Shopping

Even if it’s just paying a bill, or normal groceries... you know where you got that money from, you know it’s not yours, and that it was given to you by the Government. Which makes any purchase you make, no matter how miniature or essential... tainted with guilt. £8 for prescription, life-saving medicine? Better not, this Job Seeker’s Allowance money really should be going on stuff I need. It’s a hundred times worse if you’re doing your purchasing in the middle of the day. You’re walking around, browsing the cheeses at 11:00 on a Tuesday morning, unshaven, greasy hair, and yesterday’s Doritos stains down your unwashed t-shirt.

It’s complete paranoia of course. But tell that to an addict, telling someone with paranoia, they’re correct, and they DO have massive paranoia doesn’t cure it! ‘It could be my day off!’ you tell yourself. ‘These people don’t know I don’t work from home! I could be a Novelist!’ But what Novelists choose not to splash out on TESCO’s own mid-range 99p processed cheese slice singlets? Shit ones probably. No. All you can do is eat the embarrassment to all and sundry, of being an unemployable numpty... and get the 68p Value range. They taste better anyway.

Surveys

‘Complete this survey and be entered into a draw to win a free mound of cash!’ Brilliant.... my endless reading of free magazines and pissing about online when I should be scouring job sites for days on end could well prove worthwhile after all. I could do with a huge wad of cash, I know exactly where I’d put it! It’d look great in the kitchen!

So you start the survey with nothing but blind faith. It’s not a competition, it’s a deal. It’s blessed Karma, paying you back from months of endless, CV workshops, wild Covering Letter claims, and 4-hour round-trip interviews. You go through the whole thing start to finish with a fine tooth pen, making a special effort to read every question carefully and answering honestly just in case Karma’s still watching. Until you get to the very last question. ‘Occupation:’ “Oh... err...” you think to yourself. For some reason, you can’t force your hand to move towards writing/typing the dreaded word unemployed, it’s letters as dark as your employment prospects. It’s murder to your own self-confidence.

You save the link to your favourites, promising to complete the survey, to enter the draw, and rightfully claim your free mound of cash once you get a job. It’ll spur you on, you tell yourself, give you something to work towards. And you’ll still get that huge pile of Wadzilla. Only you don’t. You never claim the cash, because you never entered the draw, because you didn’t get that ‘Certain job, just round the corner’. And every time you flick on your computer (to try and find a job, the first thing you see is that link, on your favourites bar. Staring back at you, mocking you, reminding you only of your incompetency, and of its own dominance and prolonged immortality. The bastard.

Doctor’s Appointments

You desperately try to get a Doctor’s appointment for either before 9am, or after 6pm on a weekday. Just so you can dress up in a suit, and pretend you’ve got a job to go to/come back from.

The Job Centre

Oh my Disco Dancing Christ! Actually going, and being inside the Job Centre isn’t nearly as soul destroying as I first imagined it to be when I was handed the greasy, jam-stained hand of unemployment. You arrive for an appointment at an incredibly specific time (10:12). You’re warned of the consequences of missing an appointment by more than 5 minutes each way. No more free money for you, you tardy scoundrel! FOREVER! So you get there 15 minutes early just to be sure, and wait outside the door, checking your watch to the second as you walk in, bang on 10:12.

Then you wait. I can usually go 20 minutes at the most before I start to get really, really bored. Fighting a losing battle to avoid the temptation of throwing the Metro at a man, pretending to need crutches, dressed in a vest, one Reebok trainer, another (different) Reebok trainer, and a pair of jogging trousers making him look like he’s been living on Subway sandwiches for 8 months, until around 50 minutes after the original meeting time, your name is finally called out under someone’s breath. Whose? You don’t know, just get up and search the room like a limo driver at Arrivals.

When you finally get to talk to someone, you expect them to spend hours interrogating you as to exactly WHAT you’ve been doing to get a job. “Because you can’t have been doing MUCH! You’ve not fucking well got one have you, you bum!” You imagine they’ll say. At least then, you’d get to take out that little booklet you’re so proud of. You’ve spent the past two weeks, applying to every job you can find (no matter how unlikely the chance of interview selection), filling book after book after book with useless words, just to prove exactly how HARD you’ve been trying. You want to impress these people, prove to them you’re not like all these other fuckers! But they don’t even open the fucking thing.... This is how the meeting goes:

Good Morning Mr. Wormald?

Morning.

How’s your Job Search?

Good... yeah... I’ve, you know, got a few inte....

...Sign here.

..rviews nex... uh? Oh... Ok.

Your money will be in your account on Tuesday OK? (cowering behind their computer screen, waving a quivering tiny blue Argos pen at you like a white flag. As if they expect you to tip their desk into the air, crushing them underneath your rage of receiving your free money 1 day late).

Money?... Oh. Right, OK, that’s fine.

Phew... Mr. Goodman?

Oh.... Ok... Right.

Things I Hate: Unemployment - Brought to you by James Wormald -