PERSONAL CHALLENGE : AUGUST

I might have mentioned previously that I write update a Hot100 List in January.  I am steadily working through that but progress has slowed to a trickle with only 40% achieved.  To spice things up a little I’m sharing my personal challenges for August.

#36 Improve BMI : If I breathe in, strip naked, and take off a pound for the enormous weight of my hair, I can make 12st 8.  My challenge is to stay under this weight for the whole of August.  12st 8 is one of my tipping points, if I can stay below then the next tipping point after this is 11st 10.  But I do so like an Eton mess and I have at least one dinner out in the next few weeks.

#unlisted : finish chopping down the Bay tree  laurus nobilis  at the side of the house, before it becomes the side of the house.  Ladders, hand saw… plasters…

#18 A persuasive conversation about a job every month (interview or test).
Or quite possibly, payment for work done- might that also count?
I am trying to measure here how much closer I am to getting work, so winning a small piece of work will definitely count.  Maybe I can get a reference out of it too.  But- I had the persuasive conversation last week, so can I count one for last month and then the payment count again as one for August ?

#41 More space in the lounge/diner  An ongoing problem.  If I’m going to fail on any of these challenges, I’d prefer to fail this one.

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Nip along to the link below and join in.

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Question of Tax

I lost it recently, I really did.  It took me several days to calm down, and since then I have gradually come to the conclusion that I misheard or misunderstood what my daughter was saying over the phone.

She rang me asking for details of her employers over the last 6 years.  A bit of probing revealed that she was working her way through the ‘employee benefits’ package and had come across a company offering to check to see if she was due a tax rebate.  On a no-win, no fee basis.

Like a bullet train once she gets going, I had barely time to digest this before she was reading the small print at the bottom of the page, with her finger poised to click ‘submit’.

-I’ve just got to read this, Mum, and then I can send it.
“Vat is 20% and our fee is 49p in the £1 on any refund due to you…”

I can’t tell you if she clicked or not, because the next few minutes I was SHOUTING through a red haze.  I routinely check my tax and have claimed back both hundreds and smaller amounts- including the time the tax office counted one employment twice.  I checked a friend’s tax for him and found he was owed £500 – all he had to do was write to the tax office.  How could anyone think about paying for this elementary service ? How dare this company cream 50% off my daughter’s refund !
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I blame the government:

• For making the tax system more complex
• For loss of numeracy in schools and
• For failing to hire competent officials in the tax office

All these things conspire against us and the end result is that a large chunk of the population will never find out if they’ve paid too much income tax.

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Here’s my favourite site for calculating UK income tax (PAYE):
http://www.i-resign.com/uk/financialcentre/tax_calculator.asp

Fish out last year’s P60 –it lists what you earnt that year and what you paid tax on – and check the whole year earnings.  Keep your P60’s forever.

And just in case you think I made this up, here is a link to a site nearly as bad as the one my daughter found.  http://taxrebates.com/services.html   (clickable)

‘Our confidential tax refund service is offered on the following basis:

•      No tax refund = No fee
•      For every £1.00 refunded, you receive 59 pence’

It’s your money… (oooh I’m off again…)

Stage 5…?

I have been unemployed too long.  3 years, one and a half months.  What have I been doing since my last (paid) job? The answer is here – but you could be forgiven for thinking I have been running a one-man QA exercise on Jobcentre Plus.

Jobseekers Regime and Flexible New Deal *

There are 4 stages in JRFND:

• Stage 1: (0-3 months) Self managed job search including Back to Work group sessions.
• Stage 2: (3-6 months) Directed job search – typically after 3 months.
• Stage 3: (6-12 months) Supported job search with mandatory activities and sanctions for failure to comply.
• Stage 4: (12-24 months) entry to the Flexible New Deal and work with a Provider.

So: what comes after Stage 4?
I have come to the end of JSA Stage 4 – and they don’t know what comes next.

I suspected something was amiss when the computer caught a case of hiccups and invited me in for a six-monthly review – 3 times in two months.  Today, Aseem put in a workaround which will shunt me off to service provider #4.  He didn’t say for how long: except that it was pending the government’s new initiative.  They said that last October.

What happens next Monday:

98% certainty-

• I have an induction session with service provider #4.
• They will ask everybody if they have brought a cv, and I will be the only one.
• We will all be required to take elementary English and number tests….
• …including anyone who has brought along their GCSE / A level certificate.
• I should have an anger management option before Monday.

