On the bog
I get continually rung up by agents when they know I'm looking for a contract.

One morning, my wireless telephonic receiver sounded, it was an agent. He told me about an "exciting new role" and asked if it would be OK if his client rang me to have a chat.

Fine by me, I'll just nip upstairs and get my morning dump out of the way before they ring (taking my portable long-distance communication machine with me) (just in case).

My buttocks had barely touched down when my magic silver oyster shaped thing began playing a tune.

I didn't let on, didn't say "can I call you back", the benefit of hind sight...

He wanted to do a "telephone interview", we spoke for a good half hour. I couldn't stand up or flush, just had to sit there. I couldn't very well say "please excuse me, I just have to wipe my bum crack" and momentarily put the phone down.

So I grunted my way through drifting in out of concentration as I used the sound of his voice to mask the plopping noises my end.

Didn't get the job.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 15:53, 2 replies)

It's a family affair
My father was made unemployed in about 1978, which came as a shock to him as he was in a fairly senior research position in a foundry supplies company. I’m not sure you can count the outcomes as all upside, but here are a few highlights:

Dad went mad. He would spend hours designing various bizarre inventions, hoping to flog them to his contacts in the industry. Sadly he was a much worse salesman than he was a scientist and he made not a single sale. The house filled up with models of impeller blades, pouring nozzles, vacuum pumps, etc. I stole these and incorporated them into secret bases for my army of Action Men.

He bought a bright yellow Rover P6 3500S as ‘an investment’. This was a disaster. It drove like a boat and was constantly breaking down. The best moment was when my mother was driving and pulled up alongside a boy racer at a traffic lights. He saw a woman driving a sporty car and started to rev his engine. As soon as the lights turned to green he shot forwards, straight into the back of the car in front, while my mother sedately tootled past. The car had a spare fuel tank so if you ran out you could pull a lever and release an emergency gallon or so of petrol. My mother drove with the lever permanently pulled out then complained to my Dad when she ran out of fuel.

My grandmother’s reaction was to constantly berate my father for not having taken a nice safe job in a bank or post office. She would remind him about this at frequent intervals, usually during meals when he couldn’t escape. She delighted in saying ‘I told you so’ in as many different ways as she could imagine. See more about my grandmother’s character here .

My mother went back to teaching, teaching french in a school for mentally retarded children. Who ever thought that would be a good idea? She decided that teaching french songs was probably the best idea, which I’m sure it was. However 6 months of ‘Frere Jacques’ soon sent her bonkers.

In the name of cost saving we cancelled our annual two week holiday in a rented apartment in Woolacombe (such expense!) and replaced it with the entire summer spent on my uncle’s farm. I got to mess around in the haystack, collect eggs, shoot rats and generally have a great time. Telling my Dad that it was much better than Woolacombe did not go down well.

With Mum teaching, Dad started cooking and discovered he had an inate ability for ruining any and every meal. On one memorable occasion he managed to burn a pan of water. This was finally what drove him to find a job and Mum to reduce her teaching hours and get back to real work looking after me and my siblings.

And me? Well I was a very young Ruddles during all this, far too self-obsessed to take much interest in what was going on around me. But I got some accessories for my Action Man base and a great holiday out of it, so all in all not bad. Dad got back into work within 9 months or so and worked until retirement.
(Smale is stuffed, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 15:49, 5 replies)

Unemployed?
Howayiz?

I was never technically unemployed as I went on one of those government-run courses but I got the same paltry amount of money every week, my self-esteem plummeted and I was very, very bored.

The course was partly interesting in that we found ourselves in a dusty old room in a decrepit office building in a cemetery entering the contents of the huge dusty death-tomes into a rudimentary database.

Keeping records of what people were dying of in19th century Dublin was surprisingly interesting and it was better than doing fuck all or the other part of the course which consisted of learning basic Microsoft computer courses, attending the odd lecture and learning how to pick stuff up (manual handling).

