How do I dig myself out of this hole?

They try to. I find that simply making sure I turn up on time, talk politely and provide the evidence they want keeps them off my back. They have no power to find you a job but they'll make your life hell as far as benefits are concerned if you screw up.

 

They cant track your internet usage and if you have spent 5 hours a day searching for a job online.

They will ask what you have been doing etc, but they cant/arent logging your internet usage - as I said, thats just stupid.

 

Think he means when they send you to them stupid "job club" things, they do that in some places where it's mandatory and they keep an eye on you. other people I know from England have mentioned it, not sure if they do it everywhere or not.

 

I think it's mandatory for everyone after six months of continuous benefit.

 

yeah wasn't sure as they don't do that where I am, at least not yet

 

Theres a website run by them called universal jobmatch, you create an account. I don't think its possible, but I have a word document listing all the jobs I apply for anyways (which isnt much)

 

Sure, they could log how long you are on that site (techically, but I doubt it) from the server side.

But are you supposed to only use that site? that just seems dumb - you should be looking everywhere, else they are forcing you to use 1 site and limit your options.

 

Jobmatch sucks balls. There are so many postings on there for catalogue distribution jobs, my adviser told me to ignore them at all costs so I asked why were they even allowed to advertise in the first place?

 

They might track you using their site because they can verify if you said you'd only applied for jobs on there. If you apply elsewhere then I believe you need written evidence that you've applied. People who are skilled and are likely to get a job will usually apply for loads more than they expect you to, because they know they won't get a job just sitting there.

 

Written evidence?

People have vacancy's in the window, hows that supposed to work?

I will admit, I have not had the pleasure of the new system. But under the old system, it was easy enough to satisfy their requirements.

 

Well it's under the tories now, who know fuck all about anything.

I'm checking the local papers and everything but jobmatch is what they say you should be using "FIVE HOURS A DAY FIVE TIMES A WEEK!!!11!!" I'm not sure how it is for Twimfy but the job listings are fucking horrendous, half of them dont list the location of where you'll be working or any requirements, youre just ment to know by the title.

I hope I find something soon, this is a joke.

 

Well some good news. I have two interviews next week!

One with an iOS development company looking to take on a junior. It's 30 mins in the opposite direction to where I want to be but the money is good so hopefully that will work out. I'm just worried my skills won't be to their standard but they say they're prepared to train.

The other is with Xerox working inbound technical support. Not ideal but they're desperate for staff and pay weekly which will help me pick myself up quickly. It's an hour commute by car (there is no public transport) but it's in the town I want to move back to so it could be a stepping stone.

Still have issues with extreme boredom and feeling like crap. Not heard a single thing from my ex at all since we split nearly 6 weeks ago. It's her birthday this saturday. I'm sending her a small gift and a letter, no begging or anything just a kind of closure letter. Not sure on the reaction I'll get but I'm putting it down as a personal marker, from that day whatever happens, I'll forget all about it and try to sort my shit out and move on. I should be doing that already but I'm the kinda person who works on structured and planned events. Plus seeing as it's the first time I'll have contacted her since she left me it's kinda a one last shot then call it quits kinda thing.

 

that's great start nice and positive, closure is always good, either way.

Good luck with the interviews anything would be better than nothing even just as a start, so if the xerox job gets you to a location you want to be and somewhere you can easier access other jobs then its a good option, likewise so is the iOS dev job, may be out of the way but if that's what you want as a career then it's at the very least a stepping stone

 

Yeah, I've actually formally worked at Xerox as a junior developer in the US. They were helpful in training but I soon became the subject matter expert as people began leaving. At that point I was moved over to a legacy application where I was no longer learning. Very useful first start for sure but if you find yourself stagnating and not learning this early it's typically a good sign to move on. I know someone who works IT there still to this day and he doesn't like it so much...still the job pays well for him and that's why he's still hanging around.

As for advice it depends on what you want career wise. I always wanted to code and that was my main desire. It's hard to say what the next step is. I think the main goal is you leaving your toxic home environment. My advice would be to go into both interviews assuming that is the position that you want. If you exude confidence and can talk intelligently about the task that's often times more important than anything else. Interviews are mainly just to probe and get an idea of what problems you can solve and how you might go about solving them. If you can go in to an interview, and attempt to solve the problems they give while demonstrating a logical approach to building an algorithm that's really the key point.

I've interviewed a few people before and found many where I asked them about a common development pattern that they claimed knowledge of and when I would try to test even basic knowledge of those patterns they would falter. For example I've asked a person before "If I were following an MVC architecture for my web project what area would I be most likely to: hold specific page data, write my html, and manage the http requests." This question if you've used an MVC pattern should be pretty obvious. Many people will just stare blankly, tell me they don't know with no further comment, and some try to half-ass an answer. The ones we typically would try to hire would be those that either A. Knew the answer or B. Didn't know the answer but asked questions and tried to gain more knowledge in order to solve it. So if you're in your interview and get completely blindsided by a technical question don't spell it as doom and gloom. They could just be testing to see how you react to a coding situation you might not be prepared for to test your problem solving skills.

If you can swing either job I would say go for it. If coding is your passion and you get denied that but offered the Xerox job I'd say go ahead and take that too. You can always develop side projects to showcase your coding skills similar to an art portfolio. I know I had a few applications and demo sites I created and could demo if desired to people who were interviewing me that showcased technologies they were asking me to have knowledge of for the position. It can be a competitive edge for those trying to break into that area as a junior developer.

 

Just looked, you dont even need to log into jobmatch. So they cant track you at home with how much you are using it....

How would they know your IP address, etc. Its nonsense.

 

Lol you've got me scared already looking at that MVC question. Having worked entirely for myself at my own pace I've never really had to think about that stuff before.

 

Oh, sorry that wasn't my intention. I was new to the concept when I started programing as well. When I came in as a junior programmer I didn't know hardly any paradigms. MVC is a programing pattern of Model-View-Controller. Model would hold your data, View would contain your html, and the Controller would direct the requests as needed.

It may be beneficial to look into some common development patterns. I did this before a lot of my interviews and found that I was already familiar with many and just wasn't aware it was a standard. Ex. Singleton (Only ever creating one global instance of an object), Abstracts/Interfaces, Factory Patterns etc. They're not need to knows, most people can be taught them fairly simply. I was just providing my anecdote as an example.

You'll probably get questions based on what the technology stack is, whether it's web or application development. So I wouldn't fret too much, we developers don't know everything

 

Ha no worries, I knew what MVC was and how it worked but what I meant was I haven't really thought about what the interview situation might be.

 

If you've not heard from her in six weeks then I wouldn't bother contacting her ever again. It's unlikely she'll appreciate you bothering and it's likely you'll feel worse, been there & done that. If she contacts you then I wouldn't even acknowledge to her that you remember her birthday. I see my ex about once a month and I'm not going to bother, on my birthday she brought me round some cakes she had left over that she'd taken to work... The only way I can beat that is forget her birthday completely.

 

You're not the only person to have said that.

The weird thing is, I kinda want the pain. The overly optimistic side of my brain thinks she's just respecting my no contact to save my feelings or she's got too much pride and guilt to contact me. The reality is she likely doesn't give a fuck.

There's too much self created false hope sitting in my head. By doing this it'll go either one way or the other and I'm expecting the worst but for me it'll make it finally final, something I can't conjure up out of pure thought alone unfortunately.