Where am I ???

..An update. My original intention had been to have a separate page on my blog on which I would post regular news letter style updates, especially when I went to the Job centre. A newsletter is highly recommend for blogs so I gather. However, although I certainly didn't want to give up on my blog, the reluctance of the Job centre staff to help me to become self employed, and my need to claim Job seekers allowance while I was looking for work meant that I did indeed, have to do as the Job centre said ' You are on Job seekers allowance and you have to do as you are told.' as an adviser told me when I was trying to discuss self employment, I.e. meet the legal requirement of job seekers allowance and look for a job. It got worse when recently I was placed on the Work programme, since you are in effect being policed twice. If you fail to comply with the work Programmes demands, they inform the Department of Work and Pensions , who sanction your benefits

I was also reluctant to do a newsletter, even if time had permitted, since it would, indeed could only have been a rehash of the dire, grim circumstances described regularly in general posts on the site. How a 52, then 53 year old woman with partial sight, a heart condition, high blood pressure, and bone and joint problems, was in the position she was. So the blog did not post newsletters, and indeed did not take off to the standard I knew it was capable of. I was too busy trying to look for a job that physically I might have felt able to handle, even though in this weather, I don't go out of the house, since I live alone with the legacy of a tumble down my stairs... six metal pins and a plate in my ankle. It is a little difficult to imagine saying to an employer 'Oh by the way, if it snows I don't come to work. In the 80's and 90's I recall walking to church on Christmas day, taking my coat off, these days I am very sceptical about global warming and have a strong suspicion it was designed by the energy companies to get more of my pittance in benefits into the pre pay meters they forced me to have, even knowing I was not in good health and lived alone. I say I don't go out in the sort of weather through which I sit writing this post Actually I stand corrected..I have no choice but to go out in all weathers if I cannot avoid the need for it by topping up the meters before the snow and ice, because I am waiting for my benefits to be paid. The fear does my blood pressure and heart problems no good at all....This is the third winter in succession of such weather, and I have no belief in global warming .

I have spent much of today wondering how many claimants of Job seekers allowance will die as a result of this weather. ..at least it will help the unemployment figures and the coalition will claim a feather in their caps. There will be many Job seekers allowance claimants who die because the figures and logic show this is bound to be the case. Many previous claimants of sickness benefit have had their benefits taken away by the government and forced on to Job Seekers Allowance, paid at a much lower rate than their sickness benefit had been paid at.. Claimants of Incapacity benefit or its successor Employment and Support Allowance, receive a cold weather payment if the temperature in their area drops below freezing for seven days ..this is not paid to claimants of Job seekers allowance. I know it is a very emotive subject, but I confess to being in favour of means testing the winter fuel benefits paid automatically to all pensioners whether or not they financially  need it. ….e.g. The prime ministers mother is entitled to it !!! Mind you, I do believe that morals regarding such payments might change if our circumstances change, I remember a time when I would never have supported means testing for pensioners benefits when they had worked all their lives. Maybe a comment like that said in front of a member of the coalition would lead to giving them the idea to take it away from pensioners who had been claiming benefits at the time of retirement, since they clearly have a political agenda to punish all benefit claimants as deliberate scroungers.

Ideally, I was looking for work I could do from home, and to develop the blog to the point of self employment seemed the perfect solution. Not to the Job centre though, who at .each of my fortnightly visits promised me an appointment with an enterprise adviser, and then would cancel it and pass me to another Job centre adviser who would know nothing about it and force my attention back to job adverts. It then came out that the money set aside for new enterprise is actually in the ownership not of the government but private providers, who don't want to part with it, and the Job centre advisers are trained to deter hopeful applicants, who have no choice but to indeed do as they are told if the only income they have is Job seekers allowance. In the meantime you dread snow and ice because if you can't get to sign on....you get no money.

Looking for self employment is not so unlike looking for a job, some opportunities are good, and others not. Many openings that at one time would have been jobs, are now freelance opportunities dressed up as jobs so that the person who wants the work can advertise at the Job centre. i.e., there is no actual wage, the vacancy is commission only with no contract. Such employers in the current economic situation can hardly be blamed. By only using staff on a self employed basis, they avoid office costs, and the costs they are now forced by law to cover such as pensions. Such jobs are frequently advertised as suggesting that the minimum wage can be reached, e.g. telephone calling from home, known as telemarketing and other similar terms. I tried this, and after accepting that I would make 45 calls and nobody would want what I was selling, in this case wills, not that I mean to attack the will writing industry generally , it was obviously not going to be a going concern...I made the sum of £0.00 ...hardly making a living...to slip in a little touch of a pun.

Of course, if you have a blog, you need to write content for it. I do occasionally post material from other sources, it’s something different and breaks up entries written by myself, and of course it can be a great time saver, but generally my readers like to hear from me, these I notice in my stats are the posts with the highest readership. There are loads of websites that suggest you can make an income from writing and blogging, and just as many job boards offering this type of work. However, like any job, you need experience and evidence that you can do it...it is after all a job. I made the initial mistake of applying for writing jobs, no doubt influenced by financial desperation , the mortgage having gone up recently but not job seekers allowance to help to cover it. Yes, I have a blog, but writing as a job is a different matter. Rather like going to church doesn't make you a vicar, a bit of knowledge from the Internet does not make you a doctor, and paying your party membership does not make you an MP. I was devastated when I didn't get a writing job for which I knew I had done an excellent test piece, and followed the referencing etc. rules to the letter. However, in effect it was an interview, and I didn't get the job. However, I then remembered a comment I had picked up on in my desperate search for work, but not yet got round to acting on, and this was to join bidding sites, where you have to bid for jobs, and see if your bid will be the one accepted. If you do get bids accepted, and then gain a reputation for good work, done on time at a good price, it has the same effect as references.....I joined, my first of such sites, set a realistic price as I am an unknown entity and won my first ever bid at the first attempt....Where am I ???...I'm on my way !!!!