SAS Training - Brought to you by James Wormald -

As many are already aware, I do not have a job. I did when I started LondonMeUp.Com. In fact from the months of June 2009, to March 2010, I was working in a full time role as well as producing full weekly issues of new, exciting and readable content for you all. Working contract to contract with the Educational Charity, D&AD. In the Awards and subsequent Editorial departments. The trouble with contract to contract work, is that at some point, there won’t be another contract. It may not have been too difficult for me to find ANother job, but due to recession and a few other deciding factors, finding the job I want has proven a little harder. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sat on my arse playing Fifa ’10 on the X-Box, waiting for ‘that call’ from Arsene Wenger. I’m aiming within my levels of skill and experience. Truth is, there just doesn’t seem to be that much work out there for an Editorial Assistant. My CV is great, a proven track record of editorial greatness. However when the more creative companies see it, I get the idea they don’t like my lack of creative experience. Meanwhile when it’s seen by non-creatives, the description of D&AD forces them to believe I’d just be too bored in a boring job like the one they’re offering. Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? I applied for the job, I must want it right? Apparently not, and they know best.

With all this time ‘not-working’ on my hands, my levels of free time have exploded like an Icelandic volcano. Or so you would thoughtlessly think. Not quite. Even you, dear reader can be involved in this part if you like. Take the LondonMeUp issues, perhaps even look back at the past 9 or 10, and compare them to the others. Have they been any better? Of course not, they’ve been just as rushed and amateur as ever. Perhaps even worse but that’s most likely due to a lack of inspiration and can be overlooked for the purposes of this experiment (and never be discussed again). Before I may have been forced to write and build the site after getting home from work. I’d be working at it two or three nights a week – for a few hours a time. Whereas now it’s all done in one day. Friday. Like a scrappy schoolboy, scribbling down what he guesses Shakespeare may have been blathering on about it (it’s sex by the way. It’s always sex) on the Monday morning school bus [Note to my past teachers: I didn’t really have terrible bumpy handwriting, I actually was sat on a bus].

But what’s the cause for the last minute cowboy job? To be honest I’m not sure... there are thousands of ways the world seems to force you to repay your lazy dole-scum time. At least it forces people to really really try to get a job. Just the extra spare time would be nice. Along with trawling through masses and masses of different websites just to find that one job, out of thousands every day. One that not only suits you, but that you can do, that you can get an interview for, and that you want to do. Even then, you’ll only even be considered if your CV lands atop the inbox of the recruitment agent anywhere in the 30 seconds directly before they lob off the top ten for the only time that day. This itself takes 28 hours a day of my time... the rest is spent at the job centre. A few weeks ago I was there, and I was asked by the lady if I’d filled in the form she gave me last week. “You didn’t give me a form last time.” I stated. “I didn’t even see you last time”. “You should have filled it in.” She blamed. Then she made the great effort of opening a drawer, taking off a one sided sheet of A5 from a pile of 2,000, and chucking it across the desk to me. “Fill it in again and bring it back. And this one too.”

One of these forms was an application for a Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme for jobseekers. A scheme, which takes 3 months of full time work. 3 months where you’re not allowed to look for other jobs. Where you don’t get paid (save the usual allowance). It doesn’t make sense. They’re taking people who are out of work, looking for jobs. Forcing them to not be able to look for a job for 3 months, for what? Get a qualification an employer won’t even cast a bleary eye over? And this is what passes for Government help and advice? I don’t know whether to be shocked and appalled, or just appalled that I’m not really shocked. It was then I noticed a paragraph on the back of the application (the reverse side of A5). ‘This course is for people who A) Have severe learning difficulties. B) Have just been released from prison. C) Have been out of work for 16 months or more.’ You might not know me very well, but none of these apply to me. Couldn’t help but wonder did I, why I had been advised to sign up. Perhaps she thought I was someone else. Perhaps she couldn’t do her fucking job properly because she used to be in prison, went on a Duke of Edinburgh training course, and for some reason running around in the woods means she was qualified for administration, or perhaps she just really likes the course.

