Hi there, Readers! I hope that you are coping well if you happen to be burdened with multiple sanctions like me. This is my way of coping. I have some news that I am going to share with you in another update! Now I am going to conclude my terminology regarding the personality types that you can expect to find at your JCP! WITH GRACE Last night I showed you 'Tricky Vicky' and 'Dim Tim'. If you are still not convinced about the legitimacy of my terminology then you never will be, and frankly, I don't care! This, the second part of my two-part documentary of sorts is to let you understand who and what you are dealing with at your JCP. These characterizations may seem obvious and therefore unnecessary but I have seen way too many people who have allowed themselves to get wound up to the point where they have snapped and, as a consequence, been banned from their JCP. It is truly an awful thing to witness, men and women ejected out of their JCP with the help of security. Terrible! If you know the type of personality that you are dealing with then you will understand how to best defeat him or her. The last thing you want to do is to let a work coach get the better of you. Sure, some of these so-called work coaches deserve a slap or two but violence and/or cursing out the nasty work coach will only backfire on you. So, do not do it! Here are some more characters... AGGRAVATING KEVIN In a nutshell, an Aggravating Kevin is someone who, like Tricky Vicky, is looking to pick holes in anything you say. Look, Tricky Vicky is stupid and she is incapable of following anything you say which makes her dangerous because she will interpret what you say in ways that you would have never imagined. What Aggravating Kevin will try to do is to twist your words and make out you have stated something contrary; he tries to make you contradict yourself. He's trying to confuse you which in turns cause an imbalance and could leave you open for exploitation. What Aggravating Kevin tries to do is to derail anything that makes whatever he says inert. You can make any work coaches bullshit inert by sticking to cold hard logic. You just can't beat cold hard logic. Knowing this, Aggravating Kevin tries his best to get under your skin by twisting your words and saying that you said something completely different to what you know you have said. He's trying you make you second guess yourself. The way in which he gets most people is that he will sit there listening to you for the most part and then as you have obliterated anything he has to say he then interjects with, "Oh, but you said something else!" Like it is going to make a huge difference if you did anyway. This can confuse you... You may then start to think, "Huh? Maybe I didn't put my point across clearly..." No. You did. You were clear as a bell. The objectivity here is to make you doubt yourself, you start to feel confused and this confusion could then make you feel embarrassed and from being made to feel small you become aggressive to make your point. And that's when Aggravating Kevin has got you! Game Over! Aggravating Kevin and Tricky Vicky are certainly ones to record on video or on audio. You have to record them as these people are so, so very slippery. I say, record the lot of them if you are able. Make a documentary out of the recordings. These people need to be exposed. Let me interject some... REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE As you should know through following my updates, I had a Tricky Vicky for a work coach. When I refused to play Tricky Vicky's game she would then get other work coaches and line manager to sit in on the meeting. What you may find - should this happen to you - is that the guest work coach is there to backup the other. While, on the other hand, the line manager is there to see if you have a point or points for objecting to your work coach. What happened to me on my last meeting with my former Tricky Vicky is that she invited Aggravating Kevin to sit in on the meeting and this was primarily because the line manager was going to sit in but was unavailable at the time. Both Tricky Vicky and Aggravating Kevin were very, very easy to deal with because I stuck to cold hard logic. Tricky Vicky, on occasion, used her emotions to attempt to contradict my thread or threads but she couldn't do it on the account that she is not very intelligent. It also doesn't help that she is unable to listen. It was a little amusing watching her crumble under the weight of her own stupidity. And Aggravating Kevin sat there in agreement for the most part as he knows that the system is a load of crap. But Aggravating Kevin is not paid to sit there in passive agreement. Uh-uh! No! Towards the end, he tried pulling me up on the way I worded something as though it really mattered. I wasn't having it. I have to admit that I was momentarily stunned but when you stick to cold hard logic you find your way again. I was and still am right over the matters that we discussed. Fortunately, I recorded the whole meeting on a dictaphone. I may release the recording at some point. So, when dealing with an Aggravating Kevin you must remain calm. Again, he gets to you by remaining calm for the most part and he could be passively agreeing with you with is body language such as facial expression and the nodding of his head in the affirmative to what you are saying. Now, it could be that he can sympathize but that's not what he is paid to do. So, you think that you are getting somewhere with this guy until he pulls, "Oh, but that's not what you said a moment ago..." Forget it! Don't rise to it. Just say something along the lines of, "You weren't paying attention, mate. You are very bad at listening. Would you like me to speak slower?" He'll crumble! Tell Aggravating Kevin that you have got him on video and he'll crap his pants! CALLOUS KAREN Callous Karen is practically a combination of Tricky Vicky and Aggravating Kevin. She's a bit sharper than Tricky Vicky and not as clever as Aggravating Kevin. She's very cowardly as she'll verbally attack those who she feels won't put up a protest i.e. foreigners. I have heard Callous Karen chewing some foreign woman out and calling her a liar and within earshot of others in the room. She won't do that with UK born natives. What she does is, also, to look for ways in which to trip you up. For example, she'll try and tell you that what you are doing for work activity isn't enough or that she would like to have access to your email account that you have used to log into the Universal Jobmatch site. This request is seriously messed up! She's carrying on like Gestapo. In fact, if you create an email specifically for your Universal Jobmatch site and/or to apply for jobs then this may not be such a bad idea. But if you are using a personal email account then you have to remind her about the law on privacy. Having stated that this Tory Snoopers Charter has come into effect and perhaps they will try and access your private email account anyway! In the meantime, just tell Callous Karen that you will not agree to her having access to the following:- 01. Your email account. Unless you have made a specific email account that you use to look for work do not give in to this request to have access to your email account. In hindsight, I wished that I had created a specific email account for the purpose of job searching as my email account gets so much spam it is unbelievable. 