seetec community work programme

emilywalker

Was my first day today doing my placement in a charity shop, through seetec & I must say what a waste of time, you literally stand there and do nothing, it seemed like there was loads of us there all just standing around, on this seetec thing I'm very happy to work or do community work to gain experience, but when your doing nothing but standing there for 5 hours a day, my idea of a nightmare. What's others experience with seetec, if any?

tomtontom

Could you not have found something to do, be proactive?

emilywalker

was told cant find your own placements

missbiggles1

I think the suggestion was that you could be proactive in finding yourself something to do in your current placement.

Surely you could've asked if there were donations you could sort, ironing you could do, racks you could tidy?

Standing there doing nothing won't help you to get a good reference or increase your chances of finding employment afterwards.

asajj

First days at any work place can be usually disorganized. I work for a multinational and I spent my first week in the job by staring at my monitor as I didn't have anything to do.

Also don't expect to be given something to do - go and offer what you can do. You can even go and tidy clothes, put on hangers, books etc.

emilywalker

Yes indeed I was very proactive, I did tidy & sort out what I could, & offered to sort out clothes out the back, between 8 of us standing around in a shop, really they didn't seem to fused if you did anything or not, & that's what I mean they've put so many people into one shop your lucky if you've got a pile of scarfs to fold up.

red_devil

you shouldn't be on this look at boycottwelfare.org.

emilywalker

But if I didn't attend the placement / jobsearch / signing on, I wouldn't receive the payment. So just easier to do it, just think the whole way its done is rubbish, they send a load of people to one place, for 30 hours a week to mainly stand around, and that is after being proactive and dusting the entire shop.

Flyonthewall

So there's 8 people in the shop, I assume one person is always on the till (as the first rule should be to never leave it unattended)?

If 7 or 8 people are just standing around how is it you have nothing to do? Charity shops don't run themselves, there's always things to sort, items to price, clothes to steam, shelves to tidy. Instead of asking, why not just start doing them jobs rather than just joining in the others in standing around because the place doesn't seem fussed? Do it for yourself if nothing else.

Is there someone there overlooking things? A manager or assistant manager? It shouldn't just be volunteers from the WP. If so what do they do all day or are they standing around too?

missbiggles1

red_devil wrote: »

you shouldn't be on this look at boycottwelfare.org.

Has that attitude helped you find a job yet?

red_devil

emilywalker wrote: »

But if I didn't attend the placement / jobsearch / signing on, I wouldn't receive the payment. So just easier to do it, just think the whole way its done is rubbish, they send a load of people to one place, for 30 hours a week to mainly stand around, and that is after being proactive and dusting the entire shop.

boycott workfare can put pressure on them to pull out of the scheme. Volunteers should be genuine and not workfare conscripts. Its nothing more than trying to control you with the threat of sanctioning you. Charities are meant to help people not exploit them and be in a position to get people sanctioned. Theres a big thing at the moment to keep volunteering voluntary. KVV. you can google them. Charities can sign up to pledge they wont take part in this awful scheme.

Make sure the shop has all its health and safety in place, do they provide somewhere for you to eat,kitchen facilities etc, have they adequate insurance? There has been something recently where people on workfare are not covered by insurance. They wont tell you that of course. You need to ask to see the insurance.

Boycott workfare and kvv have loads of info on your rights etc. If I were you I would leave and if you get sanctioned appeal it .

The DWP know that this is nothing about helping people into work its all about making things hard in the hope you sign off. You have to fight back and know your rights. How the hell is standing around in a charity shop going to get you work? Also a lot of charities are being boycotted because they are taking part in Workfare. Which charity is it?