Centrelink love
Owing to our shiny New Economy where even comparatively good jobs are casual (and therefore you had better be the healthiest, buffest person alive... and never pull a hammy either), I had to drop into Centrelink (dole and pension administration in Australia) today despite having been employed for about six weeks. (I choose to do this because I don't want to lose payments when I fall ill, which by a 'happy' coincidence has recently happened - I've lost about $500 of wages, so I'll need a dole payment.) I was expected to hand in a Dole Diary, where you record the names of four real and eight totally made up employers that you asked for jobs within each fortnight. Having been working for six weeks, I figured that I don't have to have this thing filled in, no biggie.

Unfortunately, because I had a few employment points backed up (allowing me to still get paid even though I was reporting income), the system wants me to invent, er, I mean report 12 employers that I approached in the fortnight before I started my job.

The nice man at Centrelink asked me "Did you look for work in the time before you started your job?" "No, of course I f-" I began before he hastily interrupted me "Well, we don't know that, do we?" "OH" I suddenly realised "Well... I'll just go home... and... check my records... yes, that's what I'll do..."

The "dirty secret" of the Dole Diary is... surprise surprise... all the overworked bureaucrat at Centrelink wants to see is some text written in the relevant boxes. There is no frickin' way they are going to call up some employer whom you may or may not have spoken to six weeks ago and who wouldn't remember you even if you had sent them a big bunch of proteas and a fat-a-gram. Centrelink (and Tax Office, and RTA) bods are very nice people if you don't leap over the counter and break their nose.
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Thu 4 Oct 2007, 8:48, Reply)