We also got access to the National Library of Ireland, a beautiful Georgian building with an amazing dome, which was usually reserved for proper researching university types so we spent one day per week in there supposedly researching a project, the gist of which I have no recollection of as I was in fact trawling through WB Yeats diaries and reading books on the occult which he had noted.

I had moved back into my parents’ house so the accoutrements of despair were all in place. I would pretty much just crash out on the couch at night and watch the comedy channels to synthesise cheer.

If I had any money, I would generally just drink myself to sleep before starting over again the next day.

My parents hated me for that.

My youngest brother was in his early teens and deserved a better role model than the useless lump I had become lying there on the couch more or less incommunicado.

Thankfully it was only a few short months before I got a proper job and moved into a flat and got laid and started shaving again and drinking beer out of a bottle and all of those other symbols of a normal healthy functioning member of society.

If I ever had to be proper unemployed, I think I would probably…

I don’t honestly know.

Frankly, the idea is terrifying…

…and all too ominous.

I work in a bank.
We caused the recession, kind of.

My boss and various colleagues tell me all the time we are lucky to have work but they still somehow managed to give us a small raise and bonus.

I’m not doing any less work, that’s for certain so we’ll see.

Me littlest bro is coming to visit this weekend.
I’m his hero still in many ways as for the last few years since that brief but awful time, he has had a fortune out of me and is spoiled utterly rotten both financially and in terms of the cultural phenomena I can make him aware of.

EG, He’s 18 years old and he is a John Martyn aficionado who has seen Tom Waits, Tool and Radiohead live, can tell his Alan Moore from his Frank Miller, has read the likes of Jack Kerouac and Aldous Huxley and knows the heady thrill of the scent of a freshly popped cork from a Cote De Beaune Villages as well as how much you should tip your waitress.

How things change!

rafter
baz
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 15:43, 1 reply)

When I was doing my medical training
I had to leave my part time job of being a bike mechanic in order to concentrate on making sure I didn't kill people just by looking at them. Fair enough, I think you'll agree.

One week, I was working in theatres, when we had a nasty op come in. A man was ploughing a field when his plough got caught on a brick by a bush in his field. As he got out of his tractor to investigate, a bunch of rats ran from underneath the bush, jumped on his back and pushed him onto the ploughshares. This caused a major laceration to his abdomen, as well as severe internal bleeding.

It turns out that these rats had escaped from a secret government laboratory where they had been given special drugs to stimulate their mental agility. The rats themselves were actually nearly as intelligent as most human beings. In fact, it turns out that the reason they attacked the farmer is that he had uncovered a tiny money printing works hidden underneath the bush.

We managed to sow the poor farmer up again, but unfortunately this left a major scar across his stomach. When he came round, I saw the bandages being removed. He screamed and asked me "what the fuck is that on my stomach?"

"Ah" I said, "that's the op site to a NIMH-ploy mint."

And then he shot me.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Fri 3 Apr 2009, 15:18, 10 replies)

Jenny
A while back my boss dropped onto my desk a CV and covering letter sent in by a recent university graduate called Jenny. We had not advertised a position and we were not recruiting staff. “Bloody cheek” said my boss and promptly locked himself in his office to do whatever it is directors of small accountancy firms do. I gave the beautifully hand written letter a cursory glance before dropping it into the bin.

As the morning wore on the letter in the bin started to bother me. I was remembering the 6 months of unemployment I endured 8 years earlier…signing on the day after graduation, the grinding monotony of filling out job applications and dealing with disinterested recruitment agency staff, rejection after rejection and even worse, NEVER HEARING BACK!!!! Wondering what you did wrong or what made you so fucking unemployable, the feelings of betrayal over every teacher who had ever pushed you in the direction of higher education and having to lower your expectations in life every day as you apply for worse and worse jobs.

