Hello? Anybody there?

Signing on day arrives after a weeks holiday. This is my first 'proper' signing on appointment, and I'm not looking forward to it.

After the lovely people open the job centre two minutes late we get ushered to the right area to await signing on. I'm starting to sympathise with the cows on the way to the slaughter house, but I'll never stop eating them - the delicious bastards!

One of the staff attending to signing on duties must be leaving today, she's got banners round her desk wishing her luck and boxes of chocolates - which the selfish bitch isn't sharing. She could make every jobseekers day by handing them a chocolate when they sign on, but no. She'll be the one crying when she's fat and spotty.

The decorations around her desk are horribly misplaced. This is a place of misery and suffering so we'll put up spangly banners. It'd be like turning up for your Uncle Bobs (the generic uncle) funeral when the vicar is due to leave for a new parish the next day so the church regulars have decorated his pulpit with helium balloons and stuffed animals clutching hearts. Vicious gits.

The greasy little boy who is going to deal with my signing on looks just about old enough to start shaving - and he's done a particularly bad job on it this morning. The clumps of hair left at random places on his face make him look like some kind of anti-animal experimentation poster. And he doesn't just look bad - he acts like a complete bastard.

Eye contact? No.

Call me by name? No.

Tell me that I can leave when he's asked all his questions? No.

The whole experience leaves me feeling like the statistic I am. Perhaps this is all geared towards grinding me down to take a second rate position? I suspect so.

My next treat to look forward to is an update to my job seekers agreement with Boss Eyes. Maybe if I run all that together I'll get a Star Wars character? Bosseyes. Yup. That's better. Wait until I try to explain to him the Software Test Engineer roles I've been applying for. Should be fun.

Holiday

I'm off on holiday for a week. Like all good jobseekers. I do feel I should be going all inclusive to some nasty hotel in Spain though....

I've got some more exciting adventures in jobseeker land lined up for the weeks following. Laters.

Baby steps

Another rainy summers day, another appointment at the Job Centre Plus. I'm pretty sure that plus should have an exclamation mark like Yahoo! after! every! word!

Entering, I find four members of staff huddled around the 'Welcome Lectern'. Not one of them speaks to me, but one does actually look at me without uttering a single word. I introduce myself, state the time of my appointment and which department it is with - all this to the person who is actually looking at me. He still doesn't utter a single word to me. This is just plain rude, but I may be hasty. He could have been the victim of severe brain injury, or maybe he's riding high on something - his vacant expression doesn't give me many clues. A cheerful little woman does pipe up and leads me to a chair to sit, where I can look through delightful photocopied job pages. I don't want to touch them, somehow I fear I could catch despair and failure off them.

Anyway - I'm going for a Next Steps interview. Their tagline is 'Helping you get on in work and life'. I think it should be 'Helping you consume European Social Fund money so it doesn't get spent on something worthwhile.'

The whole idea seems based around sitting down for half an hour or so and having a nice chat (but no tea and biscuits - how rubbish is that? You simply cannot have a meeting without a brew). They do ask you work related stuff, but how many different people can you tell the same story? I'm starting to get bored of talking about me - which isn't usual. So I sit down with my adviser and it all starts.

I'm trying to keep eye contact with the woman conducting the interview, but its really hard. She's got these massive eyes. It doesn't help that she looks like she could do with a few good meals - her emaciated features just accentuate the eyes to comedy proportions. What's worse, every time I use a technical phrase she doesn't understand she actually widens her eyes a bit more. I didn't think that happened in real life, but sure enough she keeps doing it over and over again.

Then another adviser behind me starts going mad at one of her 'clients' down the phone. Sounds like he couldn't be arsed to get out of bed by half nine to attend an interview. Apparently he doesn't have a phone and doesn't have any credit on his mobile. The adviser doesn't seem to ask him how the hell he's calling her, but there you go. It shouldn't be too hard to outwit these people then.

So I've heard I can get paid for training courses for professional qualifications. Mad-eyes blinks once and says that they don't pay for it. 'That's not what the woman at the last meeting told me,' I say. 'Funding is changing all the time,' she says. What? In less than 6 weeks we go from unlimited funding for two week courses to no funding?

We chat on, and then she suddenly reveals - 'Oh yes, you can have funding for courses.'

