- Recruitment agencies who always claim not to have any work going, despite the massive sign in the window saying "LOADS AND LOADS OF WORK GOING!" OK, it didn't actually say that. It said "LODES OF WURK GOIN!" Pffft, like recruitment consultants can spell.
- My eyes slowly melting out of my head after spending several hours attempting to squeeze my entire employment history into a box the size of a postage stamp in order to prove myself worthy of working as one of those people at festivals who write your name on a grain of rice. No, wait, my mistake. That was the travel agents application form.
- Being too overqualified for McDonalds, too underqualified for "real jobs", and too underexperienced for everything else. Apparently, the following positions, like martial arts, require years of intense training under your sensei:
Checkout girl, coffee maker, cleaner, carpark attendant, barmaid, warehouse grunt, burger-flipper, t-shirt printer, lollipop lady (yes, really), Premier Inn receptionist, masked vigilante (OK, so the last one was justified).
I eventually had an interview for Oaklands Community Care, who help people with mental health problems and/or learning difficulties to live independently.
They interviewed me off the basis of my CV, and hired me off the basis of my interview, sending me an application form over the weekend to fill in "just as a formality". So, I filled it in, and handed it over on my first day of work. And then they fired me on the spot. In less than an hour. That's epic levels of underachievement right there.
As it goes, the form demands in big scary letters and court threats that you have to state any time you've either lost a job, or recieved a disciplinary. So, I wrote down the following:
1. Getting a disciplinary from Egg for failing a call monitoring. And later not having my probationary contract renewed for failing another one. I like to think this proves that I have a soul, and am not, in fact, a cybernetic organism. You'd think that would be of some comfort to them, but apparently not.
2. Same thing with Sitel, another call centre (this time, tech support). So far, not amazing, granted, but all that shows is that I'm not very good at being a headset jockey/emotional punchbag for the world.
The woman in charge (whose name I forget, I was gawping in disbelief at the fact that she looked like a white Trevor McDonald in drag) then proceeded to bollock me for not telling them about this sooner.
"I notice you didn't put anything about written warnings on your CV. It just doesn't add up."
"I'm sorry, I honestly wasn't aware that you needed this information beforehand."
(What I meant to say was "Of course, silly me. It should have occurred to me that the one thing my CV is missing in its quest to make me look employable was a list of my failings".)
"I initially thought you'd just had bad luck; I mean, you went to Uni, and you travelled a bit. But this changes everything."
(Why? I still went to Uni and bummed around Thailand for a bit, you sanctimonious hag.)
"You didn't even mention it in the interview. We don't appreciate being lied to."
(I also didn't mention that birthmark on my left buttock, does that count as lying too? Honestly, in an interview that appears to be going well, why would I ruin it by saying "Oh, and by the way, four years ago, I did call centre work and wasn't very good at it"?)
I asked if they'd like to confirm with the ex-employers that my disciplinaries were just for being shit at headset-wearing, and not because of any henious crime, and they said no. Because they'd already rang up someone else and she was on her way to....er... take my job.
Moral: people in the Care sector are not very caring.
So, off I went to Remploy, to see my long-suffering advisor Jamie, who got me the interview in the first place by forwarding my CV to them. He was possibly even less impressed by their general arseholery than I was. But by this point, I'd cancelled the benefits I recieve, and actually preferred the idea of a god-awful job to dealing with the dunderheads at the Job Centre again. So, I went to an employment agency, and asked if I could, pretty please, maybe work in a chicken processing plant. And I should be starting that as soon as the nurse clears my medical form.
The job, apparently, involves standing there in wellies, a boiler suit, an apron and a little showercap-type-thingy, watching chickens being ripped asunder by machines, and then chopping them up and packaging them. The only good thing about it, other than earning a bit of money, is that I get to wear chainmail gloves, which will make me feel like a knight. And they're kind of needed. According to the lady at the agency:
"Don't put your hands near machines. Man did last month, he lose hand."
I'll file that under "Important Stuff I Need To Know", like, apparently, "Steps slippy. Be careful.", and "No eating peanuts, even in the canteen."
I never thought I'd use this acronym, but..... FML. Seriously.
In Other News.....
So, since then, I've mostly been sulking. The world, however, has moved on as usual. Here's what's been happening.....
The Political Hydra
So, David Cameron, despite facebook hate pages (let's be honest, the most they've ever achieved is getting Rage Against The Machine to Christmas number one instead of Cowell's newest equivalent of a checkout operator), has managed to become Prime Minister. I don't trust him solely on the basis that he is blue of blood and weak of chin. Chinless types bother me. Everyone else has a chin, why can't they?
