Stupid questions from work roach...

I could make a huge list but this is the one question I always face at every appointment:
"How's your job search going?"

Sometimes I reply with: "the usual rubbish" which gets a raised eyebrow, other times I've said "If it was going great I wouldn't be here". I mean, what kind of answer are they expecting?

So, anybody else have to suffer this inane query every time, or do you have any other gems to share?

The most inane question I was ever asked by my wc, "There's a job for a work coach coming up at this Jobcentre soon. Are you going to apply?"

After struggling to stop laughing, it was either that or cry, I said, "You have to be kidding? I wouldn't work here if I was penniless, starving and about to kick the bucket...I have too much self respect. And you can go ahead and raise a doubt for me not applying if you want to."

Nothing more was ever mentioned about it.

These people really do live in some parallel fantasy-world of their own.

But actually, the truly sad thing is that I reckon I'd make a pretty decent work coach, as long as I didn't have to sanction anyone.

If you keep ahead of the game, life should be a breeze at the JC!

All the offerings from JCP are at the lowest level.

However, most of the free opportunities are at a higher level and take very little effort!

Tarquin Flotsam wrote:I could make a huge list but this is the one question I always face at every appointment:
"How's your job search going?"

Sometimes I reply with: "the usual rubbish" which gets a raised eyebrow, other times I've said "If it was going great I wouldn't be here". I mean, what kind of answer are they expecting?

So, anybody else have to suffer this inane query every time, or do you have any other gems to share?

I usually just reply 'great thanks'.

A most stupid question I get asked (often), usually by a new WC, after they ask what work I am looking for, they usually follow that up with 'are you qualified for that?'. I think one of these times, I am sure to say 'oh, did not realise I needed to be'.

Caker wrote:I usually just reply 'great thanks'.

Yeah I've done that reply too, sometimes adding "though job search on UJM is an utter waste of time" if one particular roach is annoying me.

Another question I'm frequently asked is "Have you had any interviews recently?" Well, apart from my jobcentre interviews, nope!

with the interview question, I always say 'yes, lots'. They can see, from this, that my applications are successful even if I am not chosen.

They then usually say 'so why did you not get the job then?' My response 'there were other equally qualified candidates, some of whom are on the re-deployment list and get priority'.


You have to big yourself up. You are not a loser just because they treat you like one.

you may see alot of there questions as dumb and pointless and your right they are but what you have to remeber is tha your work roach has to be seen to be doing there job at least so they dont get in shit i get asked the exact same question by my work roach every week "Hows your job search been going" to witch i reply its been going ok and i will list off some of the jobs i have applied for over the last 2 weeks and tell him of any reply's usualy i just say not had any replys and thats prety much all i have to go through on most of my signing apointments
i dont give my work roach static and he leaves me alone he knows fine well im not trying to find a job seriously and that i will reject most of the so called help on offer less im forced to do it so he dosent offer
ocasionaly he will make some silly sugestions like signing up for email alerts from this site ect witch i usualy say ill look in to and never speak of it again
i guess what im trying to say is not all work roaches are out to get you but they still have a job to do and alot of these questions they ask are just for the sake of apearing to do there job
so for the most part its best not to take offence at there questions and just try play along and not make waves
Sometimes i wonder why some of you guys have such bad relations with your roaches and i often wonder if its coz you fight them on everything and even they cant help but see you as some sort of advesery and take some perverse pleasure in seeing what they can do to piss you off each week.
or mebey im wrong and you just drew the short straw and got A-hole roaches

@TheFinnster
it is great that you have a good roach who takes you at your word and  leaves you to get on with things. Good for you.

What you must bear in mind is that most claimants are probably like you, we don't go to the JC looking for trouble; we want to be in and out. However, not all roaches are easy going and / or fair minded, as you correctly identify.

TheFinnster wrote:Sometimes i wonder why some of you guys have such bad relations with your roaches and i often wonder if its coz you fight them on everything and even they cant help but see you as some sort of advesery and take some perverse pleasure in seeing what they can do to piss you off each week.
or mebey im wrong and you just drew the short straw and got A-hole roaches

If a roach speaks to me like a human being, not like something you'd scrape off your shoe, then I'm usually quite affable. If they're condescending lying little toerags then my hackles rise. I wouldn't mind if I saw the same work roach every appointment but usually the one I'm assigned to I see rarely. As Mary can verify, the majority of the roaches I came across at my previous jobcentre were so full of crap I did well to keep my cool with the barrage of utter shite they kept spouting to me. If they try to put me on some meaningless course, then yes I will fight them. These courses are for their benefit, not ours. I don't want to spend several hours a day for 2 (maybe more) weeks being told stuff I already know. Some work roaches can see this, and know these courses won't help me in any way, and won't keep continually trying to refer me to them. But that's a very small minority.

