On the other hand
When I moved from Scotland down to England early in 2000, I had to go and sign on for a few weeks until I found myself a job.

I had the usual round of crap interviews, being treated like a brain-dead moron, and then was eventually given my sign-on appointment.

I dutifully turned up, handed over my booklet with newspaper cuttings detailing £15-18k jobs I had applied for, and girded my loins for the 'justify your pitiful existence' attitude.

The woman behind the desk started trying to 'get to know' me. She asked what work I had been doing previously.

"I wsa a project manager for four vocational training projects with a combined budget of £2million."

I have never seen a public servant more ready to help anyone in my life.

After that, I basically turned up each fortnight, signed on, and never ONCE had to tell anyone what I was doing to find work.

That said, I didn't enjoy the experience of being unemployed: I just wanted to put the other side that Job Centre workers are not all, by nature, miserable cunts.
( b3th Not shit. Not mod., Tue 7 Apr 2009, 13:51, 4 replies)

I am, by nature, a happy polite person
and found that a smile and interesting smalltalk goes a long way toward maintaining a positive relationship with job centre workers. In my experience, they're all nice :)
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Tue 7 Apr 2009, 14:05, closed)

The ones I have been dealing with have been nice people.
They're clearly having to deal with far more people than there are jobs but they are friendly and good humoured. They are a little bit confused about my skillset and qualiifications but they aren't the first and won't be the last for that.
(Leonard Hatred briefly did some work on, Tue 7 Apr 2009, 14:17, closed)

I will concede
that some of them can be nice people, if they can get past the "every claimant is scum" mindset.

Unfortunately that's a major obstacle, and mere mortals who are decent hard-working people but who haven't got easily summed-up and impressive management experience to force a bit of respect, often get treated like scum as the default position.

I doubt there's many people who could tell an advisor "well, for the last three months I worked on a factory line, before that I'd been at Woolies for six months, and before that I was answering the phone at the Happy Wok three days a week after college" and still get treated like a human being, be given proper and correct advice, sign on without the snooty interrogation about what they've been doing to find work, etc.
( Batsgirl, Tue 7 Apr 2009, 18:25, closed)

To be completely honest
the management part of my job was nominal at best. I was basically a desk jockey.

It was two years of my life spent in a shit job in a shit company with shit bosses. I actually cried on the day I got that job, because I knew at that moment I would be dooming myself to the kind of life I didn't want, but couldn't afford to turn down.

On the plus side, they taught me how to use Photoshop and Dreamweaver, let me use the company laptop on weekends, and .... well, no. That's the only upside. There wasn't anything else from those two years that I would like to remember. Certainly not the high-handed attitude of the managers (the real ones, not pretend ones like me); not the disdain of the other departments for our little team (which was basically keeping the company in business by bringing in that £2million from Europe); and not the oiks in overalls who treated you like a raving lesbian if you didn't want to suck them off in the workroom cupboard.
( b3th Not shit. Not mod., Wed 8 Apr 2009, 10:47, closed)