I think I've slipped through the cracks of the Universal credit system. Still got the income but I've not had to go in for a meeting in months and no sanctions. Surprising incompetence really. During the time it's been going on I've landed a full time job in a new city, starting in the new year, not sure if I should contact them and tell them about it now or wait until I start. JC+ did nothing to help me look anyway they just kept tabs on me while I did. Are there any pitfalls of telling them? I mean, I broke the contract by not posting 15 job applications on their journal every week, but I landed a job anyway, so surely that evens us out...

>>13324
Man, they don't give a shit, just tell them. They can mark it up as a win on their system.

>>13324
Difficult here. They might demand cash back for breaking your contract. I suppose you could just tell them you want to end the claim for personal reasons without informing them of the job, but.. things might get complicated here.

>>13324
That money is earmarked for the poorest in our society. You have a moral duty not to claim it if you're self-sufficient.

>>13344

I think you've got the nail on the head there, mate. I'm currently doing my Master's full-time but found the hours to
also work part time 50%, and am just about making ends meet. Though I live in an "interesting" city, I really haven't had much of a chance to enjoy it since blowing through my savings.

There's something especially suffocating about a lack of money, knowing you can't even pop into a cafe and get a coffee.

Problem is, my field is really very much concentrated in London. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is something of a Mecca for my kind of research, though there is also Oxford and Liverpool.

>>13344

StAndrews is ludicrously expensive to live in considering it's in the arse end of nowhere. All foreign money and tourism and student housing demands piled into one tiny town.

It's tax free mate.

>>13345
It does say something and I agree. I moved from a very cosy 30k job in the north where I had a huge flat, a car, and I was bored every weekend. Nothing really happens that stimulated me in the same way it does here. Also, if you're in your 20s, no kids, and can wait a few years to settle into mundane boredom where the neighbours getting an unsightly new door colour is the big talk then what do you have to lose by trying it?

In many ways despite earning more money, my quality of life has shrunk massively, but I'm still happier and London is popular for a reason as I said. These people aren't desperate to get to Doncaster.

I don't want to turn this into a London cunt off but I spent years avoiding London because of the same types of comments I'd see online like in this thread that made me feel I'd be miserable and unhappy. It's the complete opposite, £1.50 on a bus and there's always something happening.

I'm soon gonna be hitting that 50k+ mark and i know for a fact I would dream of hitting it in my 40s if I was not in London, so you have to factor in that cost of living accounts for the fact there are many more high paid jobs.

Lad - get on spareroom, ask on /r/askuk for other PHD students doing similar and see what it realistically looks like and be honest with yourself about what sort of luxuries you can and can't live without.

>>13350
> Also, if you're in your 20s, no kids, and can wait a few years to settle into mundane boredom where the neighbours getting an unsightly new door colour is the big talk then what do you have to lose by trying it?

Absolutely. Having been born there I always encouraged people to give London a try at least once in their 20s but (at least for me) once I hit my thirties and became a bit of a boring cunt the cost/benefit ratio stopped paying off. I was happier to have a bit more money in my pocket and be able to spend it on eating out and foreign travel.

>>13349

If it's tax free then it's plausible if you flatshare and scrimp a bit as others have said. Good luck, lad.

>>13330
This strategy worked for me. Did it twice in the past 18 months, and clearly things weren't working. Got 20% going into the first, 10% out of there and into the second, and 25% out of there and into somewhere decent. Throw in the raise I received in the job I had before that, and in two years my pay has gone up 65%.

>>13331
That'll learn you for trying to help people.

>>13331
As someone who worked in the NHS in a very much not frontline area, pay is a perennial problem. Management would wonder why the we were always suffering the same old problems that were getting us constantly slated. The thought that pay points were pathetic compared to the market and therefore the only people suitably qualified that were applying were internal candidates. Anyone that was actually competent was leaving.

>>13330>>13332
Yeah, in our line of work you can easily change jobs every few years without it hurting your CV at all - improving it even. The problem comes as you get older, have families, and don't feel like jumping on the recruitment merry-go-round every two years.

>>13329
Thanks. Between 2010 and 2015 my pay only went up from £15,000 to £20,000 but since then it has more than doubled. It's amazing what difference a bit of experience and self belief can do.

>>13313
Bear in mind that the worst that can happen is that they say no. Get back up, dust yourself down and carry on as usual.

Well lads, I think I've been offered the job (subject to references etc).

