Well, after just over four weeks on job seekers allowance I was fortunate enough to find myself a job. I sarted on the thursday of last week and was rather busy over the weekend so it was monday before I was able to get in touch with my local job centre to inform of the change in my situation. Conveniently, my numerous attempts to call the office during my lunch break proved fruitless, as it seemed nobody was in the mood to answer the phone.

It was wednesday before I tried calling again and this time I at least got to speak to someone on the phone. I informed them that I was claiming JSA and that I had started a job on the 13th of this month. I made it clear that this was the reason I would be unable to attend my signing on appointment this friday. I was then informed by the staff member that I would have to come in to the job centre (with my "booklet") to sign off and I would still receive JSA for the times I wasn't working. However, I was also informed that I would be put down as a "missed appointment", which is very kind of them.

I just hope my local centre is open on saturday, as that will be the only opportunity I will have to visit the Job Centre. That said, my next two weekends are taken up with much more interesting plans than having to stay put at home to perform a task, that in this day and age, I should be able to carry out over the phone or if not that, achieve by visiting any job centre I happen to be in the vicinity of. In fact, tomorrow I plan to visit my the job centre nearest to my place of work (which won't be my local centre) and attempt to sign of.

Additonaly, I recently had to send off (to the Inland Revenue) details of times I had spent in and out of employment since the start of the year. To be truthful, I had no choice but to note that my JSA claim was continuing while I was employed (albeit at the time of writing only a few days) in the view that I would quickly and easily be able to cancel my claim. It now seems that this will not be the case.

In an ideal world, I would be able to have this straightened out by tomorrow. But then again, this isn't an ideal world, is it?

This narrowly escapes a very bad rating' as some of the people I spoke with were actually quite helpful.