02. Your online job agencies. She has no right to look into your list of online agencies. You don't even have to let her access your Universal Jobmatch account! They ask you to access this account voluntarily. Again, I wished that I had never agreed to let Tricky Vicky access my Universal Jobmatch account as I got the feeling that she would only scan for reasons to say that she has a doubt by using the royal "we" and you are heading to sanction city before you know it. Callous Karen will try, like Tricky Vicky and Aggravating Kevin, will try to get under your skin by calling everything you are doing to look for work into question. She is very vocal and can get aggressive. She speaks confidently but 99% of what she is saying is pretty stupid. At one point I had both Tricky Vicky and Callous Karen who was a nonsilent witness. She was trying to tell me things that did not make any sense and I just tuned her voice out. In the end, I took no notice of her. I should have recorded that meeting! How to deal with Callous Karen... The best way to deal with Callous Karen is to not take her seriously. You know that you are doing things the right way because there is no other way! You look for work and do other work related activities such as looking for prospective employers, editing your CV, writing some covering letters and so on. She tries to pick holes in your activities in a bid to make you feel small and that you are not doing enough. I think Callous Karen hope that you will be sick of her bullying enough to get just about any job going - even if you are overqualified for it! Either that or you decide to catch a train to the next town with your body. I have known one person who decided to let a train rip his legs off; he bled out. And I have seen a ripped up body on a railway line where I used to live. When you have problems they can weigh you down and you just want to get rid of that weight. Or you become so very tired that you want to sleep and never wake up! I have known too many people who have taken their lives. DO NOT DO IT! YOU DESERVE TO LIVE! HANG IN THERE! I would like to leave you with a couple of good characters in the JCP! KEEP IT SIMPLE SUSAN I love Keep It Simple Susan - I could kiss her! Did you see what I did there? Ha ha! Anyway, Keep It Simple Susan is on your side - for the most part! What she wants is to see that you are making the effort to do the things that have been asked of you i.e. 35 hours per week work activity as described earlier. As long as she can see that you are making the effort she'll have no problems with you! However, if you think she is a soft touch and you try to make a fool out of her... Keep It Simple Susan will throw you under the bus without thinking about it. It is very simple, it is her or you. She's not going to stick her neck out for you if she thinks that you are messing her about. If you get caught out trying to pass of last week's work activity for the following week's activity she will let you know about it. If you are lucky she will give you one warning and one warning only. If you are unlucky and she is a bad mood, you can expect a "concern" followed by a sanction notice that will most likely come into effect. I think you know what to do with Keep It Simple Susan, right? What? I have to tell you??? Okay! Just ensure that you are recording your 35-hour a week work activity. Even if you do not use the Universal Jobmatch to record all your work activity, for reasons best known to yourself, you must be able to show what you have done for the weeks you have been looking for work. It is 5 hours per day and you really can't go wrong. So, make the effort! ROCKSTEADY EDDIE Now, this guy is a no nonsense man. He won't take crap from you and he won't take crap from his peers. This guy is a dying breed. Again, like Keep It Simple Susan, all you have to do is to ensure that you are able to show your work activity. What I love about Rocksteady Eddie is that he will take is co-workers to task if their work is substandard. He will chew them out! He can't understand, if he has to make a call to another department, why the person at the other end of the line can't make any sense. He can't understand why he can't just talk to one person who knows what he or she is doing. Rocksteady Eddie knows that the system is crap and unfair and he will fight on your behalf - only if you are able to show that you are genuinely helping yourself. Rocksteady Eddie is a rebel with a cause! He's dying breed because you know that the DWP would let someone like him go. Or, because of the complete and utter diabolical evil meted out to the clientele, he'll quit out of principle. Good on him! CONCLUSION These are your basic characters and you should be more aware of the methods that are used upon you. Once you take the time to study the characters you will become adept at knowing how to avoid their traps. The sad thing is that most of them think that they are more intelligent than you just because they are sitting at a table with a computer in front of them; they think that it gives them the right to look down through their noses at you. NO! Anyone can do their job! Being a work coach for the JCP, as it is today, requires absolutely no qualifications. Well, that's it! I hope you enjoyed this one! I also hope that you do not fall for their mind games. These people have a quota to meet and some of them are downright nasty and unscrupulous to meet that quota. Another thing to remember! Keep records of any written notification, emails, etc as these elements can help you to win a tribunal. You must not be intimidated to think that they have the final say! No! You can continue to fight the DWP/JCP crap in a tribunal. I think I will do an update on the subject of tribunals when I get the time! Stay tuned!