What a fucking whirl wind. I don't know whether to take it or not.

>>13316
Take it like a Polaroid picture.

>>13316

You spent all this time fretting about getting the job and now you're not even sure you want it? Howay lad, accept it.

>>13318
He'd got it into his head that he wasn't getting it and had come to terms with that. Now he's all conflicted, bless him.

No, but I watched a lot of Quincy when I was unemployed.

I was thinking about it (and never say never), but I'm comfortable and well paid and I think becoming a student again would set my life back by a couple of years. I think you have to know. That's what they say about PhDs. Studying medicine is a bigger commitment than a PhD; 4 or 5 years in medical school and 2 as a junior, then more training. Still, it's a great career. I sat the UKCAT twice. Got 620 the first time. 740 the second. Buy a book, study the questions. It's fucking boring and might put you off applying, but a decent UKCAT score is enough to get you in. You'll have a strong application if you have shadowing experience in different departments, and long term volunteer experience in a hospital/care setting; admissions like to see that you're happy to do the menial jobs, because that's what a decent chunk of the next decade of your life as a student doctor will be.

>>13297
Rereading, I wasn't clear. In fact, the voluntary experience and hospital shadowing are prerequisites. But really, you can do a Saturday morning every week. You can have "6 months" as a volunteer with 96 hours of actual volunteering (4 hours a week).

I did the UKCAT about 7 years ago. It felt like there wasn't enough time. I remember there was a lot of verbal/numerical reasoning, it's possible to prepare for it. So get a book and practice.

Are you doing graduate entry or the full undergrad? I've heard graduate entry is really hard because it's 4 years instead of 5.

>>13303

I haven't decided what route to take just yet. I'm actually living abroad at the moment and figuring out the best path...

>>13286
If they actually expect to be attacked by AJ, they're doing it wrong anyway.

>>13282
Being a security guard is a pretty cushty job at the best of times but imagine how laid back it is with fourteen other people to pick up the slack.

I did my own dole hunting yesterday and there were three security bods in the building. Two were on the fat side of normal sized, but one was about six foot four inches tall and built like a cave troll. I assume the tubby two just exist to point him in the right direction when things go sour.

Also everyone there quite nice, probably because I'm dead charming and lovely, unlike you miserable buggers.

>>13291

The other two are ammo for him to lob.

I'm just hijacking this thread for my own Job Centre related /101/ moaning now, but today, as I sat in a Job Centre and agreed to my "Universal Credit commitments" my claim was closed in real time, by someone in another part of the country, as I had not yet agreed to said commitments, despite being moments away from doing so. Now I get to enjoy more looks of disappointed bafflement than usual as I explain a situation that "has never happened before" according to the chap I was meeting with.

I think I owe Ken Loach an apology, this is buggered and it's actually left me quite depressed.

Is there something I'm doing wrong, here?

Nothing I can see, the first story is just the fact of life these people have no prior relationship with you, I'm sure you are lovely but then I'm sure the other 50+ people who applied are lovely too. That's just life you are as mundane as the rest of us

The second is just bullshit nepotism, the last job I interview for it got into a farce by the end because they didn't want to admit I was the better candidate on paper but they wanted to hire someone else because they were the mate of the guy he'd be closely working with presumably because the likes of their bosses boss would be wholly unamused.

For my career break I came second in a job interview. I later learnt that the admin head only wanted to hire women, something I've mentioned on /job/ before, so I lost out to someone who turned out to be useless but possessed a vagina. However, I impressed other people at the interview so that when someone went off on long-term sick I was hired on a temporary contract, which was eventually made permanent.

I'm now in a managerial position so I'm responsible for recruitment in my department. There's been occasions where there's been a dearth of suitable candidates. There's been other occasions where I've had to choose one from a number of strong candidates when any one of them would have absolutely walked it at on a different occasion, some of whom I've contacted when we've had a vacancy at a later date. You can try your absolute best but you can't control who you are up against. That's life.

There's no guarantee that an employer has a decent hiring process. For some reason the recruitment for the graduate scheme at work is done by the admin head and she is as thick as pig shit, which most likely explains why four out of the last five graduates recruited have turned out to be a mistake.

>>12900

Do some voluntary work or ask at the Jobcentre about work placements. It'll help build your confidence, get you back into the habit of working and you'll get a reference. It shouldn't affect your benefits.

