Prawns festivals and backstabbers
Dammit, this QOTW has had me reliving events long gone and quietly seething about somethings I thought I'd forgotten, and smiling about others.
Hey ho

From the Thatcherite days to the present Ive had several periods of unemployment.
My first, just after dropping out of college after a tutor called me a Commie, wasnt actually that bad.
There just wasnt any employment to be had in my its grim oop north town.
So basically as long as you turned up to sign on every 2 weeks, the bored DSS workers just stamped your form and you toddled off, picked up your dole cheque a couple days later, and that was that.
I used to spend a lot of time in a drop in centre for the unemployed.
Free tea, trips out, playing some silly tennis/ping pong game on an old B&W neolithic computer.
I was applying for jobs all the time during this period.
One day some bigwig wanders in and asks if any of us want to attend a seminar on being unemployed.
Pay our fares, give us a few quid and feed and water us.
Well why not.
I'll never forget that day, mingling with the movers and shakers, the MP's and council top brass.
But most of all, the buffet they laid out on a huge banqueting table
Food I could only dream of, the likes of which were beyond my means.
Oh the vast plates of prawns, I adore prawns and ate enough to keep a walrus happy for a day.
The price we had to pay for that largesse was to take our turn on the podium and tell them big fellas what it was like to be unemployed and what we wanted.
When it got to my turn, i took great delight in removing from my bag a letter I had received that morning, informing me a job application had been successful and in 2 weeks I would be fully employed.
Cue much applause and back slapping.
At seminar close, someone asked what would be happening with the leftover food, to be told 'oh the cleaning staff will probably take it'
Cue someone producing many carrier bags which we proceeded to fill with gay abandon while the bigwigs looked down their noses at us.
We all ate like kings that weekend :)

The job unfortunately turned out to be a sweatshop nightmare health hazard and i walked out after a few weeks before I got maimed or killed in an uncovered vat of sulphuric acid.

Dole werent going to process my claim as i had voluntarily left.
But as soon as I told them the name of the place, they were all smiles and said no worries, they understood
They had processed claims from over 20 people in the last month who had walked out for fears of their life.
(The place was being investigated, and eventually shut down for the worst safety record known in that area)

cue Summer time, sign on, wait for dole cheque, then go travelling to festivals, hitch home in time to sign on again and then back on the road, happy days :)

Along the way I found my dream job.
Was as happy as pig in the brown stuff, I could spend all day doing what i loved the best, and took every overtime apportunity going.
However the boss was a wannabe pimp and my immediate supervisor was the bitch from hell.
Kept my head down and just got on with it.
My workmates were a great bunch, we partied often.
I was good at my job, I enjoyed it, was told so several times.
So it came as a total shock to be called into bosses office one day to be told that i had to go as i wasnt pulling my weight and people found it difficult to work with me.
To my shame I cried in his office, worked out my shift, went home and buried myself under the duvet for weeks.
Every time I saw any of my former workmates I would blank them, till a few weeks later one of them pulled me over and asked why I no longer spoke to any of them and why did i leave?
I told her why and she was horrified.
Seems my bitch supervisor hated anyone being good at the job and being popular, and had told the boss lies about me, and 3 other people who also were told to leave.
2 faced cow was applying for other jobs at the same time and left 2 weeks after me.
Even now several years later if I ever saw her I dont know what I'd do.
Lost my perfect, all i ever wanted dream job due to some spiteful saddo
Lost a month of my life crying that I was useless and no-one liked me, which turned out not to be true

gah! sorry

Long post
Anyway, good times being unemployed and bad times too.

Is currently unemployed after a serious fall, but is walking without a stick right now, so Yay :)
(insomniac-surfer oh go on then, just this once, Mon 6 Apr 2009, 0:45, Reply)