Infamous for 15 seconds

On Thursday i became one of those people who you see in any city/town centre having a loud altercation with two security staff, well that's what it looked like anyway, except, i hadn't been to a shop, or stolen anything-i'd just been to look for a job...

There's a local agency which had some jobs which were better than the usual "chop veg into pieces in the cold and wet whilst standing in a pair of used wellies for minimum wage" malarkey you usually get in a agency, this one had a couple of half-decent menial jobs i wouldn't have minded doing, such as sorting and re-labelling catfood, or the second choice, sorting textile samples.

So, off i trot to the agency, only to find that my ID wasn't quite good enough, (apparently you need a "full" birth certificate these days to apply for anything), but they said they could sort something out with my shortform birth certificate and expired passport...And then i was given a application form, fair enough, with a visual Q&A "skills" test...

Which consisted of a set of questions about a picture of Gordon Ramsey, semi-nude in a apron which made his torso look as if it was a woman's, (covered in printed on lacy bra, you know the ones!), with a leek and two onions at his midriff "cunningly" posed to look like his meat and two veg (or three veg in this case...), and he was holding a knife. No i'm not making this up, seriously.

One of these questions was "How big is the man's Chopper?", honestly, i'm not making this up, and if you get in touch with me i will e-mail you a copy of this form!, i did part of the application form but i kept peeking at the picture of Mr. Ramsey and it was starting to put me off my lunch, and i realised that this was all f--king stupid anyway-they'd admitted to me that one job had gone quiet and one wasn't ready until mid-december, so i decided to cut my losses here, no temp, minimum wage job had to be worth this fiasco, and i did have one shred of dignity left, despite being long term unemployed, so, whilst my interviewer went to make a cup of coffee or something, i folded up the application form, and picked up my photocopied ID details from the table which they'd left out for all and sundry to see, and calmly walked out and made a break for the car park, i hadn't got far when...

"Hey, where are you going?", shouted the lone voice a few steps behind me-it was one of the employment agencies staff, "damn, thought i'd passed through unnoticed" thought me. He wasn't happy that i'd taken his precious paper and he wanted it back, well i wasn't going to give it back because it had my details on and i wasn't going to apply for the jobs now after being humiliated so what was the point?, he began harping on about it being agency property, he was about 19 and skinny, so i figured that: 1.) he had no bloody idea of how stupid his companies ideas were 2.) i reckoned he couldn't stop me anyway...So, as he started ranting on, my lady interviewer came marching up the stairs to the car park, now i was in trouble...

I was seriously angry by this time, i'm a very placid, quiet person normally, but they'd pushed the wrong buttons, i'm no hard man, but i've got no time for stupidity, which i figured the questionaire was, and that this approach was a bit silly too. By now, people were starting to look, which didn't bother me, they then started saying that the paper was company property: by then i should have chucked 50p at them and said that i'd hope that covered my expenses, but i wasn't in a joking mood, they wanted their paper back-to be fair, they did (in their own way) apologise, but i was past caring, apparently i shoudn't march off with the paper because "skinny" was in the Police, but if that's the case, why was he shuffling paper in a employment agency?, i found this all a bit too surreal, so i walked off, "skinny" tried stopping me, i just informed him of what might happen if he was to stop me and hoped that would work, thankfully it did because i have the fighting skills of a kitten.

I was let go, with a cheery "no wonder he hasn't got a job" from the lady interviewer. I love life, i really do :-)

That employment agency was also the first time i heard a woman say the word "c-nt"...to be honest, i'm not a difficult person, i thought it was all a bit too mad and i thought the questionnaire was a wind-up at first, and i didn't do college to go to the depths of finding out the size of Gordon Ramsey's chopper...I've done some awful stuff to earn cash but i wasn't doing that...

Think of ways you can...in a customer environment...blah blah

Not posted for a while-got some inteviews at last, woo hoo!, one last week at a major insurance call centre, interview a bit shaky, as it was completely customer service focused-ok, as consumers we all like to get treated right, but do we all believe in a customer service mantra?, it's all a bit too false for me, but if i got the job i'd do my best to please people on the other end of the phone and i least i can talk on the phone, ok i've got a sort of strangely clear but droning voice, but at least i can say that i don't mumble, or screech like some call centre staff i've had the "pleasure" of being on the other end of the line to...