@TF

I think that a lot of people have had experiences similar to yours. I have certainly had my fair share. I certainly go prepared to any DWP interaction. I am willing to be polite but also assertive and ready to challenge their falsehood.

Every fortnight my roach asks me if my osteoarthritis is better. I've had an op and cortisone injections and my condition has not been cured. Only another (major) op might help and even then it's not 100% certain and involves a lot of pain and immobility.

Finnster wrote:you may see alot of there questions as dumb and pointless and your right they are but what you have to remeber is tha your work roach has to be seen to be doing there job

I'm curious to know what part of her "job" my roach is doing when it comes to harassing me about a condition I can't do anything about?  

I am equally curious about what part of the job my roach is doing when s/he:

1) deliberately misinterprets guidance.
2) tells lies.
3) raises a false ASE doubt.
4) pretends that there is a security issue in order to alert security under false pretences.
5) raises a false UCB report.

I am always happy to be enlightened

Absolute my work roach ocasionaly asks me about my health conditions  like for example atm i am haveing some problems with angina and am waiting to see a heart specialist witch i told him about sevral months ago when it started to worsen and i was considering takeing advantage of the 13 week extended period of sickness beause i felt like it would certainly afect my ability to work and that they should be informed about it
anyway i decided not to use the 13 week sickness period and now every so often my roach will ask me about my health and how i am doing i dont realy see this as harasment in any way i just see it as him just doing his job as we are supposed to keep them informed on chages to our health condition i dont in any way feel like hes asking me this in order to asses me and press me in to work
i cant speak for your situation absolute as i dont know the context of  your discussions or the dynamic you have with your roach

the point i was trying to make is that for some of you it is posible that you may have goten off on the wrong foot with your roaches by fighting them on stuff speaking from experiance with my last roach i used to fight her on everything (and lose) my atitude to her was surly for the most part at best and same with her we both disliked each she acted professional but made my life on JSA as dificult as posible in that beauracratic way by doing her job to the letter and refering me to every pointless course under the sun.
She used to pull the sotra crap your talking about caker misinterpreting guidance lieing ect there was not a week i did not go down there and she didnt issue me some sort of orders under a vauge threat of sanction if i didnt go along its no wonder i ended up haveing a meltdown

a large part of the reason why things are so diferant with my new roach i put down to both the help i got from marry on UM at the time and the way i chose to speak to my new roach on my initial interview with him where i had a very open and honest conversation with him about my health conditions ect and the ways they afect my ablity to work.
Allso i went in to great detail to explain to him how my relationship with my previouse roach had prety much lead me to a full on mental break down and how i was eager to make sure i didnt go down the same route with him.
I was honest about my opinions regaurding all the courses i had been sent on previously by my old roach and how pointless they where and how i did not want to be sent on any more and threatend with sanctions every week if i dont go along and told him how the job center for me had become a place that caused me a great deal of anxiety and how i felt like it was a realy big factor in my mental health condition
when all things where said he was kinda shocked at the brutal honesty  I had just laid on him but in a nice way he was realy understanding and told me he would do his best to put me at ease and make signing on less of an ordeal for me and he promised me he was not out to set me up for a sanction and that he would not send me on any more courses as he said even he couldent disagree that i had done enough of these couses in the past and in his words there was little to not point on sending me on anymore
he did warn me that there may come a time when he recives orders from higher up to send claimants on courses and if that happend  he wouldent have a choice
allso another thing that i felt realy helped was that for roughly the first 6-8 months of my claim all my signing apointments where done in a private interview room with just me and him witch aforded me alot of opertunity to be more open and honest with him and even have some friendly banter now and again.

I realise that for most of you this is imposible to do at this stage and everyones situation is diferant but my storys worth considering if you ever find yourselff in a position of makeing a new claim and have the opertunity for a fresh start with them and the kind of dynamic you want to have with them ive said it before but if we ever wana make change happen in the welfare state we need to get job center staff on our side and that will never happen if we are all fighting them and subscribe to the us vs them scenario we need to be able to talk openly and honestly with them about the way dwp policys are messing with our lives without fear of sanction.

Anyway sry for waffleing on this post got a bit long and sry for my poor grammer i realy need to install a spellchecker again.

TheFinnster wrote:he did warn me that there may come a time when he recives orders from higher up to send claimants on courses and if that happend  he wouldent have a choice

I believe this has happened with my assigned work roach.

