Forget the DWP.....
The Department for Work and Pensions cannot hold a candle to those Loose Women!

About 5 years ago, your very own BadBob had been canned from a large Train Opertaing Company. They had legitimate reason. I was lazy, was letting everyone travel for free and was so pissed off with the job I had even taken to letting off fire extinguishers on empty trains and blaming the local urchins.

So, the day after being given the orders to march from the premises, I presented myself at the local ExtremeJobCentrePlusExtraInnit and demanded some cash from the bespectacled civil servant sat behind the plexi-glass shield. I believed I was entitled to at least a pittence a week as I had been paying taxes all my adult life (of about 4 years at this point).

I was instead given a ream of paperwork, a stern lecture on the evils of the unemployed and a telling off for being careless and forgetting where I had put my old job. I was also given instructions to return in 2 weeks.

Being of sound financial mind I thought I had nothing better to do than spend my last paycheck from ScotRail on a new (well, used) car and return my actual new car to the dealer. This left me with approximate savings of -£700.

For 6 weeks I duly attended the JobSeekers sessions (why is the second syllable in gov always capitalised), and was presented with £45 a week for my troubles. I had a weekly argument with the JobsWorths about why I was not commuting the 75 miles to Carlisle for minimum wage and about how I had a degree and was generally better then them. They threatened to take my money away from me if I didn't go to the interviews in Cumbria.

Do you know what actually encouraged me to go find a job? Not the threats of the civil servant scum, but those Loose Women bints on ITV. I couldn't take daytime TV anymore! It was either suicide or take a mon-fri job.

And thats how BadBob found himself moving to Bristol to be manager of a large city-centre hotel. A trade he knew feck-all about but seemed to be able to talk a good interview.

The upside of it all.... I met my girlfriend in Bristol. Long story I know, but shows everything has an upside. :-)
(badbob82 actually has mates called Rex and Wendy, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 20:47, Reply)