i have had two lots of being unemployed in my life, once i ruptured achilles tendon and was in plaster for a year, my work let me go, the 2nd time was sort of my fault, i got job that i was not happy in, on the side i started doing life coaching and studying to be a teacher, then something happpen, i was doing the washing up and cut my finger very badly, I was off work for 12 weeks and during this time i finished my training, i was sure i world be working for myself in a few weeks and put in for my police checks, my first day back at my old job i told them to stick it (well not in them words)
what happend then was a bit of a fuck up. found out that i had put in for the wrong police checks and a few other things had gone wrong, like not takers for the life coaching, i had to sign on at the job center, i started to look for work and had lots of inteviwes but was always told i was not what they were looking for as i had been a manger in all my job and i would ger fed up there.
this lasted for about 30 weeks, i had started to get a bit of work in but had to tell them how much i was getting for it and they took it off me.
then i worked out that if i was self employed and working over 16 hoyrs a week as long as i done my NI i would be able to ger working tax credit, this is what i have done, i knew there was no point in trying to get work as there was none and i would have to do it all the hard way by myself, 2 years on and things have got a lot better i now teach anger management self esteem and confidence and things like that, i also do Cogntive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and the funny thing is i now work with the job center sometimes to help bulid self esteem and confidence in persons that have been out of work for a long time.
right now thins are a bit slow and money is short but i will not give in , there is not much work out there right now but i am going to try and see if i can work in a few prisons anger management , they can not keep me full time as it will cost them too much but even if i get in there for 2 hours a week then thats more money coming in, i work in places like Mind and in schools.
over the years friends have taken the piss out of me for being out of work but they never tried to understand why, even now i feel some of them dont think i work as i seem to always be at home during the day (my hours are all over the place and might only work 3 hours a day , but thats ok for how much i cost lol).