El Jefe looks for work...
Finding work just ain't that easy - as El Jefe discovers. XY's resident life columnist rues a lack of benefits, experience and daytime cartoons as he heads down to his local job centre...
I feel a need to dispel the high hopes of all those job seekers that have just left school. All the best jobs are taken and you’re probably best suited to a refuse management job or bovine lactation delivery service…
The toothy-grinned lady began by probing me about what I would want to be when I grew up.
I discovered this morbid fact when I moseyed down to the local job centre to sign on. This was purely for novelty value I assure you (I planned to frame my first dole cheque and hang it on my loo wall as a family heirloom that could be passed on to my children if they ever manage to track me down). However, after spending a good two and a half hours in the tope surroundings of Balham Job centre; being ushered from desk to desk by kitsch, name-tagged staff and filling out identical form after form, I admit I wasn’t in the most accommodating of moods when I finally came face to face with “Hi, I’m Ulim”, my allocated career advisor. I’d missed all the best daytime cartoons, discovered that I really wasn’t going to be eligible for benefits anyway and to top it all the sugar high from my last wham bar was wearing off fast.
The toothy-grinned lady began by probing me about what I would want to be when I grew up. With a look of solid determination I said that I might quite like to be Keith Duffy. I detected a glimmer of uncertainty in my advisors eyes, which was then confirmed in the hesitant, sugary voice “A job like Keith Duffy’s?...”. “No. Keith Duffy” I said, hardening my resolve. “Do you have any experience or skills as a singer?” Ulim ventured, grabbing at the proverbial straws, but holding it together rather well I must admit. “well no…but neither did he, he just used to prances around behind Ronan Keating, Stephen Gaitley and the rest of Boyzone, get paid and have a lot of sex.”. To my abject dismay the position had been filled. Further investigation also proved to be a little futile, and after my second tantrum I was asked to leave. The trouble with most of the jobs today is that those with out gainful employment, like yours truly need to gain experience. And apparently watching “Dougie Howser M.D.”, “Quincy” or “Diagnosis Murder” do not qualify as either doctoring or private investigative experience…
