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.