Make me an offer I can't refuse

 Somehow I appear to have acquired a couple of friends.
One works for a debt recovery company and one works for a loan company as a fraud investigator.
I was offered a job working for the loan company as they had a "patch" free as their previous operator had been given the push for supplying drugs to clients on his round.
I thought this showed true entrepreneurial spirit, but I think the problem wasn't the drugs so much as: If they are using their money for smack, they've none left for us.
I did try to look a little disinterested when he first mentioned the job.
I told him how much creative stuff I had to do-you know I'm writing a book and stuff.
He looked at me and his eyes glazed over as my words tumbled out.
Being currently unwaged and not exactly falling over job offers I'm hardly in a position to be picky but it seems to me that I spent most of my life working to help the people who were at the wrong end of 272% APR loans.
But why swim against the current?
No town seems complete without a few "Bright House" stores scattered about.
Come and buy a £900 42" TV all the way from sunny China.
It'll only cost you £2,200.
Poor people are losing money like they were rich people playing roulette.
Only the other week the Ministry of Defence (that's just next door to the Ministry of Sound) revealed that it was paying £20 for 65p lightbulbs.
I think I know who was supply them....
There are houses around me occupied by people who can't afford curtains but can really really need that 42" TV set. As they've no curtains I get to watch Jeremy Kyle  from a quarter of a mile away totally free .
Hmmmnnn let me see.....A cruise missile costs £870,000.
So far The West (I think that's us) has fired 110 of these in Libya.
I reckon that's about....ooooh nearly £95,000,000, or, if we buy them from Bright House, £840,999,999,786.50.
And you'll need insurance in case you spill tea on them.

A Bigger Boat

24th March 2011
 I spied an advert for "Mental Health Advocate" which led me to yet another agency: Hays Recruitment, and sent off my CV as directed. And.... they needed yet another CRB check.
I said: well....if I get another CRB check done for you guys, what are the chances of you actually finding me a job?
 I think she had heard this question before.
"Well obviously we cannot guarantee anything.....but these mentor posts are with a Really Big employer who has lots of jobs".
Well call me untrustworthy but if an agency can't promise me anything then why add to the pile of CRB's I already have?
Would I take my car to a garage that told me they"couldn't guarantee they could fix it but they'd have a look provided I gave them some money first?"
No. Probably not.
If they're that confident how about they offer to pay for the CRB and you pay them back out of your first paycheck? I'd go with that.
So I declined ...and then went to my computer and did a search for "Mental Health Advocate" posts in my area.
After all, an agency is a third party and surely a Really Big employer would look in more than one place-they would advertise with Job Centres or on their own websites. After all, everyone has a website these days. Even me.
Despite a mega Google search no trace of any such vacancies was mentioned anywhere else.
Far be it for me to suggest that agencies make up vacancies that don't really exist in order to recruit more clients and so reach their targets....
Isn't it odd:  Agencies promise you the world until they get your money for their CRB check, and the worker has met his target by recruiting you, but once this is done they go *ping* and totally and completely vanish.

No Brainer

 

Back to Work Session

12th March 2011, 3pm
At the appointed hour I was dropped off outside the Jobcentre and made my way upstairs as directed by the three-dozen doorpersons.
Four rows of chairs, the first two rows occupied. I sat between a callow youth and a lady with purple hair.
Callow youth said to man behind me: "This is taking up valuable drinking time",at which point they both joined in a chorus of  "hurrrr hurrr hurrrrrr".
A young woman stood up in  front of a projection screen and outlined The Obligations we had to meet to get Our Handouts.
She was alright really.
I came there quite prepared to take the piss but she was just doing her job.
The fact was that I'd been doing a job very similar to hers six weeks previously, but another fact was that she might well be sitting where I am six weeks from now.
She also outlined some of the new and forthcoming employment opportunities Coming Soon:
There's a new Kentucky Fried Chicken opening. We all rushed to apply when the session ended, thirty minutes early.
You know there is a definite role for engaging the Recently Deceased.
But this aint it.

Cake

 

The Thankyou Buffet :11 March 2011

I parked my bike in the car park and made my way to the entrance of  Top Secret HQ .

I was feeling a little apprehensive until I noticed a female member of "The Management" struggling with trays of food.

I helped her carry them upstairs, and roughly disguised, therefore as a member of the catering establishment I entered the training room, my face disguised beneath a row of egg mayonnaise sandwiches.

There were twenty people who didn't have a chair, and I made the mistake of saying this seemed very typical of my ex-organisation. This blew my cover and I was very nearly shark-food.

The Big Boss gave a little speech where he thanked everyone for their hard work, and was sorry to see them go and it had been a privilege to know them.

A Slightly Smaller Boss gave a little speech where he thanked everyone for their hard work, and was sorry to see them go and it had been a privilege to know them.

 A Still More Petite Boss gave a little speech where she thanked everyone for their hard work, and was sorry to see them go and it had been a privilege to know them.

(The speeches were beginning to sound like Groundhog Day)

The Runner-Up Boss said.....that ...the Other Bosses had said everything she had planned to say. 

Well that was it .

The Bosses were all very sad that it had come to this (wherever "this" was, as they didn't seem to have a clue)

Everyone ate egg mayonnaise sandwiches. I was recognised by my ex-team and hugs were exchanged.

I got ready to leave and, while I put my jacket on, asked Christine to keep hold of my helmet.

At this point everyone burst out laughing at the double-entendre. 

Just like Old Times

I vanished enigmatically into the afternoon sun, a rapidly vanishing blur, engine howling into the wind.