Wednesday 18 January 2012

First Meeting Of The Year.

I know that today is Wednesday and that normally means a "Wordless Wednesday" post, but seeing as i haven't exactly been on the ball with my posts over the last few weeks/months i have decided to scrap that for the time being unless i come across a picture that is really a show stopper, but instead i thought that today i could write about how my first meeting with the Job Centre went after the whole Job Coach thing was over and done with.


Let me just start of by saying that i didn't expect the meeting to go that well, infact you could say i was rather nervous about the whole idea of going to see my point of contact at the local job centre or Arbetsförmedlingen as it's called here in Sweden, i'm not sure why but i think it possibly has something to do with that if you recall i wrote about when the Job Coaching ended that we would be meeting after the New Year period. Well as most of you know for Christmas i got a new mobile phone and i decided that since the company i was with was doing a special deal at the Christmas period (getting 1 year free internet if you were a new customer) i decided that after 5 years i would change my mobile number, so i contacted my Job Coach to inform her that i had used her as a reference for 4 jobs that i had recently applied to and that i had changed both my e-mail and my mobile number and still after nearly 2 weeks i have not heard anything from her.
So i half expected that she wrote me a bad review, although for the life of me i wouldn't know why because i thought the whole experience went really well at least from my end it did, but you never know with some people and i thought that was possibly the reason for her ignoring me. It turns out though that it was not the reason for her ignoring my e-mail and text messages as the review i was given was quite positive with the only downside being that i didn't have a drivers licence and that i should try and obtain one when i gained employment, something i had already planned on doing so god knows why she would write that. But anyways i have no idea in the world why she is ignoring me, but i have given up trying to get in contact with her as it seems futile.

But back to the Job Centre appointment, that in itself went really well in my opinion. We have now discussed the possibility if i want to, to go and take a Administration course so that i am able to get a qualification. In all honesty i don't think i need it since i was in Administration/Customer Service for almost 7 years and i know the type of work like the back of my hand, but i guess it is something that would A) get me out of the house and around other Swedish people which is never a bad thing, and B) give me something new on my CV and something that has come from Sweden and not the UK.
So after a small discussion with Marie and getting her point of view on it, we have decided that it would not be the end of the world if i did it, and while i am on the course there is nothing stopping me looking for any work or a Praktikplats (Practice Work) as they call it in Sweden.

Other than that everything was kind of the same, she showed me some other aspects of Arbetsförmedlingen that could help me find work, so i now have them to look at and i have been instructed that i must contact them at least once in March just to let them know how everything is going and to see if there is anything else they can help me with, but it seems quite positive. I think the thing i like about the Job Centre here is the fact that i don't have to go in every 2 weeks to say "Hello, i'm still alive" although at the same time it's a bit better that way, mainly for the fact you are able to speak to someone there and they do a quick search for jobs for you etc. But i like the laid back way of Sweden, i mean it's not like i ain't looking for work or anything like that because i am but it's still nice to have the job centre giving you a kick up the ass every once in a while if you know what i mean.

But everything is looking good, i have found 2 new jobs that are up that i can apply to, so in total that will be 6 jobs in the space of 2 weeks which is pretty good going since right now with it being January and the start of the new year there is not many companies looking for anyone, but hopefully that will pick up, and soon enough companies will be looking for summer workers, which isn't the best and is quite hard to get into since they normally just take the people they have had before but at least it's something and gives me a little extra bit of money seeing as i don't get any right now.

So i think that is everything, it was quite positive i feel so i'm not that upset although i had images of me coming home to write a rant post like no other but unfortunately for you it went well, so you don't get to read me screaming about this and that! Although that may happen tomorrow as i have to take the twins into town for their check up at the dentist and seeing as i am definitely not a morning person the thought of getting the twins up and out the door and on a train by 07:30 just doesn't seem all that fun to me, but that's a new post for tomorrow! So until next time have a great day folks! 

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