Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 August 2007 07:21:55
So we are now entering the late 90's and a time when I lived first in a twilight world where I tried to balance life between working part-time in a low maitanence temping job, appointments with the various professionals who get involved when your head explodes, being mum and fighting depression. After a few short months I dropped the part-time job bit, realising what I really needed to work at was being full time mum and getting myself back on track and that it was getting a tad hard to juggle all the "appointments" with a job aswell.
Very quickly I realised that to get myself back on track I needed a challenge, something I could do whilst being mum. So, I found an interesting MA course on Political Activism and Social Movements, one day a week, at a uni which was less than a couple of hours away by train and applied. At this point I have to acknowledge I was lucky, being entitled to a reduction in fees as I was on Income Support and having parents who wanted to help I had this option open to me. I have to say it was an excellent course which challenged and inspired me in equal measure. It was just a pity I never quite got my dissertation done for it and so simply ended up with the Post Graduate Diploma in the end. However, the qualification doesn't really matter. What did matter was that I was able to show "the professionals" that I had a route map, I was using my initiative and I wasn't just sitting there letting myself drift further into the pit.
That was just as well, because the rest of the time I was living another persons life or rather a life that "people like us" aren't prepared for and so may struggle with. I was living on benefit and doing the whole "mum at the school gates" thing. For anybody who thinks this is an easy life, you are mistaken and it is one that by and large people don't choose. It can be health issues that take you there; it can be relationship breakdown, it can be a lack of opportunity due to a lack of educational achievement, it can be the simple fact the economy demands a surplus of labour to allow for boom and you are one of the unlucky ones ,(I acknowledge it can also on the odd occassion be laziness and a lack of personal responsibility - but as I say that is rare).
It does not do much for your self respect to have to sit in an office for hours and then be taken into a room, where you have to sit and be grilled. All this because you need an emergancy loan for £10 for electricity that week, (somehow there were a few more bills needed paying and nothing your child would eat on special - oh and you thought you could stretch the electric meter out longer). This wasn't a regular occurance, but it did happen a couple of times. Generally, though, the almost routine waits in the office every couple of weeks were because there was some query or other about one bit of paper or another that they just needed to go through to clarify stuff.
So what did I do right, and what lessons can be learnt from this couple of years?
1. I took some responsibility for the direction of my life and found some study which could both stimulate me intellectually and maybe help me find my way back into employment in the future. This meant I was able to get some of "the professionals" off my back because they could see I was together enough to be sorting this out. Also if you decide what you're interested in and find out about the options available then you have the control. If somebody else sign posts you into courses they may not be as interesting.
2. Talk to other people, find out which stores are doing which offers that week. This will make life much easier and almost give you some choice. Also it will mean if there is a multi-buy offer which you could really benefit from you can go in with somebody else and take advantage of the saving this would give. (Bear in mind if purchasing things on there own most people on benefit are excluded from multi-buy because you need the money in the first place to bulk buy, and make your savings later on. If you are only living week to week this type of saving in advance is impossible).
3. Don't leave your dissertation until the last minute, something may just come up which stops you being able to complete it.
4. Always make sure you ask for (or if you have to send off invest in) a photocopy of any forms you hand in or send off anywhere. Having a spare when it gets lost is always useful. On a similar note also ask to take the name of who you're speaking to and make a note of when you spoke to them. If you have this information in a notebook it makes life easier, when you are trying to get something sorted out 6 weeks later, that you thought was already dealt with.
5. Always be polite and realise that the person behind the counter is only doing their job; it's some suit in Whitehall who is making the rules; they're just implementing them.
6. Find stuff to do which makes you feel useful. Once Third Party started school I was able to help out with the old people's lunch club at church once a week. This benefitted me by (i) helping learn how to cook a little, (ii) for only a small charge I was able to get a good meal, which didn't rely on what was on special, (iii) enabling me to feel I was giving a little rather than simply taking from society.