It got to mid-day and I thought “sod it, I’m going to call this girl and give her some feedback”. I was going to tell her that it was nothing to do with her; there just wasn’t a position available. I was going to tell her that I thought her cover letter was beautifully written and that her CV was well presented. I was going to tell her all the inside secrets I had learnt on how to become an accountant and the various recruitment agencies that could find her work. I might not be able to offer her a job, but by the end of our conversation she was going to be crying with tears of gratitude and joy.

I dialled the number, after many rings it is answered:
Voice (her mother I assume): “Hello?”
Me: “May I speak with Jenny please?”
Jenny’s mother: “She’s still in bed”
Me: “Jenny wrote to me expressing an interest in becoming a trainee accountant”.
Jenny’s mother: “Hang on” She puts down the receiver and shouts “JENNY!” repeatedly up the stairs.
Faint voice (Jenny I assume): “WHAT?”
Jenny’s mother: “Some bloke you wrote to is on the phone, says he’s an accountant”
Jenny: “Get him to call back, I’m meeting Sasha in town”
Jenny’s mother (picks up receiver): “Can you call back? She’s…
Me: “Meeting Sasha in town. I take it Jenny has already found a job?”
Jenny’s mother: “Not yet, but she’s looking hard”

I wonder if Jenny’s mother could hear the sound of her daughters CV and beautifully hand-written letter going through the shredder at the side of my desk?
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 15:08, 6 replies)

Thankyou helpful bloke with beard
Don't know your name, sorry.

I put down on my jobseeker form that I was interested in accounting and computer programming roles even though I'd never had any sort of job since saturdays at Tesco when I was in the Sixth Form.

I enrolled on a book-keeping evening course at the local college but those few weeks convinced me that accounting wasn't for me so IT it was then.

When I went to sign on, I asked woman with an attitude whether there were any computer programming courses I could go on. "We don't do anything like that" she said in her condescending tone.

A few weeks later I signed on at helpful bloke with beard's desk. He looked at my notes and said "I see you're interested in computer programming, we offer a course in C++, would you like to go on it?".

So for 16 weeks I travelled to Cambridge most days. Couldn't afford every day as £35 per week Income Support plus the extra £10 they gave me for attending the course didn't leave much change after the £7 per day rail fair. I did complete the course though and thoroughly deserved my NVQ4 in C++ programming.

This enabled me to get my first proper job as a Junior Developer and has put me on a path of ever increasing salaries and eventually contracting. I now find myself sat at home for a few weeks between contracts with a pile of dosh in my business account, playing games and reading B3ta.

So, helpful bloke with beard, thanks for helping me and thanks for giving me a career.

And, woman with an attitude, I can but hope that you are as miserable on the inside as you are on the outside and that you are no longer employed in a role that allows you to fuck up young people's chances of getting the help and encouragemnent that they need.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:54, 5 replies)

I'm Scouse
Of course I've been unemployed!

Five times at ast count. I've been made redundant three times (working in games does that for you), sacked once (and made a large, international corporation change it'spolicy on internet usage at the same time) and spent a couple of months looking for work after college.

There is very little to report about signing on, it was very dull. Except for the crap beaurocracy, the highugh being the last time I signed on: I had just founf a job and it was ue to start two weeks after my signing on date. I told the dole office bloke that I had a job and he just said "so what are you going to do to try to find work between now and our start date?" He meant it.
(ScousersPet, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:51, 4 replies)

Before going mad of boredom
I thought I'd try to learn something to break the ice when out and about. Drawing cocks on stuff didn't do the trick, so I picked up juggling. 2 months of practicing and I am still shit, but throwing fruit and empty beer cans around is a great icebreaker.
(Haz, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:49, Reply)

I've done loads of firing.
Then again, I am a kiln.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:48, Reply)

Does being on strike count?
I worked for the Benefits Agency when it was merged with the Job Centre to form Job Centre Plus or whatever it's called now.

