She also stated that they send their attendance registers to the DWP every week which sounded very unlikely to my ears but I am just tell you what they told me. So not wanting to get into a lengthy sanction battle over not appearing I put in my signature. A loss for me then on that score.

Stay tuned for the results of my first meeting with this new advisor it is going to be a slobberknocker.