Been offered a job in London but really frustrating locations. It's two days at the Westfield Shopping Centre (White City), then two days at Bluewater, near Dartford and alternating as such.

It's minimum wage (£6.50/hour) and hours are roughly 9am to 11pm. I need to find somewhere to live where I can commute to both. Presumably by public transport to Westfield (congestion charge + parking problems) and by car to Dartford.

Extra travelling expenses are out of the question, and the owner of the company says unless I'm prepared to do this the chance of a full-time job at either location is out of the question. I can't do anything to jeopardise this job.

I'm at my wits end and pleading for help from someone who knows London better than me!

1) Bloody hell!!

2) I didnt know anyone worked for minimum wage in London

3) Does working from 9am to 11pm fit the EWTD?

4) Westfield is on the Central Line so head off East young man

5) I would hate to be on the M25 near the Dartford crossing during the rush hour for your Bluewater days

6) why exactly does this job mean so much?

Good luck!

Does working from 9am to 11pm fit the EWTD?

Not unless its a different time the nest day – you must have 11 hrs off between shifts and you cannot opt out of that ( well some very rare circumstances you can)

What the hell is this job. You could always get a similarly paid job in tescos.

Bloody hell + 1.

I reckon in the interests of sanity and cost of living you'll have to get somewhere close to Bluewater, and on the south side of the river. Near a train station. You can cycle to Bluewater quite easily if you pick your location right, it's on one of the sustrans routes, which could save some dosh. If you're working late at Westfield, you'll need to make sure you can get a train back home too.

Good luck.

any job that has you working 14 hours a day is one that gets thrown in the bin. That way leads insanity.

Oh hang on, that's what I do.

i would op for some where near a DLR station possibly in essex.

that part of london is not my area so i cant tell you where i would live.#

sorry,

That is seriously shit. I think you would do better to tell em to stick it and find something else. It isn't usually difficult to find minimum wage jobs in London.

The only way I'd do that is if it was for a temp amount of time only and was guaranteed to lead to a good job in a field I wanted to work in.

Since living in Dartford and train/tubing it to White City is out (you'd never get home from a late shift) you need to look at living next to the central line but near the M25 etc.

I recommend Woodford/Woodford Green, never been there & no idea if it is posh or a dump! As it's Zone 4 hopefully the Oyster fares wouldn't kill you either.

jack it in before you start would be my advice.

Get a different job, move out of the country or else you are deep in the smelly brown stuff.
Westfield, ok to ride to but Dartford sucks as a commuter area. You won't find affordable accommodation in-between either.
Don't envy you one bit, good luck!

I'd also go with telling them where they can stick their job.

If there's really some reason you *have* to take this job, I'd look at some of the cheaper areas SE and inside the M25 (say Abbey Wood, Bexleyheath – not the nicest of areas, but I'm figuring budget isn't high). Should make cycling to either location a possibility. Central line to get to Westfield by 9am will just be grim.

At the interview I was told it would be full-time at Dartford and £7.50/hr…

Hopefully it will lead to a full-time position at one or the other which is why I've agreed to this for a short while. I think it's actually going to cost me money to work there in December and if it looks like going nowhere will jack it in after Christmas.

Thanks for the advice, will look into it. It would be easily manageable based at one or the other, but the shuttling in between seems impossible.

Nightshift in Tescos pays abouts 8.50/hr.You have to work yer ass of though.One of our guys took home £1100/month working six days.

Still interested to know what this amazing job is!

I was getting more than that for putting little bottles in boxes last Christmas!

Well, emailed the boss today and set out exactly how much money I would lose (about £40/day, rail fares take the piss) and begged him to find someone else for the days in Westfield.

Also pointed him to the London "living" wage of £7.20/hr, and said I'd already worked for free on a trial week. I have a feeling I'm going to get the sack by return email, but can't see any alternatives.

So, farewell STW Jobless Club – and probably "hello" again tomorrow. First person ever to be sacked before starting work. Thanks to everyone for the advice. 🙂

Not sure but the prison service (NOMS) may still be short of staff down there. Pays a canny bit more than MW. Check it out, you could do worse.