There are loads of local organisations who offer back-to-work support programmes for the long term unemployed. You could do a bit of Googling, or ask at the Jobcentre or Citizens Advice.

You might want to consider your education options. If you don't have many qualifications, taking a vocational course at your local FE college might be a good route back into work. A recent qualification on your CV shows employers that you're actually motivated to get back into work, rather than just applying for stuff because the Jobcentre told you to.

Self-employment is also an option worth considering. You can get free mentoring, a loan to cover your start-up costs and claim the New Enterprise Allowance for the first six months.

If you're disabled/mentally ill there are a lot of services which give advice to people with these conditions looking for work. I used a couple last year, and while they were a bit basic for me (I already had a half decent CV with a fair amount of work experience) I can see it would be useful for those who have less experience.

>>12904
The whole point of work is looking busy rather than actually doing work. Everyone in the finance team at Patisserie Valerie was so good at looking busy rather doing their jobs that they didn't notice there wasn't any money for them to shuffle around and those lovely people at Grant Thornton were so good at pretending to audit that they didn't notice it either.

Offer to do people's gardening, go door to door.

If you can cycle consider deliveroo.

Look on fiverr for things like dog sitting, cat sitting.

Can you play any instruments or know any foreign languages? People are always looking to learn.

These jobs aren't ideal but they're a start.

>>12905
>ask at the Jobcentre about work placement

fucking don't lad, its slave labour under a different name. volunteer at a charity. alternatively alot of places don't give two shits about employment.

best advice get on the train if you live somewhere that has one. blah blah blah ticket prices its bullshit. any cunt can find a job in london or brighton or birmingham. so do that and commute.

>>13246
>it seems like they don't get a whole lot of benefit from what isn't an insignificant membership fee
Define your terms here. What is the perceived benefit, and where do you perceive it to fall down next to the fees?

It depends really.

I'm not part of the union at my work because I'm not a high up enough member of staff to have a horse in the race if it ever comes to redundancies or what have you. I'll just get another job and not really give a fuck.

If I was higher up I'd very definitely be in the union because I'd have a reason to care- Contract changes to on call pay recently come to mind. Doesn't affect me but they've basically managed to keep this deal where they get nearly as much in overtime as their basic wage, because the union keeps throwing a spanner in the works every time they try to change it.

Some stuff they are powerless to affect and don't try. Some people at my place piss and moan about how the union doesn't do anything for them, but that's because those people are expecting the union to do things the union isn't supposed to do. You don't get to just tell your boss you want to work 8-4 instead of 9-5 and then expect the union to back you up. Of course they won't, and you're off your rocker if you think they will.

TL;DR the more money and vested interest you have the more worthwhile it's being in the union. There's basically no point at all if you're at an entry level position in a given organisation.

>>13246
>I get that they will help you with employment disputes but I'm not sure how much that is worth.
Be aware that as a general policy, you won't be able to get help unless you are already a member at the time the dispute arises. In other words, you can't get into trouble and then join the union to get their help.

This may not be helpful, but I tend to join unions out of principle more than anything. Unions that are ineffectual tend to be that way because they're operating in industries with massive historical defeats, and a resulting lack money and support.

It can certainly be a bit of a sideshow with its own weird internal politics, but it's one way of lending a bit of weight to worker's rights in an otherwise authoritarian system of work.

Ironically, the times in my life where I could have most used a union, none were available because of the nature of the job. Temporary workers rarely join unions or stay around long enough to satisfactorily resolve disputes, so they've invariably been the ones with the most unreasonable conditions and miserable work environments.

Easily the strongest union I've ever paid into was when I was with the NHS. There's a few different choices, there, but the one I looked at seemed to really take care to resolve disputes and they actually had some credibility.

>>13181

Cheap whey powder is under £12 a kilo, which works out to about 1.5p per gram of protein.

Practically any vegetarian soup, stew or curry can be substantially bulked up with the addition of lentils, chick peas or kidney beans. They're high in protein, high in micronutrients, dirt cheap if you buy them dried and still bloody cheap if you buy them tinned from a discount supermarket.

If you don't have an Indian auntie restrain yourselves, lads, get on YouTube and learn the basics of Indian cooking. It really isn't hard to make a big pan of something fucking delicious. You'll need a decent stock of herbs and spices, but they're cheap as chips if you get them from an ethnic shop. If you're into bulk cooking, you can do yourself loads of little bags of dal and curry and eat generous thali for pennies a plate.