My very first appointment with her we discussed various things, and the talk of courses came up. I explained to her my situation regarding certain courses I'd been referred/directed to and why I didn't attend them, and how doubts were put in my claim which were eventually overturned by the decision maker. She agreed that these courses would not be beneficial to me in any way, but of course for some claimants they could come in handy. She must have seen the notes made about me from previous work roaches so probably why she didn't pursue the matter. I walked out of that first appointment feeling somewhat relieved that finally I'd been assigned an advisor who wasn't a fecking robot. I've had the odd meeting with her since, being on weekly appointments she often can't see me every time so I've had to suffer other roaches but they leave any decisions to my assigned coach regarding steps to be taken, and they were all quite brief and very amicable.

But.... that all changed with my last meeting with her. I was aware that all staff in this jobcentre had been to some meeting the previous week and it appeared she'd had a total personality transplant. She seemed much more stressed out, plus they'd moved her to a different floor, before she was on the ground floor with about 4 other roaches and probably not under as much scrutiny as it was quite a closed off area to the rest of that floor. Anyway, at this meeting she started going on about courses I could attend, even though I'd mentioned every previous meeting I was already doing an online course which is funded if you're on benefits and she remarked that it was good I'd decided to do this off my own initiative. She seemed to completely forget all our previous conversations (maybe because she was feeling so stressed out?) and proceeded to refer me to a course until I reminded her of the one I'm currently on. So, I probably need to be a bit more wary now if all staff have been given a new directive from up above...

i often imagine these meetings tarquin where they most likely direct staff to promote this course this week ect and its down to each staff memeber to make up those "expected figures" and for a moment shes forgoten your previouse conversations and was just following this weeks script
but on the pluss side you at least seem to have managed to initialy engage her and to get her to understand your situation and theres some hope for you yet if you can get things back on track
a good way to remind her of your individuality and who you are and force her to engage you one one without the scrutiny may be to request the private interview room for all your interventions
for me i managed this by requesting it in writeing and again it was one of the things i brought up in my initial interview was to produce the same letter sent to them and remind him that i wanted all my signing apointments to be in a private interview room witch he was more than happy to acomadate me with.
he told me he would try deal with me in a private interview room as long as one was available and each week only ever had 2 ocasions where all the rooms where in use and he asked me if i wana wait or if i was willing to just sign on at his desk
eventualy i did tell him i felt comfortable enough signing on at his desk for most general apointments but i told him if he ever wanted to discuss anything about my health conditions in detail or if he was planing on isueing some mandate for something i want the private interview room

ive had all the questions on what jobs i have been looking for other the years some was ok others was not

on the last escapade with them



another time it was ackward



the next visit guess what i got the git and he decided to play hard ball the interesting part



so in end some great fun lol

also posted to see if any of you guys can see my hidden posts as well

TheFinnster wrote:now every so often my roach will ask me about my health and how i am doing i dont realy see this as harasment in any way i just see it as him just doing his job as we are supposed to keep them informed on chages to our health condition

My roach does not ask me about my health, she demands to know. Since last August I have told her repeatedly that osteoarthritis is an incurable condition. Yes, it can be managed, but I have a permanent disability and asking me every fortnight if that permanent disability has changed is simply barking mad. This thread is about what is the most stupid question we've been asked and I think a roach asking a permanently disabled person if their permanent disablity has changed takes the prize  

TheFinnster wrote:the point i was trying to make is that for some of you it is posible that you may have goten off on the wrong foot with your roaches

It's the other way around.  

but if we ever wana make change happen in the welfare state we need to get job center staff on our side and that will never happen if we are all fighting them and subscribe to the us vs them scenario

The 'us versus them' scenario is coming from their side of the table.

I appreciate what people are saying here, about going to the JC with a reasonable attitude. I had a series of roaches who were all quite reasonable and I experienced no issues with them.

Hidden part:-

Another one to add is "Why haven't you managed to get a job yet?"

Absolut wrote:Another one to add is "Why haven't you managed to get a job yet?"

Oh yes, I have been asked that many times. I usually cite extrinsic reasons such as labour market conditions. If  I was being lazy, my reply would be 'you tell me'

Absolut wrote:Another one to add is "Why haven't you managed to get a job yet?"

they didnt like it when i said what jobs there all scrapped off other sites and only wanting you to sign up to there agency when theres no job in the first place

and not forgetting ujm is a load of crap anyway the old site was much better than this new one

http://www.adrr.com/aa/whymastervsd.html

For English, verbal violence isn't in the words: It's in the TUNES the words are set to.

Most verbal attackers are careful to choose words that will leave them able later to use this move: "But all I SAID was.....", followed by the same words spoken with a different melody.

It's the difference between asking "So, how's the job search going?" in a perfectly normal tone of voice versus demanding "So, how's the job search going?" in a sneering and an 'I don't believe anything you have to say' tone of voice. We've all heard it, we all know what it sounds like.

You are a native speaker of English; you know when you are under verbal attack because you feel it, in exactly the same way that you feel it when somebody hits you.