TUS Programme - Cannot find an answer

dodzy wrote: »

very dramatic indeed.

Just out of interest, why don't you want to do it? And why the hell would you even consider signing off as an option? The placement will in no way impact on your job searching. You get a job, you then walk away. No obligation to complete the programme once you have secured employment.

It may be dramatic to you but I suppose how different people react to different things is only relative to each person and I am finding it very stressful. I haven't heard from them this week.

I don't want to do it for a few reasons. I was particularly annoyed that I was hassled about it less than 8 months after losing my job when there are people that are unemployed for years and never seem to do anything. I qualified for it because my hours were reduced before I was made redundant so I was on casual dockets for a while before becoming fully unemployed.

I had a lot of personal problems after I lost my job in the run up to Christmas and I didn't get all that sorted until the beginning of February. I was looking for work all that time and I couldn't even get any temporary Christmas work.

For the first time since losing my job I've had a plan as to what I want to do in the future. I had filled out a CAO application to return to college full-time in September and I have paid deposits on 3 courses throughout the summer ranging from 6 weeks on one to a couple of weekends on another, trying to up skill myself so that I can increase my chances of work when I go back to college and for the summers in between.

I wanted to try and get as much in as I could throughout the summer before I returned to college. I have applied for several summer temp jobs albeit part-time as well. Something is going to have to be surrendered if I'm pushed into this 19.5 hour placement.

You can only leave a TUS placement if you secure full-time work, so my chances of gaining part-time employment are virtually nil as most of the temp jobs are in retail and that always requires full flexibility in working hours to cover summer holidays.

I just suppose I felt settled in my head for the first time in ages as to what I was going to do, how I was going to do it and how I was going to afford to do it and then this comes up and fecks up the whole lot. The courses are in different parts of the country and require a lot of travel, the thoughts of racing back to fit in 19.5 hours for TUS is wrecking my head. I'd do it for a paid job, where I'd have a foot in the door and feel worthwhile but for TUS I don't feel the same way.

They just nodded when I was talking and basically said I would have to do it regardless, I left feeling very stressed and deflated and I feel everything is up in the air now.

When I referred to signing off for a few weeks, I meant it so that I could do the above without being hassled but that will put me in a very hard place financially.

I don't know how students go off travelling for a couple of weeks every summer with no support, even when I was working I barely had enough to cover my expenses, the thoughts of having to support myself on virtually nothing for a few weeks is not worth thinking about really.