On the plus side (for me, anyway), Nick Clegg is now deputy prime minister. I like to hope that he'll keep Cameron in check. I can imagine it going something like this:
Cameron: Nick! Nick! Come here, I've had the best idea ever!
Clegg: What is it?
Cameron: What if... and hear me out..... we get all the poor people on Britain, right, and dress them up like the robots on the Small World ride at Disneyland? Thus solving both the unemployment crisis, AND the....er..... "Britain not being anything like Disneyland" crisis!
Clegg: What have we talked about?
Cameron: (shamefaced) Not dressing up commoners for my entertainment.
Clegg: Aaaaand?
Cameron: Not making Vince Cable warm up my toilet seat for me.
Clegg: Good man. Have a lollipop.
Cameron: It's lemon! I want a blueberry one!
Clegg: YOU'LL GET WHAT YOU'RE DAMN WELL GIVEN!
Cameron: .....OK. (Licks lollipop)
In fact, I think they should be forced to live in a small flat together, surrounded by hidden cameras. Because politicians aren't known for their charisma ("charisma", in politics, means "At least managing to sound vaguely sincere when buying a pint or something"), that could be used as the basis for a sitcom, rather than a reality TV show. I reckon it should have Clegg as the slovenly liberal, and Cameron as the uptight conservative. He'd come in to find Clegg having a wild party; Miriam dancing on the table, David Laws having a drinking contest with Danny Alexander, the works. There'd be a massive keg of beer painted yellow and everything. And Cameron would put his hands on his hips and shout "CLEGG!" in a manner similar to Superintendant Chalmers from The Simpsons.
I'd prefer it if parliament was like that.
Meanwhile, Gordon Brown left number 10, still resembling a mixture of a blobfish, and Shrek in human form.
Hmmmm.
Celebrity Dads Of The Year revealed.
Enough with this cleverclogs stuff about unemployment and politics (I'm clearly so well-informed about our government that I resort to coming up with "hilarious" sitcom scenarios as opposed to giving any political commentary). What we're all interested in is the answer to the question "Who do I think is the best famous Dad in Britain?"
Obviously, this is going off cold, hard evidence, folks. Like Closer readers pointing at the pretty pictures and going "I like him, he's pretty, he MUST be a good Dad, despite the fact that I've never met him, or seen him at home with his kids."
So..... let's have a look:
1. Ronan Keating. Best known for being the simpering, human equivalent of porridge. And also for ruining various Tracy Chapman songs.
2. Peter Andre. A man whose sole redeeming feature is that he was marginally better at playing the PR game than his equally loathesome ex-wife. I still have no idea why he's got off so lightly. This is a man who sells pictures of his children to crappy pap mags (on off-weeks where no female celebrity has had the audacity to gain or lose weight), for Christ's sake. A man whose voice sounds exactly like a mosquito aimlessly buzzing around your ear, and yet, has a "music career." Surely I can't be the only one wishing he'd piss off already?
3. Mark Owen. You know, that bloke from Take That who cheated on his wife with a fucktonne of women but somehow gets away with it because he's "pretty". And writers for Heat liked Take That as teenagers, so surely he can't be a bad man?
4. Vernon Kay. Did exactly the same as Mark Owen, but via text. I can't decide if that's more or less pathetic.
5. Jeff Brazier. Had kids with Jade Goody. I guess he deserves to win on account of not letting said kids near orange rapey stepdad Jack Tweed.
6. Ryan Thomas. I had no idea who this was, so had to google it. Apparently, he's on nobody's favourite "Doom, gloom and pints of bitter" soap Coronation Street. And recently shitcanned the mother of his sprog.
7. Gordon Brown. Has anyone ever even seen him with his kids? I've only ever seen him looking like a rough portrait of Mickey Rourke drawn onto someone's anus.
8. David Cameron. His horsey wife is currently days away from shitting out yet another MechaTory. It would probably be a jolly wizard idea, wouldn't it?
9. Frank Lampard. Currently nobbing walnut-in-a-wig Christine Bleakley from The One Show, having shitcanned his ex, who has custody of the kids.
10. Wayne Rooney. I guess at least he can identify on an emotional and intellectual level with his baby son.
The point being, how can we really tell who is a particularly good parent? In the world of celebrity, you can't just go off "We once took a photo of him with his kid in the park". For God's sake, Kerry Katona won one year. A woman who has since admitted to having a nanny look after the kids for most of the time, while she stayed in her room doing huge amounts of coke for three days at a time. The whole "best celebrity parent" thing basically amounts to "The Award For Excellence in Posing With Your Kid In Magazines."
Aaaaand that's yer lot.