Failing that, just have some beans on toast with a fried egg and a bit of grated cheese.

>>13184
Whey protein is pricey. Everything else depends where you live. Red split lentils are a decent shot. If you have a good veggie shop, learn the bargain. Eggs are ok-ish, meat only if cooking it is free. If you can buy a 5-10kg bag. Lasts ages, just needs a bit of flavour. 0.56p brown vinegar helps.

>>13173

Bear in mind that buying food for four people does scale much better than for one, particularly if singlelad doesn't have a spacious freezer or well stocked storecupboard as most families do. ~£50 a month definitely isn't ridiculous for a single person, though you could certainly knock it down to about £30 before you start to get into the rice and beans territory.

>>13181

Vegetarian lifter here. I used to eat a block of steamed tofu a with a tad of soy sauce every day, that's about 40g-50g of protein. At the moment I'm paying £2.25 for the decent (and firm) stuff, but I can probably get it cheaper elsewhere.

>>13187
Did it work? Did you consider GOMAD?

>>13238

Surely you'd need to factor in the amount of employees Wal-Mart has?

Also there's lads on here that might make their company a few million for their £150k a year salary so maybe Asda is the right call.

On the transcription sites, you can see exactly how much they charge their customers per minute. You know you did that exact work and could have done the exact same for the customer without the middleman. Tesco is way more complex. You wouldn't think you could grow all that food from scratch and sell it.

>>13241

That transcription company built an online platform, spend a shitload of money on customer acquisition and another shitload on customer service and quality assurance. For the most part, middlemen exist for a reason and earn their cut - connecting buyers with sellers is difficult and expensive. I'm not denying that some industries have exploitative monopolies, but in this case there's nothing stopping you from learning how to market yourself and touting for business as a freelance transcriptionist. Some people do exactly that and earn a decent living, others are happy to take the quick cash from a middleman.

It's the same with online retail - setting up an online store is piss-easy these days, but finding customers is a completely different kettle of fish. Most small retailers are more than willing to give Amazon or eBay a cut of their sales in exchange for a constant stream of customers.

>>13238
A more apt comparison would be if ASDA were some sort of farmhand recruiter (instead of a megacorp selling physical goods at a yuge markup), hooked you up with farm work, and then paid you 46p for every £1 the farmer paid them.

>>13242

Amazon and eBay take a far smaller percentage than the transcription sites do.

>>13210
Vigorous bumming.

>>13212
I'd like to shadow the people in the position I'll eventually be filling IYKWIM.

Join the Merchant Navy they said, it's great they said, you definitely won't get held hostage by the Iranians they said.

Joined up as a result of this thread. Just got back from Afghanistan today. What an experience.

>>13230
Landlocked Afghanistan?

>>13222
It's a bit shit. Depending on whereabouts your actual job is, it might be commutable from somewhere more civilised like Cardiff. Do not ever, under any circumstances, take the M4 westbound between junctions 24 and 26 with less than three days' worth of rations. The congestion never stops.

Where would you be moving from, and why?

>>13223

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx8CZyFM4b4

>>13222

I once had to go to Newport on the train for reasons. I'm not saying it's a shit place but I did feel relief wash over me as the train pulled out of the station knowing that I was going home.

>>13226
I have that feeling any time I leave the south east.

>>13226
Wales, in a nutshell.

>>13197
Wow, people really are starting to take the three of us seriously if they're advertising directly to us.

>>13188
BPSS is literally nothing. It's basically a check to make sure that you are who you say you are and you have the right to work in the UK. It doesn't involve anything that isn't a matter of public record.

>>13197
The correct link is here

https://www.gov.uk/request-copy-criminal-record

Do not use third party services for something you can get from .gov.uk directly - they are almost scam sites.

>>13196
I have no intention of being dishonest when it comes to screening but I fucked up rather a lot when I was younger. Was a problem drinker for years, smoked weed for a while, even got talked into doing a few 'personal deliveries' over a couple of months. I regret a lot of those years but while it's nothing I could be blackmailed over, I think it would pin me down as someone with a history of irresponsible behaviour so more advanced screening is sadly probably beyond me. Which is ironic because everyone I meet thinks I'm the most buttoned-down techie imaginable, and my current lifestyle is probably the most boring on this entire website.

Thanks for the links everyone.

>>13203
>and my current lifestyle is probably the most boring on this entire website.
No, lad. I KNOW you're not on my level.