The only variable, and therefore interesting thing- will be how many computers they have, how much time I get on them, and whether the printer works, if at all.

2% certainty-

• They will be able to pay the cost of my bus fare on the day.

*Excerpt taken from:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/jcp-eia-fnd-stage-management.rtf
Published 23 December 2009

Sleep – are you getting enough?

Sleep is my second favourite subject.  I’ve been practising for years and have it down to a fine art.  I have tested my ideas on that most difficult of test-subjects: the teenager – and on myself in the most dire circumstances – the night before a critical maths exam, when we got stuck on the M4.   If I wake them at the right time, my children wake up happy.

I’d like to rubbish the idea that 8 hours is a good amount of sleep.  8 hours is an average – meaning some people sleep more and some less.  8 hours is not enough for me, but some days it can be too much. 8 hours takes no account of how you feel on waking.

So what is the secret ?

It is really easy to remember: 4, 6 or 9 hours. unbroken. Sleep.
4 hours is enough for the first, critical sleep cycle to complete.
Use this to your advantage if you are feeling sleep-deprived: 4 hours is enough to keep you sane and refreshed.

6 or 9 hours are also good, and once past the first 4 hours it doesn’t matter so much if you wake up briefly.  The graph on wikipedia’s sleep page is here, if you are into that. Waking at the end of a cycle (4, 6 and 9) feels so much easier and energy levels are higher.  Waking in the middle of a cycle – 5, 7 or 8 hours – just means I want to stay in bed a while longer and maybe take a duvet day…z..z…zzz

Another Interview…

Another week, another interview- but there is a big difference this time. I know this interview won’t be cancelled. It is for a work placement and has been arranged for me under Flexible New Deal: a Jobcentre scheme.

I’ve spent a day looking at transport options for a 9am start, made notes, printed off my cv (don’t they see it ahead of time?) and now have only to worry about what to wear.

I don’t possess a suit, so that narrows it down, and anyway wouldn’t a suit be overdressed for a retailer? It’ll be the black trousers, grey silk top, and leather jacket. Footwear is a problem: I can’t wear boots this time, but I must wear a heel with these trousers and my pewter peep toes –which would be perfect- have died. What does that leave?

Oh dear.

What have you been doing since …?

What else do you do?

This is to address that eternal question- What have you been doing since your last position?  Well, Duh! – I’ve been looking for work.  The jobcentre will confirm that each and every day since my most recent employment is fully accounted for.  I have not been detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, I have not left the country and I have not been kidnapped by aliens.   I still get up at 6am and play with computers, but nobody pays me for it: I just haven’t been employed.

I have been adding value for my benefit and the benefit of my tribe: deploying resources and honing skills, optimising finances and cultivating chi.  For those of you who like to pore over details, here’s some:

• Traded shares: 200% profit
• Maths tuition for 15 yr old student at expensive private school
• Cook and First mate on boating holiday(s)
• Investigated and won back £900 in bank fees
• Small-time ebay seller : 100% feedback

• Freelancing: statistical work in MS Excel for a school in Nicaragua
• VBA programming to add features to a mailing list.
• Further training in PowerPoint and Access
• Beta-testing Brainbench tests.
• Proof-reading cvs and resumes

• Boarded out the loft and installed light.
• Wired in a programmable immersion timer
• Decorating for family: including everything at the top of the ladder.
• Designing kitchen.

Yesterday I had a call off a recruiter.  She asked what I’d been doing since my last job finished in January 2008 – and I replied that I’d been looking for work. But this time I also made a mistake – I mentioned the freelance work.

Straight off, she wanted a revised cv showing the freelance work.  Our conversation went downhill rapidly from there, because in no sense does a few days work make a difference to someone out of work for two and half years.  Even if the days were paid.

If you don’t place unemployed persons, don’t call me- we have nothing to talk about.  If recruiters are to be  believed, even 2 weeks is too much for a gap in employment (so best not take that holiday…)  But before you go, you should also know why I was offered the contract at D&B – they wanted me for the skills I used ten years earlier.  Now that’s a gap.

Playing with Tag Cloud

I have been having fun at http://tagcrowd.com/

I used the text of my summary on my Linked In profile to generate the tag cloud you see here (above).      I am thinking of using this idea to check the first part of my cv, and I will be checking out tagcloud.com too as soon as it is back.

What do you think ?

What does your tag cloud say about you ?