I finished my last exams, I handed in my last essays. I drank my last glasses of piss-poor rosé wine in the ambient settings of my union bar. I was free: fully trained in French and English after four years of carefree esoteric literary analysis and ready to launch myself and my multitude of transferable skills onto the unsuspecting Real World. My next move? I went to the Job Centre to get myself a job.
My first attempt was abortive. In the elegant settings of Stratford Job Centre Plus, where the security guards almost outnumbered the patiently waiting claimants, I queued for ten minutes in order to be given a very badly photocopied A4 sheet with 'Information for New Claimants'. Go home, I was told, and ring this number. (By the way, we call it Job Seeker's Allowance now. Whatever else it is, it is not a dole.) Darn, I don't come all the way to Stratford for fun, you know. You can sign on from the comfort of your own home? You guys should advertise this shit. Everyone would want some.
My first attempt was abortive. In the elegant settings of Stratford Job Centre Plus, where the security guards almost outnumbered the patiently waiting claimants, I queued for ten minutes in order to be given a very badly photocopied A4 sheet with 'Information for New Claimants'. Go home, I was told, and ring this number. (By the way, we call it Job Seeker's Allowance now. Whatever else it is, it is not a dole.) Darn, I don't come all the way to Stratford for fun, you know. You can sign on from the comfort of your own home? You guys should advertise this shit. Everyone would want some.