Money

For most of the last ten years, I've either been paid in cash, or into my Taiwanese bank account. My UK account remained open only for occasional UK internet transactions.

All this means that when I returned, I had no idea of my PIN number. Even when I'd used my UK debit or credit card in Taiwan, I hadn't needed a PIN, a signature would do - and I never caught anyone looking at it!

On Saturday, I went to a friend's 40th birthday party at a pub in Brighton. For the past couple of weeks I'd been restricted to borrowed cash since the DWP were vacillating over whether to give me any money, but with about a fiver left in my pocket, the payment had finally come through. Into my bank account.

Usually, it's quite simple to take something to a counter, try to pay for it and when your card is rejected, be humiliated and take it back. Beer is not quite like that. You can't put it back into the barrel. So, accompanied by a new found friend, I went to the bar with a couple of possible PINs in my head, on the understanding that if I got it wrong he'd get the round in and I'd sort one out once I'd found a way of accessing my money.

Fortunately, I got it right first time and got the round in. The feeling of relief or freedom even, after an uncertain transaction clears is quite a rush.

When I went back a second time, it seemed sensible to keep a tab open, despite paying as you go being the norm in the UK. They ran through an initial transaction, gave me a temporary receipt and said to come back to complete the payment with PIN when I was finished.

When the pub closed at around midnight I was taken by surprise with half a pint still in my glass. In these days of relaxed licensing hours that seemed pretty early to me. So I approached the bar to close the transaction only to be told that everything was shut down and they'd already forced the transaction without the PIN!


If I'd known they could do that...

Time

The thing about being on the dole is that you have so much time on your hands - and none of it is truly your own.

There is no distinction between jobseeking time and free time so there's always the nagging feeling that you could be doing something constructive and that what you are doing is not it. Unless you are looking for a very specific job, there are always more places to look and more jobs that could potentially be applied for.

Earlier in the summer, it was easy. I was applying for teaching assistant positions and there were a limited number of secondary schools that were within a reasonable distance. Each of them had a website with a vacancies page so all I needed to do was open up all the websites and check if there were any vacancies, apply for any that there were, and then I'd done all I could in terms of direct job searching for the day.

Now, with most of the TA jobs filled I have a broader job search - meaning it has no end. There is no real distinction between 9-5 and the evenings and no distinction between weekdays and the weekend. At any point I could be using my time "constructively" and this has the perverse effect of making me use my time less constructively. With no boundaries, constructive things are easy to put off and leisure activities such as taking a couple of days to go camping leave one feeling that it's an undeserved guilty pleasure. I long for a 'real' Friday night!

It's a bit like being self employed but without the cash.