What I've Been Up To + This Week

So what have I been up to. If you were around last week you will have heard the latest from Seetec that because I have failed to get a job from my previous interviews they will no longer pay for any travel expenses that I accrue. Not that they have paid for all that many of them in the past but that is yet another story. So we left things with the Seetec Manager telling me that if I disagreed with that decision then I should write a letter to her.

That letter went to Seetec the next day and I hand delivered it as last time I made a complaint about them they managed to lose the first one I sent. In the letter I specified a written response within 14 days of the letter if it doesn’t come within that time or they fob me off with just an oral response then I’m going to escalate things and send an actual complaint letter to their head office and maybe copy if to DWP.

I do have some good news well at least partly good in my view. After about 5 months of back and forth I finally had my unfair sanction over ruled or at least the money from the sanction given over with a letter following up in a few days saying that “the doubt no longer applies”.

Really after an appeal, a letter to my MP, a reconsideration, formal procedure appeal and another letter to my MP to get them to admit the obvious that Seetec were disregarding the rules and regulations they signed up to and that DWP were doing nothing to keep them in line shame it took them nearly half a year and cost me a lot of money in fines and missed bills.

I will be filing a complaint about that too but I don’t hold a lot of hope out for it, I probably wouldn’t have bothered if they had actually written a proper letter to me with an explanation or you know an apology but they this is the government we are talking about and as an unemployed person they barely register me as human.

The plan for this week is signing on Monday, job search on Tuesday but other than that there is not a lot going on but at the end of this week there should be some job deadlines coming up so hopefully something develops from that.

If I get a response from Seetec I might transcribe it for you guys minus personal details of course just sharing evidence like others have with me. We are all in this together after all. That is all I can think of to share for now so I will leave it there and hope your Holiday season is going a bit more smoothly than mine.

Cleaning Things Up

So hmm maybe last month I had an inspection of my rented accommodation which means beforehand I had to do a clean and a clear up of the flat which generally looks like a bomb site otherwise. The main problem is space and a distinct lack storage options, I think this place needs to be IKEA’d but anyway it can be cleaned up but not in anyway that supports someone living.

Cleaning up my flat got me thinking about trying to clean things up personally trying to get my life in order as much as something like that is possible without a job. Anyway I think the first step is to get more organised in terms of upcoming events, interviews and the like. Too often I have nearly forgotten about important appointments because I didn’t centralise all the dates I had to follow.

I'm not sure if I should use my phone to do it or try a diary. I have thought about e-mail or maybe Google Calendar or whatever it is called. I will have to see though after I do something about the seemingly endless paperwork I have stocked up over the last few years. Nothing is more worrying to me than tearing up some seemingly useless paperwork that I’ll need to prove I paid something.

Maybe I’m just one of those Hoarder cases waiting to happen.

Interviews and Feedback

Feedback the bane of my existence it seems as so many places that you would think of as respectable established businesses fail to provide on requests. As far as I’m concerned if you have an actual HR department then there is no excuse for not providing useful feedback on an interview short of said interview consisting of me walking into the interview of delivering 3 stone cold stunners to the panel (I rarely do this).

If the interviewee (is that a word) turns up makes an effort and justifies your shortlisting of him or her then the other side of that bargain is you taking the time to note down why they lost out to the person you picked for the job. We study up on your business we write a decent application and we turn up bright eyed and bushy tailed surely that is enough for earn feedback.

Enough with the negative stuff.

STEAM

STEAM SALE. ZOMG. First time that I have had either the money or the hardware for the Steam Sale to matter me. I decided to make my first purchase (hopefully only) in the form of Defiance after all I’m a big fan of the show and I think I am more likely to try that game with its mixed content then a straight up FPS.