family stuff, hot wether, is leaving my job diary looking sparse

BillJones

Abbafan1972 wrote: »

Iwhy do they all assume you can drive?

They probably think that it's a fair bet that someone unemployed in Britain in 2014 is driven enough to find work that they'll have acquired some useful skills.

They have little idea how unmotivated or workshy some people are. If they spent some time on here they'd probably revise their expectations down a few notches.

Deep_In_Debt

Abbafan1972 wrote: »

What or who is umbridge?

Isn't that where The Archers are from?:o

iclayt

When I was signing on a few years ago all but £5 a week of my JSA went on driving lessons so I could eventually get a job I could drive to. Lived on meagre savings, goodwill of family, and beans on toast. Can be done.

Podge52

iclayt wrote: »

When I was signing on a few years ago all but £5 a week of my JSA went on driving lessons so I could eventually get a job I could drive to. Lived on meagre savings, goodwill of family, and beans on toast. Can be done.

Unless of course you had no family or savings.

iclayt

Podge52 wrote: »

Unless of course you had no family or savings.

In which case you start finding ways to get to jobs without a car. Some people actually do spend hours traveling to and from work every single day, it's called commuting. There's a finite number of jobs in a 10 minute perimeter from any given house, the OP should be making every effort to look a bit further afield and if that means 90 minutes on a bus twice a day, well, it brings in some money and provides a recent reference so they can start looking closer if they need to. Again, can be done.

Podge52

iclayt wrote: »

In which case you start finding ways to get to jobs without a car. Some people actually do spend hours traveling to and from work every single day, it's called commuting. There's a finite number of jobs in a 10 minute perimeter from any given house, the OP should be making every effort to look a bit further afield and if that means 90 minutes on a bus twice a day, well, it brings in some money and provides a recent reference so they can start looking closer if they need to. Again, can be done.

I don't disagree, I myself commute every day.

I was disagreeing with the point that because you were able to get help with learning to drive that everybody can, which is what your post intimated.

jobbingmusician

Abbafan1972 wrote: »

I have my Cv posted on Reed, Total Jobs, Indeed etc and it's annoying when random agencies call you about jobs. I got one yesterday and they wanted me to travel to Minworth, it's an out of the way industrial site and could possibly take 2 hours there and 2 hours back. Another one wanted me to travel to Dudley from Great Barr, her response was "yes but it's only a 20 minute drive", why do they all assume you can drive?

Google maps tells me this journey is 8 miles. I'd be thinking of cycling and saving up for a moped, if I didn't drive. Apologies if you have a medical condition such as epilepsy which would make this impossible. But I wasn't impressed by your suggestion that hot weather is hampering your job search - people with a job still have to go in to work in the hot weather.....

iclayt

When I say goodwill from family, I mean the occasional tenner to buy more beans. When I say savings I mean a few hundred quid which basically paid for some newer clothes etc when I got a new job. It was just an example of what can be done to solve a problem - and twice I have been told that it has looked good for me that rather than sit wondering how to get to jobs, I used the time 'off' to learn to drive.

My FiL worked as a JCP adviser until a few months ago and I've heard everything, every excuse people give, and public transport is way up there "It's too faaaaaaar ", and more often than not he spent the same amount of time actually driving to the office, well over an hour.

I'm not saying 'learn to drive!' is the solution to everything, I realise how it sounded. I'm just saying that if the OP keeps ruling out public transport etc it really limits job searching and really a few hours on the bus every day isn't the end of the world. I've done that too and got through a lot of good books!

BillJones

Podge52 wrote: »

Unless of course you had no family or savings.

These "but what about case X" interventions are just pointless. "But what if you've no legs?", "but what if you are blind?"

Yes, you can pick any bizarre set of circumstances to render any advice pointless, but so what? Why ask about the rare cases that probably don't apply to the OP, or to others in the conversation?

If you asked about a service, and I gave advice tailored to someone with a doctorate in particle physics, you'd think that that was pointless. Tailoring input here to some invented, theoretical worst-case person is equally pointless.

Podge52

BillJones wrote: »

These "but what about case X" interventions are just pointless. "But what if you've no legs?", "but what if you are blind?"

Yes, you can pick any bizarre set of circumstances to render any advice pointless, but so what? Why ask about the rare cases that probably don't apply to the OP, or to others in the conversation?

If you asked about a service, and I gave advice tailored to someone with a doctorate in particle physics, you'd think that that was pointless. Tailoring input here to some invented, theoretical worst-case person is equally pointless.

About as pointless as "if I can do it so can you".