WORK PROGRAMME - Thoughts

So there are a lot of misconceptions floating around about job seekers being work shy and living in luxury on the tax payers’ dime but have you ever thought about the so called solution to unemployment – the Work Programme and the WP providers?

I recently got referred to a Work Programme and I am going to share my experiences with you so you can get an idea of what happens.

First when you are referred to a Work Programme you are disavowed by the Job Centre meaning they will no longer help you with things like travel expenses and everything they do is now covered by the work Programme, unfortunately the Work Programme is a business not a government service.

One of the things people entering on the programme notice is the very stiff penalties for falling foul of the WP providers and the rather high rates of people then receiving those sanctions.

On my first appointment I was almost inundated with information and forms to fill in, fortunately I had done a lot of research before that interview mainly down to an earlier experience with the same WP provider when they did work on the New Deal, basically to cut a long story short they attempted to bully me as well as asking me to take steps that would have lessened my chances at getting a job also they failed to keep to their promises as laid down in the contract.

The important things that came out from my interview:

 Data protection waiver:
You are asked to sign a data consent form which if you did means that the provider can use your information as they see fit. The main way in which this works would mean that they can apply for jobs on your behalf without your consent or knowledge. They can also contact your employers after you find your job to ask about your performance and ultimately claim a bonus payment from the government because you found work.
 The WP provider took it upon themselves to create an e-mail address for me despite the fact that they already had mine on their record. Furthermore I was informed that they created this e-mail so that they can use it to inspect any job applications by logging into that e-mail address.

So I decided to withhold my consent in terms of the data waiver. I am concerned with losing control of my own data which I think is a reasonable response when dealing with a company that gets paid on the back of people finding jobs often with little help from them.

That is enough from me for now I have a further interview tomorrow so I will be sure to take lots of notes and to be prepared for the reaction to my non-signing of the data waiver.

So This is How Things Are Going

Personal Stuff

I'm on the Work Programme I thought I would share at least that much though I suppose depending on if SEETEC is as bad as it was last time then you may find me blogging about it nearly as much as a blog about TV which I think we all agree would be weird. Last time when it was the New Deal it was a very bad experience to say the least in fact I barely want to type about it suffice it to say they treated us like we were recently paroled convicts with brain damage who needed help on the job front, that or perhaps those kids in school who aren’t allowed in your normal classroom environment because they’d break shit up.

I’m published YA KNOW!!!

So yeah I got something published on Hypable.com again which was nice. I am not saying that makes me some amazing journalist as I think they will print anything regardless of content as long as you know it reads well and isn’t insulting or just a bunch of nonsense, what was good about getting the article out there is of course seeing some reaction to it. 4 comments since I last checked and I think likely it will stick around there but then 4 comments are most certainly better than none.

It is a review about Video Game High School from RocketJump.com

Read it here

Job Interview, Shmob Interview

Image provided by StockFreeImages

Yes it is that time again so even as I am writing this I am making notes on the questions I am likely to be asked at the interview. As far as I know this is just a straight interview as in one without an attached task which is pretty rare these days. I can’t be sure but there is no task mentioned in the invite and usually they are quite good about such things.

Wish me luck I’m bringing my A game as I really want to be through with this unemployment thing and get back to a job, something I can excel at.

A Weekly Roundup?

MISTS OF PANDARIA

I have a level 90 Death Knight and have been running around like a headless chicken ever since. The ‘WTF’ moment had to be when I got an achievement ding for doing 25 DAILIES in one day, ugh. I have decided to work on Golden Lotus, Order of the Serpent with a little Tillers rep thrown in. Slowly starting to level my 2nd character to 90 also gold making has been going surprisingly well even sold my first mount.

THE DEATH OF LEMON LUCOZADE

So I was just walking around doing some light shoppery when I noticed that Lucozade have added yet another new flavour replacing the most beloved of all flavours Lucozade Lemon. I find this interesting not least because I know of a certain low cost supermarket branch that had a suspiciously similarly flavoured drink which one day just disappeared only to replaced by a pathetic sugar free version. If you ask me there was just more sugar than someone somewhere high up wants in drinks. I however will very much miss it and the new replacement is pretty meh.

It is not just me the Internet is in an uproar

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1643694
http://www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=2&TopicID=280326&PagePosition=1

Undoubtedly by the time you read this there will be more uproar in fact things shall be quite loud all around.

MY OTHER BLOGS

So I thought I would just put in here that I have been doing my best to line up some interviews for my other blogs. You would not know it from look at the analytical on this my personal blog space but on the other blogs I run do have regular decent numbers for me with posts generating at least a couple hundred hits each and the site hits being well into the hundreds of thousands. So of course I want to take that success and go somewhere with it improve things for those people who come to my blog so hopefully they will tell others and so on. I have one interview sorted but the big name stars are far harder to get hold of which makes sense as I am just a guy and not someone writing for a popular celeb blog or a newspaper but we will keep on trying.

So that is all from me, questions? Hit the comment button and try to remember this isn't YouTube. Thank you kindly.

So I Got A New Computer

If you’ve been following my adventures you will know that my old gaming machine packed up a couple weeks ago. Well I got a new computer after a lot of head scratching and reading of reviews I came to a decision and got a HP Pavillion g6.

I was very worried after reading various graphics cards review sites that the G6 wouldn’t be able to play World of Warcraft at any reasonable frame rate however thankfully after a touch of insight I searched YouTube for examples of my preferred laptop and graphics cards running games that I was interested in. 

