18 October 2013

Human Services - Part Three

Wednesday 16th October

A requirement of my application was to attend an appointment with a local employment adviser. It was a session to make sure my job searching skills were up to scratch and that I knew how to create and present a resume. I don’t want to be too cynical about this process, because for many people, particularly those afflicted with long-term unemployment, they are important skills. But for me, who is only at Centrelink in the first place as a last resort because my well developed and polished resume is achieving jack squat in the workplace, attending a meeting with a job coach did seem like a bit of a waste of time.

Fortunately, the nice ladies at Wise Employment tended to agree with me. They were confident enough that I’d find work soon. The fact that I still haven’t is quite beside the point, obviously. After an inordinate amount of IT troubles, I finally resolved to send them my resume by email from home, which I could have done without the appointment, but that’s fine. At least we got the box ticked.

Friday 18th October

I received a letter from Centrelink informing me that I had an appointment scheduled with Wise Employment on Wednesday 16th and warning that there would be consequences for my application if I failed to attend. Fortunately for both me and for Centrelink, I am a time traveller. Or just do what I need to without a two-days-late letter to tell me. Or whatever.

16 October 2013

Human Services - Part Two

Tuesday 15 October

I arrived promptly at half past nine and checked in with a different concierge at the Centrelink office. A lady came down from her desk and called my Christian name. Myself and two others with the same first name stood up. She picked me seemingly at random and we got started. Her first question was what my Centrelink number was. I informed her that I still didn’t have one. She looked up my name and date of birth in the database and confirmed that I was there and was an adult. She also confirmed all the details I had given the lady on the phone the previous day. It turned out that a few of them were wrong, so we fixed them.

Most troubling of all was that I had elected “prefer not to disclose” in the field that identified whether I was Indigenous or not. The lady on the phone just went ahead and filled in “no”. It’s not that she was wrong, because I’m as white as it gets, but more that she just completely ignored my input and went with own assumption based on the sound of my voice (and possibly the fact that I used the phrase “prefer not to disclose”). And the lady face-to-face in the office refused to fix it, because I so obviously wasn’t indigenous, and she clearly didn’t understand why I was upset about it. It seems like such a small thing, but when you’re working for a world that treats everyone the same, to have the box casually ticked for me against my wishes really made me mad.

She asked me if I had brought my bank statements with me. I said I hadn’t but that I had a hundred points of ID with me and had been emailed a separation certificate. I got that look of “what are you talking about, you idiot?” I pointed out that the lady on the phone had asked for my separation certificate, which I hadn’t had a chance to print yet. The Centrelink lady used her “patience with the pre-schoolers” voice and told me I didn’t need it, that I needed three month worth of bank statements. I pointed out to her that she had already obtained all my BSB and account numbers, that she should be able to make the enquiries herself.

She couldn’t, so I asked if I could make another appointment to come back and see her in an hour with my bank statements. The earliest she could see me was half past two that afternoon. So I went down to the bank for my printed statements and then home to kill an extra four hours.

At twenty past two I fronted up again and gave the name of the lady I needed to see. She had gone home for the day, so I was given to someone else to look after.

“What is your Centrelink number?”

I explained that I didn’t have one and that I had been in earlier to register my details and had returned with my back statement, which I presented to him on his desk.

“Do you have a hundred points of ID?”

Luckily for the idiot, I still had my passport in my pocket, but I explained again that my ID had already been registered that morning.

“I’ll just have to get my supervisor”.

His supervisor turned out to be the charmingly level-voiced woman I had spoken to the previous afternoon before being handed over to the phone lady.

“What’s your Centrelink number?” she asked.
“I don’t have one,” I answered and I pointed to the idiot’s computer screen.
“Ok, let’s have a look here.” She spent a few minutes reading over the file, before firing up the pre-school teacher voice again “It says here you need to come back with three months’ worth of bank statements.” I pointed to the documents on the desk in front of her and decided to remain silent.

