Apologies and Explanation

So, no posts for nearly a fortnight, but thanks to the precarious state of my love-life I find myself with more than enough time on Valentine's Day to write this. The hunt is over, I got the job in Canterbury and it starts next month. I have relinquished my status as dole monkey: I'm now merely 'between jobs.' I'm looking forward to the new job - the company seems like a good one and the people I've met that I'll be working with all appeared to be human and pleasant.

That leaves the question of what happens to the blog. I suppose the logical thing to do would be just to wind it up, but I've never been a particularly big fan of logic. Instead I thought I might follow the example set by so many media outlets over the last couple of years and just make it up. So, ignore everything that I wrote above and enjoy the continuing tales of Yosser Hughes.

Meeting People is Getting Easier

I may not be working but the good people at my local council must be getting close to budget renewal time as there have four big yellow vans and lorries sitting outside my house all day. Much like the average Scottish Premier League football team there seems to have been an awful lot of effort expended for minimal results. Pneumatic drills, a mini-steamroller and numerous traffic cones all made appearances at various points throughout the day but when they finally packed up about an hour ago there was little evidence that they'd ever been there. I think I saw them relay tar around a drain (about one square metre), and there was a lot of arse-scratching and tea-drinking, but that was about it.

More applications have been fired off and more newspapers and websites have been trawled with little success. However, I did get a telephone call from one of the companies I'd applied for and the upshot is that I'm heading to Canterbury in a week or so to attend a recruitment day/interview. I thought the whole gig was fucked from the very outset when I misheard the name of the company, had to ask for it to be repeated and then had to cast wide and deep in my memory to try and actually remember the job I'd applied for. This is one of the dangers of applying for so many jobs: I always think that it'll create a negative impression, or at least reek of desperation. It mustn't have sounded too bad as I got through the initial chat and was invited down to their office. Should I even dare to hope?

On a very tenuously related note, one of the advantages of being "between jobs" at the moment is The African Cup of Nations. Over the last few years this has started to become my favourite football tournament: it's fast, exciting, skillful and far more entertaining than its European equivalent. It's also on from 4.30 in the afternoon which is just ideal for little doley's like me. At the moment it's just coming up to half-time in the game between Guinea and Morocco and Guinea are winning 1-0 thanks to yet another outrageous goal. Time to crack open the first of the day I reckon.

Thank you, Job Centre Plus

My rescheduled appointment was today and thankfully I had no contact with the evil bitch from Hell who set about me last week when I was a few minutes late. Mind you, I think the people who run the job centre must know about this blog as yet again they provided me with some fantastic material for these posts.

The first man I spoke to there was called ... wait for it ... Ronald MacDonald (you can see from the picture just how welcoming he was). Feel free to make your own jokes at Ronnie's expense - I'm sure he's heard them all before but if anyone can come up with something original, answers on a postcard to the usual address. Next up was not The Hamburgler but a very pleasant woman who, unless I'm very much mistaken, actually had a sense of humour. I'm not sure how she got through the screening process humouro intacto, but it proves that it can be done. Spent about half an hour with her detailing what I'm doing to find work (didn't mention the blog) and then went off on my merry way into yet another miserable January afternoon.

As far as the nine million applications I've made so far it's been more of the same. I was quite impressed by one rejection so I'll quote it in its entirety:

Thanks for your details. Unfortunately your experience is not right for
this role.

Short and to the point. It makes a change from the usual guff about the quality of the candidates and so on. If only it were possible to write cover letters in a similar style:

I'm fucking ace. I want this job. Here's my CV.

Perhaps this could be the beginning of some kind of recruitment revolution.

Surely there's a more effective way

I decided on Monday that it was time to sign on, so off I toddled to my local Job Centre. I've only ever done this once before, the last time I came back to the UK. That was five years ago and as far as I can remember I went along to the Job Centre, filled out some forms, had an interview and promised that I'd do my best to find gainful employment (the fact that I ended up working in a Shell Garage is a story for another day).

I imagined that it would be much the same this time but when I got the Job Centre and explained my situation I was given a leaflet and told to phone the number on it. Apparently the good person at the other end of the line would take me through some questions and an interview lasting 40 minutes. Clearly, the Job Centre's idea of an interview and my own differ. The 'interview' was basically some harassed but pleasant woman going through the questions that I'm sure were on the form five years ago, and me saying "yes" or "no." After about twenty minutes of this she then read me the part at the end where you say that you aren't lying and told me that I'd soon receive a copy of the statement we'd just gone through which I'd have to plant my big inky hand print on (because obviously too thick to write my own name). I have to take this statement with me tomorrow when I go back to the Job Centre for my next interview. Can't wait to see how it goes.