No hang on. My deductive powers are not razor sharp, but I think I've spotted a flaw in her statements. Resisting the urge to shake her roughly by the shoulders and point this out her using colourful language I ask politely why she said just before that there was no funding.

'We don't fund it - it comes from a different department, but we can organise it all for you.'

No! No! No! No! Mindless f***ing idiot! You could have pointed this out before and saved five minutes of my ever dwindling life.

After the half hour of chatting, giving the same information over and over, agreeing nothing I leave. I only pass a couple of people on my way out. It's still raining, but at least every time I've left the job centre so far I've felt like the Brain of Britain.

Back to work

It's time for the government agency to start helping me back to work! The mad old biddie who did my signing on, and who looks like she's had an accident with blue eyeshadow and an industrial mixer, says that I should go to the room 'right at the bottom' with the 'powerpoint on'.

Well, I can see a room with an Excel speadsheet being projected onto the wall, and it turns out thats the right one. Like all good job seekers I sit right at the back, I know that if I'm a goody two shoes and sit at the front then snotty Johnson will try and wipe boggies in my hair when I'm not looking. Or maybe that's just primary school?

I've made a classic mistake - I've sat a bit to close to the guy running the course, and he keeps trying to interact. When he talks to the room he keeps looking at me.... or is he? Such a severe level of boss-eyedness needs corrective action - I suppose he could be looking at anyone.

The course leader gives us the following gems of wisdom to make sure we can claim jobseekers allowance, and to help us get back to work:

1. Remember to look for work.
2. Remember to apply for jobs.
3. Remember to turn up for interviews looking smart, and don't call your prospective employer 'a knob'.

I swear one of the guys is asleep, mind you he did confess to having attended the same course just six months earlier. What do you call people like that. Unlucky? Repeat offender? Serial jobseeker? Do people not understand steps 1-3 without being told? Do taxpayers employ a person to tell you this?

We're all reminded to fill in our jobseekers diary with things that we have done to find work. I've filled in masses of information in a log book I keep - they want me to fill each activity in a box no bigger than a stamp. Mind you, I think - given the near comatose state of some of my fellow seekers - 'Got up' would be accepted as a jobseeking activity.

Then they check we all have CVs. To their credit nearly everyone does. One guy doesn't though, as 'I've been in Spain for the last 10 years mate'. Okay, so living in Spain obviously means you don't need a CV. Coming back to the UK and looking for work here still means you don't need a CV? I'm sure this shining example of jobseeker-dom will soon find himself a wholesome and fulfilling role. Probably dealing weed. Or 'stabbing up some bloke who looked at him wrong'.

Mercifully it only takes half an hour. I fight the urge to ask questions about how he is still employed and I'm not, so we all escape - back into the rain.

Descent into the unknown

The great British summer. It's August, freezing cold and raining. It's also my day to sign on for the first time in fifteen years. Living in a 1970's New Town is depressing enough without having to visit the Job Centre Plus.

There's a thing. Job Centre Plus. Where does the plus come from? The fact that you're met at the door by Group Four Security? Bouncers?

"Sorry mate, you're not wearing the right kind of tracky - come back when you've got Nike or Adidas. You can't sign on if you're smart casual."

Waiting outside for the place to open is bad enough - various primates hang around, it looks a bit like the opening scene of 2001 - but the chimps here have learnt to use lighters and skunk rather than bones. The whole place stinks of pot and piss, the usual scents of open public spaces in any New Town.

After squeezing into the lift, which at least doesn't stink of piss, with some of my 'fellow' jobseekers - who may require lessons in having a shower before leaving home in the morning, we are greeted by Captain Snaggletooth. Captain Snaggletooth has the 'very important' job of telling us if we should wait on the left or the right. I've been paying taxes for the last 15 years to employ 'very important' people like Captain Snaggletooth. It looks like he's been spending his wages on tooth yellowing powder. It's quite a striking effect.

After 'signing on', which is strangely just that (No questions. No declaration. Sign here. BACS is on its way. Hmmmm..... I was sure I was supposed to prove I was actually looking for work. Oh well. When in New Town) I am directed towards my back to work talk.

No. No. No. The spliff smoking chimp is coming along too. I'll tell you all about that next time.