The System

So I'm on Newstart. Getting money from the government paid by the taxes of working people. Not trying to rub it in. More like acknowledging and thanking the hard working people who have to pay taxes so the society we live in can continue to operate as well as can be. And I say as well as can be.

Work for the dole is back. I did working for the dole 7-8 years ago until they shut down the program as the government was moving funds around so pulled funding from there. Now that it's back they have to start from scratch setting up. In the past you could volunteer to work for the dole. I volunteered last time because it's something to do and you can get references for doing that. However because the system is just back there was not enough places because they were reserved for those who have been on Newstart for six months. 

A month or so back I hit the mark when I needed to start working for the dole. Thing was when I went in to get my work for the dole drawn up, they dumped me into a group meeting. During the meeting, someone realized they put me in the wrong group and eventually I was in an one on one to plan out my work for the dole. They put me in an administration role in Box Hill basically right down my street. Sweet. What was not so sweet was the call the next morning telling me that they contract with the company got cancelled so I had to go back in to get a new place. The new place they put me as a outdoor laborer in Southbank which was not terrible. However when I was suppose to start that was when my brother's thing happened so they didn't expect me to go in. A fortnight after I was sent a letter stating that it was cancelled and they would get back to me about it. It wasn't until last week they called me, asking me how I was doing in my work for the dole. Huh? They didn't even know it was auto cancelled which I found out what had happened. So they booked me in again today. So once again in to plan my work for the dole. This time I had someone else setting it up. This time they tried to put me in retail assistant role somewhere near St Kilda. I say try because like 5 minutes later they told me there was no position there. After around 15 minutes they came up with no position for me. Instead they are using my study at Swinburne as my work for the dole. I guess this means I won't be using too much of my time working so I can study, but at the same time I'm not getting any more work experience which I'm having trouble with ... In the end a lot of time wasted. Hopefully they work it out in the next 3 months before I need to go back in to update my plan.