The "lie book"
Anyone who has been on benefits in the last ten years will know of the "lie book".

For those of you who have not had this charming experience, each fortnight when you drag yourself out of bed early in the afternoon and cadge a lift to your local benefit office to sign on, you must, and I repeat MUST have with you your "lie book", or "jobseekers diary" to give it it's formal title.

It's not that all we lost ones who must sign on are lazy, sponging dole cadgers. Some of us do try dilligently to find work, carefully noting down each effort and it's outcome..... but I've found myself in limbo. I start college in about 6 weeks, and plan to restart my old self employed job on a smaller scale so as to work my way through..... however, I cannot start work until I receive my trading license. I'm therefore in a position of having to look for work whilst waiting for my work to begin.

So I should be free and clear of the lie book within the month, but until then I have to think of as many ways as possible to write "Read the paper - there were no jobs".
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Mon 14 Jul 2008, 17:24, 3 replies)

When I was on the dole, most of my 'lie book' entries were 'Applied to x jobs on Monster'.

( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Mon 14 Jul 2008, 23:08, closed)

I check in on the jobcentre website
or at least I did before I was sure where I was going, which made looking at the machines when I went in pointless. No matter how many times I attempted to explain this, I would get "but you're meant to come in 10 minutes early and check the machines". I ended up relenting and just saying I had checked them.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Tue 15 Jul 2008, 0:29, closed)

AH yes. I remember the lie book.
You're lucky that you get up "early in the afternoon" to sign on. When I was on the dole in Dundee I had to sign on at stupid o clock in the morning. And as I was out of work, I was living on American time. This meant that I often didn't go to bed til 10 or 11 am on signing on days. Which to me worked out around signing on at 3am and getting to bed at 4 or 5 in the morning. The Job Centre monkeys were not best pleased with my tiredness. I wasn't best pleased with their attitude. Got even worse when I moved back to Shetland. Signing on was still at 9. Only now I couldn't just walk ten minutes down the road. Had to get a bus at 8.30, sign on, and then hang around til the next bus at 12 :S Soooooo glad I got a job now.
(Teran Thinks Pogonophobia is funny, Tue 15 Jul 2008, 11:18, closed)