In protest, our union called a strike. Intolerable working conditions I believe they called it, mainly because our offices were largely becoming open plan and we didn't want to be attacked by mental junkies. (if you've ever been to the town I'm from, this is a genuine concern, not even just in the Benefits Agency).

So, we went on strike. IT LASTED SIX MONTHS.

Mainly because the union paid us 85% of our gross salary.

So I was MAKING MORE MONEY being on strike than being at work, and all I had to do was show up at the picket line a couple of mornings a week (which was only there from 7:30 - 9:30 when the staff were starting work by the way) - and I had the rest of the week to myself. Fucking right I kept voting to extend the strike.

Then, when we went back, we got tax rebates. I got about six hundred quid.

Result.
(Zutroy started without you, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:46, Reply)

I was nearly a bin lady
When I left the farmer (the previous Mr Chickenlady) I also left my job as chief chicken-handler, goat-handler, farm manager and sometime tractor driver – although to be fair the tractor driving I was pretty crap at and once almost tipped a rather large Valtra over as I was doing a spot of rolling one spring…

Anyway, losing my home, job and marriage necessitated me getting a job that would keep me in the comfort to which I had become accustomed, in other words something that paid the minimum wage or less.
Refusing to sign on (I could afford a little bit of pride for a few weeks) I instead signed up with the local Brook Street temp agency.
I have plenty of office skills and I’m quite willing to sit on the boss’s lap in a short skirt and file my nails.

So I was sent along for an interview at the local council in their refuse department – I’m not kidding, this wasn’t to empty the bins but rather to take telephone calls from angry ‘customers’ who hadn’t had their rubbish collected in the last month or were dealing with rats.

A great job.


I turn up at the office – a portacabin next to the bin lorries.

It was July – truly high summer…plenty of flies, sweaty men in florescent nylon uniforms and me.

I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
No, that’s wrong.
I thought I’d died.
Well, someone had, I could smell them.


Laura was to interview me and would be my boss if successful.
She was stunning – nearly six foot tall, fantastic FHM cover figure, long brown hair and a beautiful face. She shook my hand, introduced me to the other applicant also being interviewed and then led us to her office.

The other applicant was called Maureen, she’d clearly smoked sixty a day for the last four decades, carried a few extra pounds and dressed way too young for her 45 years in a low cut blouse that showed the world her wrinkled puppies. Nobody could fail to be drawn into her sagging cleavage as she wore a giant piece of jewellery which can only be described as a dog turd cast into gold and then hung from a lavatory chain around her neck. Maureen told Laura and me she was an Artist and this was a piece of her own work. She wanted the job because it would provide,

“Interesting material for my next piece. You see, I’m planning some art pieces on found objects and the detritus left around us and how life is so transient.”

We both smiled and nodded politely.

“Erm, Maureen you’ll have to wear shoes if you come to work here you know” Laura pointed out.

Maureen was very apologetic and fished a pair of jellies (circa 1985) from her commodious bag which she then struggled to fit over the horniest pair of feet I’ve ever seen…I don’t mean her feet were sexy, I mean she had feet that even goats would be ashamed of – black toe nails, toe rings and cracked horny skin.

“I never normally wear shoes, it’s so I keep grounded and with the people.”

Laura nodded and showed us around the portacabin en route to her office,

“Here’s the kettle. That’s where you’ll make the coffee each morning.”

“Is it Fairtrade? I only drink Fairtrade. It’s part of my religion you see. And part of my raison d’être as an Artist.”

Maureen continued to witter on about her practise as an artist and Laura continued to smile – albeit vacantly after a few moments.


Anyway, I went into the interview first and was asked all the usual questions – what I’d done before and so on. I explained how I used to teach, went to the farm, blah, blah, blah.

Laura went pale, her smile became a little forced and she told me she’d let the agency know.

An hour later the agency phoned me – Laura couldn’t employ me as her assistant as she felt very uncomfortable about me working there.

She thought I’d get bored and leave.