The lady and the idiot both looked slightly confused. Having someone show up at their desk on time with all the paperwork they needed obviously didn’t compute with their understanding of how their job was supposed to work.

“So do I just scan these onto the database, and then give him his number?” asked the idiot in a moment of serendipitous clarity. The lady considered this for a few moments, before answering
“Yes,” and walking off to ‘assist’ someone else.

So after two full days of errand running and appointments, I took my nine digit Centrelink number and left. Easy as that.

15 October 2013

Human Services - Part One

So I’m back in Australia, and after two fantastic adventures in America and Thailand, I’m back home and right up against the pointy end of this whole unemployment business. My plans to secure work in Australia while I was gallivanting all over the world didn’t play out how I had hoped, so with my expectations in my boots and my pride scattered over the footpath somewhere, I fronted up to Centrelink to enquire about unemployment benefits. What follows is an account of my week-long dance with the bureaucracy.

Monday 14 October

I’ve never been particularly enthusiastic about the efficiency of operations in the Department of (so-called) Human Services. But I was determined to keep my cynicism in check and give the system a chance to work. So I fronted up just after lunch time and spoke to the guy with the iPad taking names and numbers.

Naturally his first question was what my Centrelink number was. I told him I didn’t have one that it was my first time, and to be gentle. He took my name down and added me to the list. I asked him how long it would be before it was my turn. He gave me what I think he imagined was a sympathetic smile and said “probably about forty-five minutes”. I settled in to wait, and worked on memorising some more of First Corinthians. I’m not really getting anywhere with that project either.

Half an hour later a Centrelink employee called my name and took me over to her desk. She asked me what my Centrelink number was. I told her I didn’t have one because it was my first time. She knew just what to do. She took me over to an office phone, dialled the number for the Centerelink hotline and handed me the receiver.

“Is this something I could have done forty-five minutes ago?” I asked, in that level and controlled tone of voice that my friends have learned to recognise as an alarm bell.
“Yes,” said the woman, and she walked calmly back to her desk, like it was a perfectly normal way to treat someone. On the flip side of the coin, she made my level tone of voice sound like Kevin Max’s vibrato.

I don’t know where the lady on the other end was speaking to me from. I assume Canberra, but it was clear that English was not her first language. But that was fine, I could understand her first question just fine:

“What is your Centrelink number please?” I explained that I didn’t have one, so she started looking through the database for anything that matched my name and date of birth. While I sat the waiting, it was all I could do not to burst out laughing as the Centrelink office background music wafted around me.

“Hey, we just met,
And this is crazy.
But here’s my number
Call me, maybe?”

Eventually the lady on the other end told me she had found and old record of me, dating back to my mother’s records, but unfortunately it was a child record. She asked for my permission to upgrade me from a child to an adult. I informed her that I have been trying to find a way to do that for a number of years now and that it was likely to be a long and complicated process. She didn’t even stop for breath before telling me no, it would just take a few minutes. Either she didn’t get it, or she was sick of smart-arses like me trying that joke out over the Centrelink self-help hotline.

Once I’d officially passed my bureaucratic adolescence, we were able to get onto the really good stuff. Like all my contact details, and how much my clothes were worth, and was I currently receiving dividends from being the chairperson of any corporations and how old my car was. The woman was being very thorough, so as not get any of the steps wrong. She appeared to be under the impression that I was an idiot, and triple checked everything before telling me three times the next steps I had to take. I had an appointment with a Centrelink adviser for the following morning, for which I would need one hundred points of identification and a separation certificate from my last employer. I also had an appointment made for me with the employment support agency down the road, to help me build a resume and connect me with potential employers.

After double checking that I understood I would need my separation certificate and one hundred points of ID the following morning, the call ended and I made my way out of the office. I glared as hard as I could at the original service provider who had wasted so much of my time. He didn’t notice.

I spent most of Monday afternoon chasing up my former employer for a copy of my separation certificate. They were very good about it, and I had been emailed a copy by half past eight the following morning, just in time for my second Centrelink appointment.