Walthamstow Job Centre
OK, it's like this....

In 2002, I was working as a contractor. (I'm in IT.) In the March, a contract finished, and the market dried up. Me, Mrs IZM & Son of IZM struggled on (income support but no mortgage payments because the work was finite - grr) but come autumn we needed to sell the house before someone sold it for us, if you catch my drift. The house 'made' a profit of £55K, but we only took away £3,500 - the rest was accumulated debt to Granny IZM (wife's mother), various cards etc.

So we sell up & move in with Granny IZM in E17. No choice. I go up to Walthamstow Job Centre and say, in my best cheery & polite manner, 'hello, I was signing on in Gravesend & now I need to sign on here.'

"Oh really Sir, why?"
"We've sold the house (& then explain it all)"
"Ah well you can only sign on if you have less than £8K savings. Can you prove the outgoings?"
"Of course. I'll supply a breakdown."

So I did. I am being ultra helpful, not concealing a damn thing, not lying at all here. I am Playing The Game.

And they came back and said I shouldn't have paid off £32K of debt as a whole; instead I should have serviced the interest instead until I'd worn it down to £8K, then they'd give me £100 less per month than the interest payment. Anyone care to spot what's just WRONG with that assertion? (Like it leaves me 3100 a month short before I've paid for little things like food, nappies etc.?)

Everything I told them was the 100% absolute truth, and I did my level best to keep my family afloat; but some small minded twunt thought otherwise and seemed to take joy in my circumstance. I wouldn't mind if they enforced a sensible rule, but to try to force an unemployed man NOT to wipe out £24K of debt WHEN HE CAN is just ridiculous. Arseholes. Pure unrelenting twatmongers, every bastard one of them.

So, to Walthamstow Job Centre and those people who worked there that spitefully and deliberately tried to push me under when I needed help, not one of your people was worth a shit. Sack them now.

Cnuts.

I did a stretch at the DSA in Nottingham, another pit of jobsworth fuckwittery which can also get regally fucked, but that's another story.

Take it from me though, the Civil Service, especially at mid-management levels, is where people go who are too shit at whatever they do to work in the real world. The only good people there were the union bods, and they were fucking top!
(InfiniteZenMaster, Sat 14 May 2005, 0:04, Reply)