I was too qualified.

She wasn’t sure I’d like the smell of the bins.

She believed I was the wrong type of person to be working there but I was very nice.


Then I remembered where I’d seen her before….



I’d been her teacher seven years before.


Maureen got the job for a few weeks. She ended up sacked when it came to light that she’d been stealing rubbish from the bins and making sculptures out of them.


At night.


On a roundabout along the ring road.


Naked.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:40, 9 replies)

Two bouts of unemployment
The first was in the "extra year" of the PhD I never completed. As a libertarian, I feel a bit guilty about that (I wasn't at the time though). Spent about 6 months lying about looking for work. Slightly soul destroying really.

Second time I was in the US and got no benefits but had some savings to burn through due to the ridiculous discrepancy in housing costs. Had a great time bumming around and managed to end up with a pilot license.
(Richy_T hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:37, Reply)

See ya losers
My last place wanted to make some of the Senior Developers redundant. They didn't want to let us know how many redundancies they had in mind. One person had already decided to leave.

In the meeting to discuss the redundancy process the management was asked what if we *all* wanted to take redundancy? This left them pretty dumb struck and at which point I thought "f*ck it, I'm not leaving my fate in their hands" and decided to take the redundancy package. Not much point in staying for the rest of the meeting so I went back to my desk.

Shortly after, another employee asked for redundancy, the management got scared and closed the book before anyone else could put their name down.

One of the developers was on holiday at the time and I think he was pretty miffed not to be at least given the choice.

I then made it my job to get a new job and spent the next two weeks busting my balls looking. I think putting a positive spin on my redundancy story provided a good anecdode during my interviews and I secured a job pretty swiftly.

I bought a nice recliner sofa with some of the payoff and sometimes recline and reflect on my efforts. Brave, stupid, or a bit of both perhaps??!! Completely out of character but decidedly one of the finer things I have done in my life.

I'm keen to read past page 4 of 'The Art of Quitting' book that's sitting on my bookshelf to see if it contains a similar story.
(ed-z, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:35, Reply)

I got the sack this morning.
Good job too.... I'M A POSTMAN!!!
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:26, 4 replies)

Got fired once
I stole my employer's pen wich he had handed to me to sign the paper stating that I was no longer employed in his organisation. Right under his nose i nicked it and casually walked out of the building.

I also slammed the door really really hard on my way out!

...that really showed the bastard...
(Rebooted Frazer Smoothly scrolling since, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:15, 1 reply)

Job club and how they wanted to kill us
I was unemployed for longer than six months, so they sent me to a 'motivational' job search bollocky thing.

It consisted of four days out of five being patronised by a bloke about our personal hygeine, our standards of living and how we should all be off our arses doing shit jobs.

But as a kind of inspiration on the last week, they decided to take us on an outdoor activity course as a team building thing.

Great... Abseiling, canoeing (sp), archery etc... But Noooooooo. It had been snowing heavily in Wales and all the climbing routes were off limits, the archery course was closed and this just left canoeing (sp).

Fuck that, it was freezing cold, still snowing heavily and they wanted to put us in crappy little boats and canoes and send us off down a river. No thankyou...

I was one of three who refused to do it, instead spending my time hugging a warm coffee, watching the other dole scum as their canoe capsised sending them into the freezing, icy water... Suddenly emerging at the surface, blue faced and spluttering insults at the organisers.

The remaining three of us then hurled dozens of snow balls at them as they clawed their way to the embankment.

They could have easily died and makes me wonder if that was the whole point of this motivational course in the first place. A way of culling the lower classes...
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:08, 1 reply)

No happy memories for me
The company I worked for went into administration and made me redundant on the day before my wedding.

Then had two weeks of honeymoon with the cloud of joblessness hanging over me.
( Smashy only 35 years of work to go :), Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:05, 1 reply)

Kunts at Kollege
Well where do i begin? no appraisal for 4 years? being left to go feral without a line manager for 3 years?

