APM

 APM is a job network profiteer provider.

As an artist the dole has been both support and hindrance through my working life.  I went onto the NEIS program, a small biz startup program in early 2020, signing on after a 3 month course (provided, but of course,  by the same outfit who had shunted me into the program through shifty manoeuvres, lies, and breaches of the socialk security guidelines they supposedly are bound by, written up el)as speculation mounted as to when a pandemic would be declared.

I was bounced without warning or apparent justification from that program(and cut off benefit entirely as my claim was marked 'completed' early in the NSW lockdown in July. I'd beenfulfilling the requirements - to work on and promote a set of big landscapes.

Which brings us to APM. Now we are 'living with COVID" the job network has been finding all the unattached Newstart recipients(ah, the Orwellian jargon of Centrelink, cachink) and I have been attached to them.

Its not hard to see what the primary purpose of this business is when the phone answers with the joyfilled house psalm "if the reason you are calling is that your Services Australia payment has been suspended and you need to make an appointment to be reconnected, press 1 now" oh wow what a fake-happy advertising voice that apparently female robot has, I think I'll hang up and call back to listen a few more times.

So I did my first appointment with JJ on the phone, my nickname from when I was 6 (Goodtimes!) and then texted "Approved" to the parcel of coercive documentsemails they laughingly call a contract, as directed. I couldn't help but send an extra reply asking if they were Alan Tudge's work, given he was minister at the time he was having an erm, allegedly abusive and unequal relationship with his spokesperson, and I'd love to see a court rule these things weren't coercive and abusive also.

So I've been cut off and must ring them back and then straightaway press 1 (oh yes!). I think I'll put it off for a day or so while I get a thing or 2 done. Of course right now a bit of paid not-work has come in, a commission worth a month of dole and also a couple of smaller things. But because they're art commissions, and not 'work' they likely will stand for nothing and actually I'll have to jump extra hoops for having the audacity. At least not being employers they can'yt demand their identity so they can't ring and harass them. The one time I did let them know about a small mural I was doing while up the coast visiting my daughter, I'd regularly got a few hundred $ from the former head of Nambucca Chamber of Commerce who'd rattle the tin around local businesses to pay various artists to brighten up the town. After the dole or job network called him I never heard from him again. 

 

The outcome of all this is that I have picked up a recorded breach because I had not made 20 job applications through their online form in the first 2 days I was connected to this outfit. Old mate JJ immediately and apologetically reconnected me but the record of a breach remains(which brings us back to the purpose of the business . Are there quotas? Do the staff receive breach and churn bonuses? Or just the management and shareholders?)

So my next contact with these disreputable jokers is supposed to be today, 22 december '21, at 9am. Because of the omicron outbreak(I suppose) I got 2 notifications yesterday for 2 interviews at the same time today, one in Burwood, and one by phone. So how's that? Breach guaranteed! A nice earner for the damned.

They didn't call me at the designated time of 9 am so after a few minutes I rang the number in the notification.

Hooray!

Back to "if the reason you are calling is that your Services Australia payment has been suspended and you need to make an appointment to be reconnected, press 1 now". By now I am well aware of the purpose of this foreign owned business(who donate to both major parties. The price of entry in this sector! Thou shalt donate to the Liberal party)

All other calls press some other number to land in a secondary menu and queue(ie what kind of prospectively cut-off Services Australia beneficiary are you?). After joining the Newstart queue and listening to some horribly distorted cheese music for 5 minutes I was informed that all phone operators are busy, leave my details and they may call back. 

so 2 breaches near guaranteed....?

Or maybe not, I got a cancellation text around the time of my 2nd attempted call, an hour after the scheduled time, "sorry for any inconvenience". Same to you!

If I wasn't wasting my time thinking about this I might be painting! On this Parliament of Birds for example or the large street view I'm about to get started with.