There was another application form she’d given me. It was for a Law training course. I’m not interested in Law. I’m not interested in a career anywhere remotely close to Law. But read it I did (just in case I ran into the same lady next time), and it told me you didn’t need to have an interest in Law to do the course. Oh really? I don’t need to be one of only a small group of people for me to pay you money for a course I don’t need and won’t be of any help to me? Well thank you for making sure I didn’t miss this great deal! Now that I’ve left an overflowing sarcasm quota alone for a second, I can tell you, the course was actually free. Free to get on. Free to do. It’ll only take one day. Where’s the catch? Well it’s got to be somewhere obviously, but I won’t find it just by going along to the thing. Even if it turns out to be rubbish, I’ll have only wasted half a day. 11:00-14:30 as it turns out. Where’s the harm.

So I go to the thing, set up by www.saslawcourses.org if you’re interested. But if you for some reason are, I implore you to read on first. I turn up at the Royal Courts of Justice, and there’s a group of about 13 of us there for it. We split up into groups, and get a worksheet of tasks we have to complete throughout the day. Some of them are simply just to ‘find’ areas of the building. Others to find bits of information from anyone who might be milling about, and if possible sit in on a court session. Sound good? Well it’s worse. Our ‘team’ heads straight for the cafeteria because three of the people haven’t had a cup of tea in the last 4 minutes and are starting to shake. Whilst there, it seems one person has researched the tasks (which we received in an email a few days before) on the internet, meaning there’s no need to ask anyone anything because we can all copy the answers from her. Leaving the whole ‘training’ process incredibly defunct.

Then we went off to find the various places we needed to. First on the agenda, an open court to sit and see what’s going on. For some reason, my training day had been scheduled on a Bank Holiday, when no courts are in scheduled session. Therefore the second main part of ‘training’ could not be completed. The rest of it? Find out what some people’s names are = Ask the guy on the info desk. Find out how much it costs to lodge a certain type of case = Admin Office. Job Done. The whole experience was like a geography class trip, to Colchester. With your French class. When we did try to ask any passing suits or barristers (wigs) a question, they looked at us like we’d sneaked into a free museum. Are any of these people aware that training courses happen here from time to time? I suspect not. In fact, I suspect that because the Royal Courts of Justice have free and easy public entry, all you have to do is turn up in a suit and you can wander about free of charge telling people you’re running a course, with proper certificates and qualifications and everything (at a price – here comes the catch), then fuck off at the end of the day, no one any clue who the frig you are, £500 in your briefcase.

Once we’d completed all the tasks, we met up with the course leader. Who started the sales pitch. “The SAS Law Training Course is recognised by all employers.” He grins... but you can’t just write it on your CV... no? “Once you’ve completed 10 hours of homework, we’ll send you your certificate. And here’s the great part, if you pay now you get it for half price! Only £20! Or... because you’ve all done so well, we’ll put you on a special work experience programme. You’ll be working professionally in no time! How great is that? Just an extra £50.” He smirks. “I don’t have any cash on me now. Will you take a card?” offers an intrigued woman in the corner. He stares at her blankly for a few seconds, then says “There’s a cash machine around the corner.” And she bloody well goes. Happy as Larry, prancing out of the building, away from this conman, only to clean out that week’s gas bill money, and run back to him with it! Talk about magic beans!

I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. Firstly a group of people, all 12 of them, handing over wads of cash, for what? A promise? A ‘back-of-a-worksheet receipt’? Then going home with an ear to ear grin like Frankenstein’s Monster’s coat hanger stuffed into their cheeks to eat beans straight out of the can. And secondly, the cheek of the people doing it! In all honestly, I do believe that you’d get sent a certificate, and you could put it on your CV, but who would take notice of it there? Who would care? That deal isn’t worth my last fucking Rolo nevermind my last £70!