They were great times, leaving to go home at 12.00 all the stuff you could steal(many nice things). Great people there too. The kids were allright on the whole as well.

Just one problem(well 2 actually) Fat Jabba The Hut noisy cake scoffing bully, and dopey Irish fella who was her marrionette.

Can you guess where?

BTW im having a great time now!
(Letchworth is better than Hitchin, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:04, Reply)

Laid off
A few weeks ago my Boss called me and another colleague, called Jack, into his office.

He looked quite serious and said to me:

"I'm going to have to lay you or Jack off"

So I replied "I'd prefer it if you could Jack off, I've got a shit load of work to do"
(porkinator is a Rock n Roll nerd!, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:03, 3 replies)

I've been unemployed since December
And so far, I've got nothing apart from a couple of interveiws. I can't get low paid job, because as soon as employers see the fact I have a degree they figure I'll piss off at the first oppurtunity, and I can't go in for graduate training as I've already applied for teacher training posts. So yes, I'm stuck inside, every fucking day, looking for work.

It takes about 2 hours to go through the websites I have bookmarked, another 1 hour or so calling up (or trying to get through to people) agencies, asking for work, another half hour or so reading through the local paper if it happens to be the right day.

I haven't been out drinking in months, I can't afford to hire films, or buy music or even food more interesting than beans on toast. I'm getting pretty sick of people who assume all people on the dole are scroungers, and even more sick of having precisely fuck all to tell people when I do meet them. Every damn time I get a letter of rejection, or more often than not no reply at all it fucking hurts, and reinforces the part of me that thinks I'm a failure. I used to be pretty laid back, friendly, confident and happy, and the longer this goes on the more I find myself unable to even remember when I was like that. So no funnies. No silver lining from where I am either. I honestly don't expect anyone to click this, or reply, I'm just ranting.
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:02, 16 replies)

Right, can we please nip this in the bud?
It's 'laid' off, FFS.

Being a smartarse I finished school a year earlier than most, so when I finished my 'A' Levels I decided to have a gap year and travel the world, using up my bonus year.

I certainly did that: my world consisted of signing on, going to raves and peddling hashish, and I travelled the length and breadth of it for a whole year.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:00, Reply)

I'm quite glad to say that I'm still employed.
However, it hasn't been that long since my last stretch of enforced vacation. My fond memories of it?

-getting up when I woke up, instead of when a buzzer told me to.

-having a wank whenever I wanted to.

-reading on cold wet days, and going to the park on warm sunny days.

-being able to go all day every day wearing shorts and a tee shirt and whatever else I wanted to wear.

-watching childrens' programming in the morning.

-having a wank whenever I wanted to. (Sorry, but some of the women on those shows are HOT.)

There were the usual down sides as well, of course... but I can understand the appeal of going on unemployment for a while!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 3 Apr 2009, 13:59, 1 reply)

At last!
A QOTW that isn't thoroughly tedious!

Anyway, my story is as follows...

I'd finished uni in summer 2003 and already had a part time job in the local cinema (Vue, Gunwharf Quays - woo!) so I increased the hours to full time. I'd already been there some time and the jobs were so simple that they didn't require too much higher brain function.

After using less and less brain power for about six months I realized I had to leave, so handed in my notice with nothing to go on to. A bad plan.
At the time I was living in a house with my brother and a couple of other friends. As I am a clean and tidy person I filled a lot of my time making sure the house was clean and tidy. My brother pointed out that instead of getting free films from me he could now get a clean house and all the washing up and laundry done.

I did start to do the enevitable and get up later and later, not going to bed until the early hours of the morning. Not a great change from working in the cinema actually.

After about a month I started to look for work - basic IT support stuff because I now had a degree in IT so I thought someone should snap me up. How wrong I was. No experience, see? You've not done this before professionally, sonny. WELL HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO START THEN!?!
Basic applications and letters were still going out and I had now been unemployed for four months.