Not all good though-still ringing the employment agencies for various jobs, usually getting a shrill voiced foreign woman telling me that i'm "wasting my time" appying for "x" job because...I'm not daft, i'm applying because i think that i could do the job, ok, maybe in their eyes i can't but there's nothing like bringing people down to earth with a bump eh?

Aaaargghh!

It seems there are jobs, you've just got to look closely at the employment agency windows...There are jobs you know, but mostly they're just "Production Operative" roles on a temp basis, something i'm not at all keen to embrace, the worst one i saw this week was for a pheasant plucker, (no jokes please!), honestly, i mean, who would want to stand in a pair of used wellies, in the cold, ripping feathers off a dead animal. They stink-i used to work breifly for a firm (mentioning no names) that were a major player in the duvet industry, in fact if you have a supermarket duvet, chances are that this firm supplied it. The feathers came in to be bleached, not with the piney toilet fresh bleach, but pure, hardcore bleach and that smell was bad enough, but mix that with faeces encrusted feathers in bulk, and then...well, it was about this time that i began to think that the image of the 'onest toiling working man was a bit of turn off if this was what he was expected to do, and i was-going to be promoted to work with the feathers, well i was if i didn't get the sack for being "too slow", but that's a different story...

I mean, who wants to do a crap job, for minimum wage, only to be sacked at the end of xmas, well i may have to, although i hope not...

Jobhunting...

Been to two big towns/cities near me: Peterborough and Kings Lynn, and i've noticed something: when the staff in a employment agency are sitting around and talking, you know there's nothing about, but i'm not going to let that stop me, oh no. I know we are sliding ever more into recession thanks to knob necked US moneylenders, but that's not my fault, just gotta keep going regardless.

Hardly anything in Lynn, one employment agency admitted as such, and the ones in P'boro are spookily quiet, although i have noticed that all employment agencies advertise Jobs still that have long gone, just to get people in. If anyone from a employment agency ever reads this can you convince your superiors to stop doing this as it's a C---t's trick, and people will end up getting their hopes crushed-hey, it may happen to you one day, just be thankful it hasn't so far.

Anyway, i've noticed in "Jobs Today" that Amazon.co.uk are recruiting for xmas staff, only prob is that their HQ is miles away, but might be worth seeing if i can get digs for it, i think it would be a interesting job.

Boston's another alternative, i was born and lived in Boston, Lincolnshire until earlier this year when i noticed work was thin on the ground, so moved up to the Cambs/Norfolk border to enhance my chances of a better job, and guess what?, there might be a chance of some work in Boston now. I wonder if my mum and dad will put me up....

Jobs...

Hi All,

I'm a 28 year old male, a pretty ordinary bloke, with a mission-i left College several years ago with a solitary BTEC 1st in IT Applications, plus the (would would now be termed as) poor GCSE results i left school with (one solitary C grade, plus the other D & E's!) i later expanded on the poor qualifications front by getting two level one IT qualifications, a ECDL and a CLAIT certificate.

But all i've ever seemed to get is manual jobs, no matter how hard i have tried to get into the most simplest of office jobs. All the manual jobs have been really poor, all in the food industry, except for the two year stint i did working as a Car Valeter, which i really enjoyed, but even that came to a end.

After a breif unpleasant stint at a engineering firm, i was unemployed. Last night i thought i could go back to working in a food factory, i had arranged a job as a order picker through a employment agency, i spent 15 mins at the training before realising: "I can't do this, this is just total bobbins." I then made my excuses and left.

Now i'm facing a challenge: It seems that 60% of the UK population is unemployed, at least you'd think that from the stuff on the news all the time, but can i get a job in something other than working with Coleslaw? Watch this space...

Hello!

Hello!

I've just moved in here, at the moment i'm trying to work out what to do with all the boxes and the like, so please just bear with me until i get everything unpacked so i can get blogging. Has anyone put the kettle on?...