Work for what now?

So been on Centrelink for awhile now so this isn't so hard to believe but it's still pretty terrible. What am I talking about? I'm talking about their Work for the Dole initiative. When you are on Newstart, what you get as a new job searcher, for like 6 months they put you on Work for the Dole. They give you work with a company that needs volunteers and what it's for is that you can put that on your resume as experience. Well if your resume was good enough you would have got a job already, or that's what they assume I guess. So it's not a terrible thing. 

I've done Work for the Dole before. Nice computer refurbish place. However the problem is during one of the change with the government they removed this initiative while I was working there so I stopped that. That was like 7 or 8 years ago. They only just recently brought it back end of last year. Problem with this is that because they just started it back up there is a lack of connections with companies so a lack of volunteer work. I tried to volunteer for it back when I started back on Newstart but they said they had to reserve those for people who are suppose to be on the initiative before they can let people volunteer for it. Okay so I had to wait till I needed to do it.

So in Jan I was suppose to start Work for the Dole. Problem was once again there was limited places. Fortunately they found me a place in Box Hill basically down my street. Sweet. Worked out the paperwork. Immediately the next day I receive a call telling me that connection has been cut and was in renegotiation so I had to choose the only other place which was in Southbank. Bleh fine. Wasn't very happy. However with the thing that happened with my brother happened at the time they told me I didn't need to come in at the time. Thing is after a week of not attending apparently it is automatically cancelled by the system. This I didn't find out until 3 weeks later ... Fine they scheduled me a meeting so I'll wait for that. However just a week later before the meeting I receive a call checking on how I was doing with Work for the Dole ... Okay I really don't get how their system works. The system cancels my Work for the Dole however my automated scheduled phone checkups stay up ... it's messed up. So tried to work it out. And now apparently there are 0 places for me to work so they put my studies as Work for the Dole activity ... aren't I basically on Austudy which is for students? Then again I'm getting paid more this way, guess I can't complain.

Unfortunately my studies don't go so well so I defer. Of course this means changing my Work for the Dole. They tell me there's a place in Balwyn, sweet. Problem, they expect more hours then someone my age is suppose to do ... then why did you even tell me. Hating. They place me in Collingwood for only 2 weeks because that's when their agreement is for. Okay fine, don't place me anywhere close and make me come in after 2 weeks to do this all over again. So I turn up in Collingwood and guess what? The place is close for the holiday break ... I call up my jobsearch place and find out they weren't informed. Of course. They tell me they will work it out. 2 weeks and they tell me just to come in to work out a new place.

That brings us to this week. Kew, not so bad. I turn up Tuesday. Apparently the Kew place didn't know I was coming in. They weren't informed and they didn't get my police check so I couldn't even start if they could allow it. So call my jobsearch place and again they say they'll work it out that day. They call the next day and tell me to come in the next week because can't be worked out this week.

My head hurts just reliving it. Wasted so much time. Hopefully it is all worked out by Tuesday ...