I thought I should do something about signing on (living on savings so far). Had my interview with the tool in the jobcentre. Minimum pay? 14k? Oooh, I don't know if we can put you down for things paying that much. You've never earnt that much before. Yes, but I can do more than clean toilets, which is the level most people in the job centre are aiming at.

After about six months of unemployment a friend said his dad has a job working in IT. So I apply, and I get it. I now repair computer hardware for the county with a company car. I want to move onto something else, but I don't know the first thing about software and I have yet to find a hardware only support job that pays anywhere near what I'm currently on. I fix them - I don't actually know how to use them.
( gareth_alien will be human again at, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 13:54, 2 replies)

I got layed off 6 weeks ago
Since then i've had a week doing a quick roll out for a college but nothing else until now.
I'm now sitting in my car in the carpark of the firm that has given me a couple me weeks work doing some really basic first line work, user account creation etc... Pay's not the best either. Had a phonecall last night offering me 6days server work (way more intersting!) for 33% more money than if I only do the two weeks here but there maybe another week on top who knows? So my question is: shall i walk from this one tonight and take the other on and hope i get something else soon or stay here and hope it get's extended further? Help! (And there's no possibility of doing both which is a shame)
(Kip, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 13:47, 2 replies)

Getting my own back....
Last August the company I was working for decided that they needed to reduce the size of their sales team. I hadn't been there for long (but over a year so I had some rights) so I was first in line for redundancy. I had a chat with the boss and asked if they would be increasing the size of the sales team when the downturn came to and end. "Sure we will" came the response", "would you be interested in coming back?"

Well, obviously not but if they made me redundant at that point, they would not be able to back fill my role later on down the line - for those who know their HR law, it's the job you make redundant not the person.

Oh, what were they going to do???? Well, there's only one option, I told them. you'll have to offer me a compromise agreement, then I'll go quietly and not take them to a tribunal. And I want a decent wedge of cash to make it worth my while. Well, had they made me redundant I would have come out with about 2 weeks pay, instead I left with a signed agreement not to sue them and a tax free payment of £7500 in the bank...

3 weeks later I had set up my own company in competition with them and at the moment I'm poaching their staff with two of my old colleagues starting next week! Result!

And as we provide payroll services to contractors,and as more people are recruiting contractors than permanent staff, the business is growing very quickly. Double result!!

Just shows you though, when you lose your job it can seem like the end of the world but sometimes it's just what you need to give you a reason to go and do what you REALLY want to do.
(penrose your dog's got tits, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 13:38, 4 replies)

THE GREAT PROJECT
I was unemployed for about six months a while back. It was pretty hellish, no money, fuck all to do, and I realised pretty early on that daytime TV was produced by mindless wankers to sate the cerebrally retarted appetites of other mindless wankers. I don't care about home improvements, antiques, mysterious diseases, or self-important shits wearing designer haircuts going on about how fucking great they are. If I wanted that I'd get a job in advertising.

It was fucking awful.

Then I hit upon an idea. A great project. THE great project. A scheme that Brunel himself would've been proud of. I felt like Darwin, spending hours pouring over my materials, sorting them into some kind of order. Trying to find an answer to a question that has plauged humankind for centuries.

And it kept me busy for ages.

Of course, I had to shell out a bit of cash in the pursuit of The Great Project, but it wasn't too pricey - my fortnightly dole cheque covered the expense and left enough cash to purchase tins of tomatoes, peas, and rice.

And still I laboured. The days flew by.

Then, completely without warning, something catastropic happened - I got a fucking job.

The Great Project was not complete, but it certainly wasn't forgotten. With love and great care I put the fruits of my feverish labour in a big cardboard box and marked on the front of it:

THE GREAT PROJECT

Then I put the box in a wardrobe and forgot about it.

