It’s been eighteen years since I claimed unemployment benefits. On the day of our interview with Centrelink I was in a blunt mood. Preparing for humiliation can do that. The interview was exhaustive and humiliating. It was also embarrassing and frustrating.
The woman who interviewed us was pleasant. She was playful with Angus. She wanted proof of the following:
I played with her a bit over the memorabilia question.
‘I’ve got hundreds of sport books and posters,’ I said. ‘And no idea how much it is worth. I don’t think second hand books and WEG posters increase that much in value.’
She smirked.
In one of the forms there is a question about home ownership. I left that question unanswered, because I don’t own my house.
The woman didn’t care about the mortgage. ‘We consider you own your house because you’re not renting.’
Centrelink don’t care what my mortgage is or what the monthly repayments are. But if I was renting I’d be eligible for rent assistance.
I thought I’d be the first to get angry during the interview but a question about tax made Kristine feisty. As a contractor, she has a tax bill and money saved to pay it. Centrelink don’t care about tax debts.
‘And it doesn’t matter the bill is due in March,’ Kristine said.
The woman shook her head. ‘As far as we’re concerned that is available funds,’ she said.
‘You need to communicate better with the tax office,’ Kristine said. ‘You’re all government.’
The woman remained impassive. Centrelink mustn’t care if people default on their tax bills. That seems extraordinary.
Angus was squirming and unsettled. He didn’t like Centrelink either. Kristine took him out for a feed and a nappy change.
The woman asked me for my last pay advice and I didn’t have it. ‘We need to know how much holiday pay you received,’ she said.
Centrelink need to know everything, but they didn’t ask about my monthly expenses. The money they were going to give me, $424 a fortnight, was paltry. I wasn’t due to receive a payment until I’d been unemployed for three months.
Centrelink want you to exhaust all available resources before they’ll offer help, and their money was barely going to pay our bills.
Mates I used to work with in electrical wholesaling half-heartedly offered me casual work.
‘Just do it until you get a job,’ The Pole said. ‘It’d be five or six hundred bucks a week you’re not getting now.’
‘Even if it’s three days a week,’ Stevo said.
My old boss, John offered the same advice. ‘You can always go back to wholesaling,’ he said. ‘You’d get a job somewhere.’
Those offers were casual and without authority. The Pole and Stevo can’t give me a job, but they can make suggestions. John would provide a reference, if I needed one.
I mentioned a wholesaling gig to Kristine. She frowned. That’s how I felt.
I could definitely work with Stevo and the Pole, I’d done it before and though they work for different wholesalers, there’d be no angst between them. It’d just be another mate working for a living. It doesn’t matter how, as long as it is honest.
The Pole, it must be remembered, was unemployed for one day after quitting his job in Warwick. A rival wholesaler snapped him up.
I’d been unemployed more than three months, but I wasn’t ready to go back to wholesaling. I was still enjoying time off. I’d been busy, sanding and repainting three sets of windows and their sills. It was messy, dusty work. The windows had to be sanded back to timber then sanded smooth. Because the timber is old, it needed lots of preparation and paint. Most of the windows needed new hinges.
My limitations were exposed when I fitted casement hinges upside down. ‘Strange,’ I said to Kristine. ‘The windows are suddenly longer and they won’t close.’ Swearing didn’t help. It took me a night of lost sleep to figure out the error and it left me embarrassed.
I destroyed three wasp nests. One was attached to the eaves near the front and back door. The biggest was outside the lounge windows. Lots of wasps and hornets were coming inside, causing Kristine panic.
When I sprayed the stray insects, she complained about poison getting near Angus.
‘Should I ask them nicely to go outside,’ I said.
By mid-January I was complaining to all who would listen about Centrelink, the job search and recruitment companies who never returned my calls. I emailed my cover letter to a former colleague. She sent it back filled with track-changes. I took her advice.
I’d also concreted a path from the house to the pool, fixed a cupboard door and rid the pool of black spot algae. I’d also made a determination not to apply for anymore jobs in Melbourne or Adelaide. There’d been too many rejections. The search would focus on Brisbane.
In January I was lucky enough to be selected for three interviews. This time the feedback was positive. I was offered three jobs. People congratulated me. I knocked back one of the jobs.
The all important letters of confirmation for the other two jobs didn’t arrive…
A bit if clarification about the complaint of poison near Angus before everyone starts thinking I am a paranoid, natural parenting freakess….The Watson males have a insect spray obsession!! Matt pumps that stuff into the air like he is putting out a raging fire. So to set the scene, he was ‘extinguishing’ a hornet OVER the play mat where all Angus’ toys were spread out and would most likely at some stage make their way into his mouth. I don’t want to eat that stuff so why would I want Angus too.
Good ramble though 🙂
