You were right when you said Job Centers had changed. On my last visit over twenty years ago I remember racks and racks of cards offering employment covering three walls, I remember it as being quite basic with melamine tables and plastic chairs. The idea was to sort through the cards find a job that you considered suitable and take them over to the disapproving stoney faced woman sat in the corner, who on looking at your chosen card would raise her eyebrows in a kind of "your kidding me" way. That's the only time I ever went to be honest, I always found work without them, there was plenty about at that time.
The staff in Job Centers have probably heard it all haven't they, you can picture the scene,some spotty can't be ar*ed teenager wearing a baseball cap complete with shell suit acting like Harry Enfields Kevin " ...........erm...........yeah I wanabe a astronaut " or " Can you do YTS in Ibiza?"
Yes thing's have definitely changed........ now they've got a lop sided fringe covering their face, they've got jeans round their thighs and their underpants on show to all and sundry and that's just the staff
Nah I'm only joking.
It's all very different now. I arrived 9am this morning and was greeted by a security guard. You can only imagine the kind of day they must have sometimes to warrant a security guard on the door
I was directed to a lady who checked out my ID, now believe it or not and this is, I kid you not what she said to me "did you fill out this form on the internet?" she was smiling "Yes" I replied "Well it all looks pretty straight forward, provided there are no problems with your interview this will be the first time we've never had a problem" and she informed that the young man sat on the adjacent desk was going to conduct my 40 minute oops (due to cut backs) 20 minute
interrogation interview. Now I'm not quite sure what she meant by her statement? It wasn't as if the form was complicated, I mean do people usually write
Name Sharon then come to the interview suddenly write
Name Brian? The mind boggles.
I moved tables and hankfully to my relief from this point on everything was very normal, sat in front of me was a guy around my age looking slightly worse for wear to his left was a bottle of Lucozade (dead give away for a hangover) and next to that a bottle of Bubbly. After a brief introduction and quick question and answers routine he told me it was his last day in the job, his contract had expired and from Monday he'd be sat in my seat. He'd been for on his leaving do the night before and was a little rough. Amazes me, more and more people unemployed, more people illegally claiming money and what does the government do, half the time of interviews so they're not as thorough and then cut staffing levels. :rage: Really nice guy too he was very helpful and informative. I in turn advised him not to turn to crime as a source of income as I was hoping to work with young offenders and it would be embarrassing if he ended up on community work