Fastforward a year, I'm happy with the current and only Ms Hanky, I have a nice job in central London where I get to drink coffee all day and talk absolute bollocks and get paid for it, and I hear Liz, my girlfriend say:

"What's this?"

I look up from my well-thumbed copy of The Dark Knight Returns and see she's holding the box, my Arc of the Covenant.

I suddenly shit myself.

"Oh, it's nothing," I say, tossing aside the greatest graphic novel ever written and standing to take the box off her.

"But it says 'The Great Project' on it," says Liz. "What is it? Can I open it? I'm going to open it."

And she does. Liz is small, petite, but she's got a fiery Welsh temper and once she decides to do something, well, no power in the Universe can stop her. Not even the Dark Knight himself.

Liz places the box on the floor, pulls back the flaps, and stares.

And I feel my arsehole start to hum.

"What the fuck is THIS???" Liz enquires.

I shrug.

Liz reaches in and takes out some of the discs which I've loveingly labled. She scans a few of them. She slams them down. She finds the folder that I was compiling as a catalogue of my Great Work, opens it, looks at some of my notes.

"You," she spits. "Are fucking SICK!" And she gets her coat and storms out, slamming th flat door behind her.

And I look down at my crowning achievement, wishing I hadn't started the whole project in the first place.

You see, if you're bored and unemployed, by all means look at porn on the internet. But don't, please DON'T, download every conceivable scrap of smut you can find and commit it to disk. And don't, whatever you do, catalogue the smut into categories such as: Watersports, Beastiality, Lesbian, Cumshot (on tits), Cumshot (with facial), Anal, Anal with Cumshot, and so on on individual disks. And don't, for the love of God, make a cross referenced catalogue featuring your personal such as:

'Beastiality, Disk Three, File Name: Zoo Zone - Nice feature, the girl has got incredible tits and swallows the entire donkey load. I give it 5 stars. Music was a bit off putting though.'

It makes you look fucking weird.

It took a fucking long, long, looooonnnngggg time to get Liz to come back home. And when she did she was none too fucking happy with me, I can tell you.

And she made me bin The Great Project.

I still wonder to this day if some lucky teenage lad hit the jackpot, won the proverbial Euromillions Rollover, when he found that box of smut, THE ultimate box of smut, in a skip on Camden Road.
( SpankyHanky, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 13:37, 21 replies)

Not technically unemployed but
on my last day of employment at one of my many previous jobs as an admin monkey, at a Job Centre of all places, I decided to bring my laptop in and play Whitesnake's 'Here I go again' (1982 album version) over the tannoy. Granted the only people in the place were other admin monkeys and security but it made me smile.

As for an actual unemployment story, back in the mists of 2001, fresh after finishing my degree I was unemployed for six months. On the plus side I became the KING of Tekken 3 (in a daily contest between myself and one of my friends who was in the same predicament, the title was never formalised but we both knew it was true). It was also at this time I discovered the 'Adult Channel Freeview'. This, in conjunction with the aforementioned Tekken addiction, may explain the lengthy unemployed period.
( Funkenschlag still likes dogs more than cats, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 13:30, Reply)

Payback!
I got made redundant twice (!) due to the dotcom crash and spent 8 months of 2002 on the bloody dole.

Thankfully though, the weather was crap that year and to relieve the boredom I spent a bit of time writing shareware to flog via my website.

7 years later, I'm still selling the software and it has made such a vast pile of cash that I was able to go on holiday to Japan and fill my suitcase with Domo-kun goodies.

So yes, unemployment can have a silver (and gold!) lining.
(Dr GUID, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 13:21, Reply)

Unemployed
I spent my dole on weed and sat around wanking all day.
( redazril I LIKE DRUGS!, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 13:09, 9 replies)

well....
I got made redundant and became addicted to Pot Noodle. I had a manic belief that it would raise me out of my depression.

Six months and 2 stone later, I realised it didn't.
(plant rolls out of bed like a fat wobbly tub of lard, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 13:08, Reply)