I was signing every fortnight as usual and applying for many jobs and even attended a session at the Jobcentre similar to a job club.  At my most recent signing my work coach mentioned that Amazon have a number of Christmas jobs at their warehouse in Swansea.  So I let her put my name down to attend on Monday 24^th October.  She told me that six people had already signed up to attend.  On Monday I was a few minutes early for the 10am appointment and I was called in to the room at the Charles St Jobcentre roughly fifteen minutes later with another guy.  Just two of us and immediately the lady working for Transline who do the recruitment for Amazon gave a load of paperwork to complete.  We had not been given any details regarding the job or whether we could access public transport to attend any shifts that we might end up on.  I didn’t want to ask any questions but as she didn’t mention anything I thought that I had better check on a few details.  I asked about access to the Amazon warehouse in Swansea via public transport from Cardiff and she informed me that Transline provide a coach from Greyfriars Road at £8 return a day direct to the warehouse so that was good news.  The job is over four days and for 40 hours a week at £7.35p an hour for the day shift and of course more for the night shift.   Working a four day week with three days off does appeal to me so I was interested.  As a single guy I was thinking that after the £32 a week bus fares it would leave me with around £228 a week and taking into account my jobseekers allowance, rent and council tax it wouldn’t be a bad temporary job and if I worked the night shift then it would be even better.  The lady from Transline confirmed to me that we would have to leave our personal possessions in our lockers while we worked at Amazon.  We would be able to take the locker key with us while we worked the ten hour shifts but would have to keep our mobile phones,debit cards and even our home keys in our lockers.  I mentioned that if our lockers were broken into and our home keys were taken that could cause a lot of stress but she suggested that it’s never been a concern before so she saw no problem.  She then suggested that if I am that concerned then maybe this might not be the right opportunity for me.   That statement by her made me realise that I had been asking  too many questions and she was trying to put the thought into my mind so that I wouldn’t apply.   I asked a few more questions and was told that the pay was paid into the bank every Friday and that the first day of starting at Amazon is mainly spent on induction and they pay you for five hours at £7.35 an hour.  I guess that is paid after a week alongside the other three days you work that week.  It appears you need at least one reference and when I said that I didn’t have one she suggested that my work coach might give me a reference.  I didn’t think she would but I agreed to go upstairs and ask her.  The guy who was sitting quietly in the room had a few language problems and when the lady from Transline became aware that he would not be able to read the health and safety regulations on an induction at Amazon she told him that she couldn’t process his application so off he went.  That just left me so I stated that I would apply and so I started looking through the paperwork.  The top page is where you write in all your personal details and even bank account details before they even offer you the job.  They even have a place to put your mothers maiden name.  They don’t need that to pay your wages into the bank.  You also have to accept that Amazon will have the right to disclose all your personal details to other companies and put on servers outside the European Union.  They have eight photocopied pictures of packed items and you have to relate them to a number of descriptions and two of the pictures were of such poor quality I didn’t even know what they were.   I wasn’t going to complete any of it until I had asked my work coach about a reference so off I went upstairs and eventually got a few minutes to speak to her.  She said almost out loud that she wouldn’t give me a reference and then stated that they were not allowed to.  I don’t know if that’s true but she clearly wasn’t going to give me a reference so I asked about bus fares and potentially paying £32 a week bus fares might be difficult.  She told me that if I was offered a job then I could sign a few forms and they would pay the money into my account but I would have to bring the bus tickets into the Jobcentre to prove that I spent the money on fares.  That sounded good to me but with no reference I informed the lady from Transline that I could not apply but if I obtain a reference I could always apply next Monday.  I knew she didn’t really want me to apply and it’s understandable.  When they offer people a job the last thing they want is for that person to ask many questions at Amazon during induction.  They don’t want Amazon to take away their lucrative contract for recruiting their workforce.  Amazon want everyone to know everything apart from the basic induction when they arrive at the warehouse and don’t want to be bothered having to answer questions about pay or anything else.  I would have been a good quiet hardworking employee but maybe Transline should inform the applicants first before giving them paperwork to fill in.  One final point,  If they look over your paperwork and accept you then they give you a drug and alcohol test and then it’s plain sailing. You would be informed of your start date soon after. I think it’s a fairly good temporary job even though Transline don’t  give us all the information from the start.