Adventures in Digitisation
Apparently I'm an archivist now. (Heads up - prefaced by a lengthy and slightly sweary Job Centre Plus rant)
The last while has been tough for me financially, that's no lie. Some belt tightening at my main job meant that overtime was, for a good while, thin on the ground. It has picked up in the last couple of months, but we're heading for summer vacation soon, and I'm not sure how that will pan out for me hours wise. At the end of January this year, the DWP very sneakily upped the monthly earnings threshold for working Universal Credit claimants from £484 to £617, meaning that if my wages from my current job are below said threshold I still have to go in for appointments with them once a week to make on that I'm looking for work. I got caught out with this back in January when I had no overtime pay, which meant a job centre appointment in late February following the payment of my UC for that month, which was when I found out about the threshold change. Thankfully February’s pay was over the threshold and I reported this to them when my payslip that month went live, so I was off the hook once again, but I am now endeavouring to not have a repeat of the situation because I really dislike going anywhere near the Job Centre. The so-called ‘work coaches’ are not in fact there to help you find work - frankly they should really just rename them the ‘welfare police’, because that’s more accurate to what they are. Going there for appointments - which could really be a phone call to be honest - is always a soul destroying and deeply unpleasant experience, and it definitely causes my anxiety to flare when I have to go, because even when they aren’t trying they can just make you feel like complete shit. The fact that the appointments have to be weekly now instead of fortnightly is also a massive joke, especially when there’s an online portal where you are expected to report back on job searches, applications, interviews and just general circumstances. I know a lot of people are of the attitude that it’s ‘free money’ and that we should be grateful we have a welfare system - well, I have a problem with the idea that someone has the power to sanction said ‘free money’ and withhold it from claimants, given the utter chaos this can cause to someone, especially if they have no other income apart from their benefits. Much like the NHS, the welfare system is fine when it works, is looked after properly and can take care of those its meant to, but the Tories have been dismantling the NHS since they came in and they’re doing damage at the DWP too. It’s also odd to me how it’s apparently acceptable to slag off the NHS when they fuck up, but not so the DWP. I have to say, there’s nothing more likely to turn you to socialism than having to experience time at a Job Centre.
“But Hannah,” I hear you ask, “what does this have to do with archives?”
You might well ask.
A couple of months ago, a fellow member of the Aberdeen poetry scene reached out to me with an opportunity. Some time ago, she had taken on the chance to digitise and catalogue the archive of a certain conservation charity in Aberdeenshire (whom I’m reluctant to name for just now but will eventually perhaps). However, she is now undertaking a full time paralegal traineeship and effectively no longer had the time to devote to the archive post, so the charity asked her if she knew anyone else suitable and she thought of me. It was a chance at extra experience in a field I’m keen to work in (apart from the writing of course), it offered a good pay rate, it can mostly be done from home, and it’s a pretty big task so it’ll keep me in work for a while. After she’d introduced me to the chairman, I got set up with a login and then I went out to Inverurie - where they’re based - to be shown the ropes and sent home with the first set of folders to be scanned, digitised, and added to the online catalogue. This was a little over a week ago at the time of writing this, and I’ve managed to get a complete folder done, as well as some scans my predecessor had done but not managed to upload yet. There is still a filing cabinet and a half’s worth of stuff to complete, and I guess it’s likely that, unless I have a change in circumstances, it’ll keep me going work wise for a while yet.
I may eventually share the name of the charity I’m working for now in due course, but for now I’m quite happy just to be working on this project and to have something else to fill my days with and to live on.