I made the mistake of taking a job that involved a lot of travelling. At the time i didnt own a car and it was split shifts. 10am-3pm, 7pm-10pm. I worked out pretty quickly that i could almost get home on the bus, but would literally have to cross the road to get the next bus back to work. The job wasn't what i expected either so I said bye, i'd say you need not to take this job!
DHSS were a pain as i "left a perfectly good job", took me ages going back and forth to explain I would have 8 hours a day in which to have a life in (including sleep) and they actually agreed.

http://governmentjobsdirect.co.uk/

I suppose they'll think someone will be desperate enough to take it in these troubled times, almost the 'Will work for food' thing.

£6.50 minimum wage? That's a promotion mate!

From hmrc.gov…

"What are the current rates of the national minimum wage?"

£5.80 per hour for workers aged 22 years and older

a development rate of £4.83 per hour for workers aged 18-21 inclusive

£3.57 per hour for all workers under the age of 18, who are no longer of compulsory school age

I thought I'd point this out, as no-one so far seemed to be aware. Many people in London live on this, so it's hardly surprising that a lot of people would prefer to remain on one of the lowest benefit payouts in western Europe instead.

You know, looking at tfl.gov.uk (out of idle curiosity) that could be worse.

From Shepherd's Bush/Westfield to Bluewater takes a little north of 2 hours. If you found a flat near London Bridge station you'd be not too horrendous to get to either place – an hour's commute each way each day (give or take). That's not out of the ordinary, although as others have said you hours are completely mental.

I am pretty sure you could get somewhere within sane distance of London Bridge that wasn't crazy-expensive, although it is many years since I tried looking for accommodation on minimum wage.

Good luck, anyhow. 🙂

Get another rubbish shop job closeby but I do admire your work ethic.

scooter?

Sacked. Can't wait to explain this to the drone at the Job Centre.

For what reason ? Suggesting you were going to lose money ?

How come you worked a week for free ? Are you on benefits ?

How can they just sack you? Surely there has to be a formal system of written warnings / evidance of gross misconduct.

Just sacking you for enquiring if you can arrange your employment to the job laid out in the interview.

I dont think OP means sack I think he means not taken on.

To be honest it sounds as if the manager of this place is trying to get work done for free by taking on job seekers free for a week. Then suggesting some impossible arrangement ie long hours + massive commute.

On the other hand if the people do pass the test, he'll either have broken their spirit or they had no spirit to begin with and he can just get them to work even harder and walk all over them.

Blessing in disguise Chap.

ok its work but that isnt an existance

I understand you need money but anywhere that didnt trust me enough to do a payed trial (for a min wage job )would be told to spin. They are taking you for a ride buddy.

Reckon you'd be better in a McJob than that one… seriously at least there's a clear route of progression, etc…

Aldi pay £10 / hour (after a few months, they start off at about £8). They work their staff hard but they're paid well. Plus the stores are pretty much all over the place.

Your almost-boss sounds like he's just time-warped out of Victorian London. You can find them!

I myself was once treated similarly as a car delivery driver for a firm in west London. They gave everyone an unregulated number of cars each day that usually involved getting up at 5am and getting home near midnight.

I once failed to deliver one on time that broke down and he made a big thing about someone else having to do my last delivery and gave me a load of old boIIocks about 'letting down the team'.

I told him that it wouldn't happen again and it didn't …. I left the firm that night!

Name and shame the company Boss!

Get to bluewater and get another job that is there full time, I did a few years there when I was younger and they will be crying out for people to work from now until the end of January. I sold bonsai trees for a living there at one point but I dont think that shop is there anymore.

Get a house-share in Stone or Swanscombe for 2 months and you can walk/ride to work. Xmas traffic around bluewater is a joke

Good lord, the commute was the worst of your worries there mate.

Best of luck with the jobhunting.

Whats this guys name and where can he be found, I'll go ruffle his collar next time i'm near bluewater. there is no need to treat people like this and he's getting a kick from his control of you.

More and more industies seem to be offering internships which is absolute bollox should be stopped, i have seen internships which would require a huge level of skill. do not work for free.

I'll name and shame mine – Ace Car Deliveries of Stonebridge Park. Can't remember bosses name, Mr Twunt or something! 8)

When I worked at a jobcentre we were advised to promote the "worktrial" bollocks. When I suggested scenarios of the nature the OP described, I was told it would never happen…end of.

I did not promote "worktrials".

The problem is that there is a whole generation of willing slaves who know no better putting other young and unskilled people out of a chance of getting that job, and an older age group profiting off the free labour promoting the message that if you are not willing to work for free you are "lazy".

If it were "work for dole" it would at least be honest, (and eventually no-one would have a job, if you think about it).