What a Joy Being Unemployed

2005-05-03 at 9:33 p.m.

I am very tired. I hate getting up in the morning, at the normal time that is. I had to be at the New Deal people (they're called the Career Development Group) at nine-thirty and wound up there a bit early as I keep forgetting that Brick Lane really isn't very far away from me. I had to wait for a while for the others to come in (we ended up missing twelve people) and got chatting to a rather camp guy called Clinton, who seemed quite nice. I also saw an albino guy, though it took me a while to notice.

Anyway, the day was extremely boring. We're supposed to be there from nine-thirty to four-thirty every single day and we apparently get five days sick-leave, five days holiday and three days mourning (if we can prove someone died). I may possibly take my five days holiday next week when mum and dad are away so I don't spend all my delicious free time sitting around bored in an office. I spent much of today staring at a stain on the ceiling which looked like a seahorse.

We had to fill in a riot of forms, providing our signatures here, there and everywhere so that they can claim money for our attendance. We had to be shown around the office in case it catches fire. We were shown the delights they have to offer us (three-week old newspapers, a handful of computers and...a water machine) and filled in yet more forms. They asked us what stopped us getting work, and I put down that I have unfortunate qualifications and occasional health problems - which is more or less true, although I haven't actually got a health problem so much as a health perception, seeing as I absolutely do not want to put down that I have a mental illness on a form. The last time I did that I didn't even hear back from the employer.

We also had to do an equal opportunities quiz thing, and I've done something similar before. A bit like the balloon debate things you do in school, we had to decide out of a list of 35 types of people who we would save. You know, things like, a reggae group, a woman with a Muslim husband, a drag queen, medical students from Oxford, that sort of thing. Seeing as I am somewhat experienced in this I led my little group into a way of coming out well in the test. Namely, pick one of each and always pick the drag queen. Naturally after we had chosen our little lot, and pretended it was for reasons other than looking good, they reveal that the drag queen is an experienced doctor, the single old lady is only 58 and a midwife, the single father is a wife-batterer and the Oxford students are in fact St Johns Ambulance people doing community service, that sort of thing. So we came out quite well unlike the other group who said they wouldn't pick the drag queen or the gay people because "thats just wrong". Oh, and I managed to get some brownie points for knowing a type of discrimination that people don't generally guess, alongside the race, gender, religion ones, I added class.

Then they made us go away for an hour, so I wound up sitting in a rather busy pub for a bit, bored, before they did a teeny interview with us and filled in forms we could have done ourselves quicker (I know what my qualifications are, thank you) and then they let us go early. Which meant that I could go up to the West End rather earlier than I had been expecting.

One thing I forgot to mention is that, with the weather having been so hot lately, I decided to take a leap of faith and wear a T-shirt for once. I don't care what the unemployed-folk think of me, and I decided it was time to see whether anyone on my night class would say anything.

In any case I wound up compromising this, as I arrived a few hours early for the class so I went shopping. I bought a new pair of jeans and a three-quarter length shirt which I thought rather nice. I changed into it in the toilets of a pub, because I had been chilly earlier on and I had noticed that the heat had in any case made some of my scars go much redder than normal, and I got a bit paranoid. Not that three-quarter length sleeves don't reveal as much in their own way but they are less noticeable. Actually, quite apart from the buggered-up arm business, I don't like those sleeves as I find them irritating. Its a nice shirt though. No one mentioned or seemed to notice the scars, although I wasn't exactly waving my arms in the air. I may try more next week, when Kerry won't be there.

In more interesting news, I also bought a couple of CDs. I've decided to spend my Christmas money at long last, and I bought two Tom Waits albums, Closing Time and Heart Attack and Vine, as I have downloaded songs from both of them and have decided I rather like the guy.

Biology was fairly boring as we were just doing revision, I was too tired, and we didn't get any work back. I did manage to mysteriously injure myself somewhere between entering the building and sitting down though, as I looked at my hand to discover a bright blue bruise on my knuckle. Which hurts quite a lot, really, considering its only tiny and I must have just banged it against something. I never had a blue bruise before.

Anyway, thats about it really, and I'm hoping tomorrow will be more interesting. At least I will get to marvel at a woman who looks like a chipmunk and talks like a hamster again, something which entertained me today.

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