It lives!

Evening folks.
So, I've been away for a bit. I went backpacking in Goa and achieved spiritual enlightenment. Fucking good acid out there.

I'm kidding, I've been in England the whole time. But I haven't been wasting my time. Oh no. I've been incredibly busy, as it goes. For example, yesterday, my friend Emma and I watched the entire 10th Kingdom box set. That's about seven hours of telly-watching, which isn't quite a personal best (that accolade goes to that time I watched all three series of Arrested Development in one go; say what you like about my leathery hide, but don't question my dedication to sitting around until my arse gets repetitive strain injury), but is still fairly impressive.

I also inexplicably acquired a boyfriend (no, that's not the reason for my absence, he's a very busy boy with college and the like). His name's Tom and he looks like McLovin from Superbad. And, having spent all of yesterday perving over Wolf from The 10th Kingdom, I'm going to attempt to persuade him to start wearing a tail.

Huh. Wonder how I was single for so long?

Anyway, I've mostly been partaking in my usual pastime; job-hunting.

OK, so, when job-hunting, especially in this....er.... thriving financial climate, you have a few choices:

The Job Centre
Most job seekers will end up, unsurprisingly, on Job Seekers Allowance. On average, you get somewhere around the fifty quid a week mark. Doesn't sound too bad, but gets boring very, very quickly once you deduct bills, food, and other annoying shite you forget about, like tampons and bin liners and washing powder.
Anyway, having gone through the eligability assessment (which consists of ringing an 0845 number and answering about a billion questions; this usually results in you sat there on the phone going "No.... no...... no...... no...." like you're suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder), you'll generally be hauled into your local Job Centre for a little chat with their friendly and helpful advisors, who mostly check your details (and still manage to get it wrong), and proceed to "help" by asking you what kind of work you're looking for. So you tell them, and they print off job descriptions. Despite the fact that you can easily do it yourself at one of the job points. So basically, they do a grand total of fuck-all in order to help you find work.
They may tell you that you have to bring four bits of evidence in each time you sign on to show that you've been trying to find work; a letter confirming a job interview, a filled-in application form, even an updated CV. They have never once asked me for any of these. Instead, you turn up (apparently you have to turn up 15 minutes early; they don't actually tell you this, assuming instead that the unemployed are a magical, mythical race who can read minds), hand over your little booklet, and they sign it and grunt whilst pointing to the job points. That's literally it. All they really do is drag you along to a "back to work seminar" every six months or so, which is generally some bloke going "Go on. Get a job. Please? You'll have more money. How about if I give you a muffin?"
All in all, it's a futile waste of time, but a tiny bit of money is better than no money.

The Local Paper
This is fairly easy, to be honest. Just get a copy of your local rag, and look in the job pages. It's mostly either very specifically skilled jobs (teachers, train drivers, that sort of thing), or the kind of advert you usually see sellotaped to a lamp post ("EARN £££££££S FROM HOME WITHOUT EVEN GETTING OUT OF BED! CONTACT BIG FUCKING JIMMY ON 07834675490). Your day will mostly consist of excitedly taking the cap off your pen so you can circle an entry like they do in "finding a job" montages in movies, but then realising it says "must have SPECIFIC EXPERIENCE IN THIS AREA", and putting the cap back on the pen with a disappointing "click".

Employment Agencies
This is more of a test of resilience than a way of finding a job, to be honest.
You start off by going into an employment agency. There will be a couple of twenty-something girls called Claire and Helen, and a couple of middle-aged women called Maureen and Wendy. Helen and Claire's work stations will be decorated with pictures of them being kerazee and random on nights out (by doing such wacky, groundbreaking stunts as wearing fluffy deelyboppers, or sticking their tongue out), and Maureen and Wendy's desks will be adorned with a computer buried somewhere under a fucktonne of pictures of "my grandson, Jack", all in oversized Winnie The Pooh photo frames.
You'll usually stand there for a few minutes before anyone acknowledges you. Eventually, someone will say "Can I 'elp you?", which is when you forget what you came in for in the first place and just go "Um... I... uh, want a job? Please?"
Their automatic reaction is to ask you for a CV. You hand one over. They roll their eyes and say "No, you have to email it to us, then one of us will be in touch."
So, you go home and email it to them. A week passes. Still nothing. So, you go back.
"We ain't got anyfin' at the moment, can you call us on Monday or Tuesday?"
So, you wait until Monday or Tuesday, and ring them.
"Have you got any work yet?"
"Oh... er.... what's your name?"
"Bob Smith."
"OK, we've got your CV, but you haven't filled in the forms yet."
"I had to fill in forms?"
"Yeah, can you come in tomorrow morning?"
So, the next morning, you fill in roughly a metric tonne of paperwork for them, and one of them decides to finally be helpful and look at jobs. This results in one of two outcomes:
- They tell you they'll call you as soon as anything comes in. They don't.
- They're actually helpful and get you a nice, cushy job on an assembly line in a place you have to get up at three in the morning to walk/drive to where you're not allowed to sit down for the entire fifteen-hour shift. But it's work, right?

The Begging Spree
This involves photocopying your CV as many times as you can afford, then trekking around your local town/city/village/hamlet/enchanted forest, begging for a job. Remember, dignity is for the workshy.
The responses you recieve will vary. I got the following:
"Sorry, we're not looking."- From pretty much everywhere. Extra points were awarded for a sarcastic "In case you hadn't noticed, there's a recession on."
"Sorry we're not looking."- This deserved a double listing because, in this case, it was from people who had signs up in the window stating that they want staff.
"I can see you're bright enough to have made it thus far in life without being killed off, but unfortunately, you have no specific experience in using a till/placing a pasty in a paper bag and handing it to a customer, and that's the kind of skill that can't just be taught."- Greggs, Argos
"We don't use application forms anymore, you have to go to the website, search for jobs in Derby, then apply online."- Boots. Incidentally, when I went on the website, there was nothing going.
"Sorry, I know your CV has all the information I could really need to know about you, but I'd like you to take this twenty-page long application form which asks you for details you can't even remember, and write them in tiny lettering on this pointless application form. And despite going to all that trouble, no, I will not be sending you a letter saying thanks but no thanks."- Every agency I rang.

After all that, I have a job interview on Wednesday. If it goes well, I could be....er... a burger monkey. As long as I get to wear a hat, I'm happy. Wish me luck?