Thankfully I want to play World of Warcraft and not some lesser known game, after checking out YouTube I was convinced it was worth trying this laptop out.

THE SPECIFICATION

·         1.9 GHz dual core processor

·         Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium

·         15.6 inch Brightview HD LED display

·         500GB hard drive

·         6GB RAM

·         DVD drive (dual layer with re-writer)

·         Wi-Fi enabled

·         HDMI output

·         Warranty: 1 year

·         Webcam and digital microphone

·         Multi-card reader

As far as I’m concerned that is a nice set of stats as it allows me to do what I want as I have now seen after playing around with the computer for a little over a week.

GAMING

So far I have played World of Warcraft and Star Wars The Old Republic, I played WoW on some custom settings (who needs shadows?) and got very respectable results indeed I never felt I had any frame issues but to be perfectly honest I haven’t done many backgrounds to really test how it handles 20+ players onscreen spamming their buttons to death. The Old Republic runs well enough but it has very weird options in terms of graphic settings so I am loathe to mess with those but the game was very playable.

GENERAL

The laptop does everything else that I want it. That previous  statement also includes not running slower than molasses. I can run any videos I want and running multiple tabs or letting the virus and spyware scans run in the background no longer cause me to have to stop everything else.

There isn’t really a lot else to say though I will keep you guys informed on any issues arising from the laptop though it seems to be going well so far. So that is enough from me I hope that your computers are problem free.

FILM REVIEW: The Legend of Chun Li

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li Street Fighter The Legend of Chun Li is a 2009 action film based on the popular Street Fighter video game series by Capcom. It stars Kristin Kreuk as Chun Li and was released on February 2009.

PLOT 
While a teenager, Chun-Li witnesses the kidnapping of her father by wealthy crime lord M. Bison. When she grows up, she goes on a quest for vengeance and becomes the famous crime-fighter of the Street Fighter universe.

WHY DID I CHOOSE IT 
I was a pretty huge Street Fighter II fan as a kid, for me it was a great leveller when me a fat kid with asthma could own the older kids and that was when they had the game to practice on and I only came over every now and then to play it. I kept up through the various versions for awhile and I even watched the Street Fighter movie with JCVD (a crime against fandom) and the short lived animated series as well as the few anime movies.

WHAT I THOUGHT 
I only heard about this movie recently somehow I managed to miss the buzz of this film when it first came out especially in the light of knowing that I didn’t miss the film versions of King of Fighters and Tekken. Quick review on those KOF burned my eyes and made me bleed from my ears, Tekken was like a C movie with ok fight choreography.

The first thing I should probably talk about is the film compared and contrasted with the Street Fighter 2 mythos/canon. Overall it works fairly well while pertaining to the Chun Li stuff, it could have happened that way as we don’t get a lot of insight into what she was doing before the spiky wrist bands and the hair buns.

The plot is passable I would say in the top third of action films, as a person who reads a lot of books I never had a time when I shouted “What the hell are you doing?” at the screen which is something I often do in my head when reading certain books. The only question I have is the theme of the movie itself which just serves to say revenge is cool. Not a lot of films generally go that way and the ones that usually do tend to be in a foreign language.

The choreography and the fight scenes are pretty impressive, yes I’ve seen better but generally that comes with a lot of effect and special camera work, this stuff is fairly straightforward with some wire work which thankfully isn’t relied upon. Kristin Kreuk definitely impresses in this role I definitely wouldn’t wanted to be an overly aggressive paparazzo on one of her bad days.

Something you should be aware of is the level of blood and gore I watched the unrated version and if you get that one be prepared for at least some minor eww moments. So if you thought Mortal Kombat was a fine example of a video game to movie conversion then this movie is worth taking a look at.

Design Work

So apparently I am a man of many talents some of which include being able to kick your ass on the N64 wrestling games but also stretch into doing a little design work every now and then. So in actuality I probably do quite a bit of design work but as most of it would be directly for past jobs I don't have access to the files anymore so below I have a few examples of stuff I have created just for fun. The first two are connected to Edition the podcast about friendship and really require you to have listened to that show extensively to get the references the third one is for a cool blog that I do some work for. Hope your weekends are interesting.

Questions? Comments? Hit the relevant button and get typing you know you'll hear back from me.

The Week That Was

Things have been reasonably busy with 2 job interviews to prepare for and attend. As of writing this I have heard from the second of the two interviews attended and it was unsuccessful. Yeah it brings you down but there isn’t a lot more that can be done other than moving onto the next attempt.

TV News

So The L.A. Complex has 2 episodes each airing this week and the next to finish out the season. I checked out this week’s offering and was blown away by them. The thing about The L.A. Complex for those of you who know it is that it can be a little downbeat and even depressing a lot of the time, the first few episodes of the first season are good evidence of this. I really hope that there will be a further season especially with some gossip that Alicia (Chelan Simmons) might be back steaming up our screens.

I am definitely looking forward to next week’s final episodes.

Haven is BACK! The first episode was a bit below par if you ask me though especially as I remember its beginning, aka the end of the previous season’s finale being very different as in Wuornos fired a shot which got removed in this episode. Other than that the idea of aliens and the ultimate reason for their appearance seemed a little weak. The rest of season trailer at the end though showed that there was some serious plot development coming

That is all for now keeping it short as hopefully there should be some major news early next week. Also look forward to a post right after this one showing some of my attempts at poster design.