If I want to get my mortgage insurance, I have to get the Job Centre to fill out a form. I've been lucky. I've never had to claim benefits. I'm also lucky because I'm middle class, and people on phones in Job Centres and the Police are usually more civil to the middle classes than they are to everyone else. (I will say no more on the subject.)
But even getting an appointment is a mindfuck, involving a 45 minute phone interview for which you have to prepare with fifteen different pieces of paper, reference numbers, your last two payslips, and your genetic fingerprint.
On a slightly more cheery note I, as usual, got the only lunatic working for any Job Centre anywhere in the country.
Right, well that's the money ones done. Now I have to ask you some rather personal questions, some of which I feel are frankly unnecessary, but it's not me who makes the decisions. Right. Ready?
Yes.
Do you live alone?
Yes.
Do you have any dependents?
No. (Does a retarded cat count? And some fleas, and a squirrel or two?)
Do you have any children?
No.
Are you single?
Yes. (But.)
Have you come out of a co-habiting relationship in the last six months?
No.
Have you been pregnant in the last four months?
No.
Are you a carer?
Um, no.
Does anyone care for you on a regular basis?
No.
Long silence. My eyes get a bit hot.
I hate that question. I mean it's not as if things aren't bad enough, what with being unemployed and everything and having to STARE into THAT PARTICULAR VOID, and then someone asks you if anyone cares for you on a regular basis and you have to say NO.
Yes. (Very, very small voice.)
Right, ready for this one?
Go on, give me what you've got.
Have you had to leave your country because of an erupting volcano?
Come on, Richard, you're JOKING. That is NOT on the sheet of paper.
Is so.
Isn't.
Is.
Jesus.
Twenty minutes pass. I have answered 1.34m questions.
... so anyway, if you had not bought your own flat, you would be eligible for that too. But unfortunately, this is a system that rewards the imprudent.
Are you sure you can say that, Richard?
Well I won't tell if you won't.
Go on. Next one.
Right, well, you are eligible for ... well, you'll get your mortgage insurance, no problem, and that's what this is about, but you might as well claim the other benefits at the same time. Can I ask why you didn't register months ago?
Well, I had some money, so I thought ... and I don't really need ... I ...
... how many years have you paid tax and National Insurance?
Um, about ... er ... eighteen?
Exactly.
Yes, but ...
No 'buts'. It's payback time. And you've been a very silly girl if you haven't done it before. Now then, your appointment at Job Centre Plus. Not The Job Centre. Oh no. Job Centre Plus. Where's your nearest?
Dunno. Brixton Hill?
Well of COURSE you wouldn't know. Anyway, it'll be fun. I mean it's a day out for you, bless you.
Richard, you are a DISGRACE.
Oh, don't take on so.
Richard?
Yes?
Do they have marketing jobs at the Job Centre?
Now you know VERY well that that is a VERY naughty question to ask.
Sorry.
Right then. Your skills and qualifications. Got any?
English degree?
Moving on. Can you drive?
Yes.
Clean licence?
Um, no.
Naughty girl.
Richard. I'm 37.
A mere girl.
Richard, what are you doing working for the Job Centre?
Job Centre Plus, if you please. Heaven alone knows, dear girl. Right, that's us done. Do enjoy it on Friday.
Thank you, Richard.
Goodbye, dear girl.
Goodbye, Richard.
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13 comments:
I ABSOLUTELY PROMISE YOU that it did. I wrote half of it down on a Royal Bank Insurance Services leaflet with a Sharpie permanent pen. It was un-fucking-believable. The other bloke from the Job Centre was an idiot, mind you. (Also I've left 96% of it out otherwise the post would be Even More Interminable Than It Already Is.)
The 'things you were but are not now' is for Tomorrow, for I have not yet worked myself up into a Sufficient Frenzy. It all started with a knobber from the Police (Sting one, not Met) on Midweek this morning. This is what happens when you listen to too much Radio 4.
Which reminds me. Sting's a wanker.
I am a recipient of Benefits because I am a Single Parent. I too have an English Degree and I am still in employmemnt (although we can talk about that another time). At one time my socialist principles would have said , 'No'.
But, in fact, they make the difference Between Tesco Value 24/7 and, 'Who gives a fuck?'- some of the time. So, whilst I appreciate the principle...
I have to say, if they want to give it to me because they think I need it, I am not about to say no.
I am with Richard. Embrace him. He will make you happy.
I love New Labour.
I know one of his home addresses. The North-east one that he never stays at.
I really do.
I am talking about Sting of course. I used to work for an I.T. 'firm' that fixed his computer. By all accounts he was a 'twat'. But he calls himself 'Sting' so that is hardly a surprise.
Anyone who chooses a nickname for themselves are beyond redemption.
I went to school with a chap who insisted upon everybody calling him 'Nails'. Because he was as hard as.......
He got the living SHIT kicked out of him for... well, forever.
And deserved it.
Oh. And I'm with JustJude. It's there. Take. It's what you've paid for.
Dude, you must be able to keep yourself in Hula Hoops, whatever those may be, and I think that after 18 years of steady contribution to Society, you do deserve to take some back.
I am on disability at the moment, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. Turn and turnabout, you know.
And you must emit some sort of ray or pheromone, the people you meet. Our public servants are seldom so chipper.
You definitely put enough moola into the system and deserve the benefits. Ugh,American unemployment offices are REALLY depressing. I took one of those stupid tests that suggests what career you may want to study for. I like the sciences, home remodeling and domestic pets. Two suggestions: architecture...the other? animal husbandry!
There's caring for you and then there's wiping your bum and cooking your meals (not with the same hand, obviously). Not being dependent is not the same as saying no-one cares.
I had a form to fill in soon after my mother died and, for the first time in nearly thirty years, I wrote down 'no dependents'. I didn't know whether to feel liberated or past it.
First Don, then Noel and now Richard.
Your nothing but a Xervice Industry Charmer.
Sell the idea of GPS controlled Pizza Mopeds now, before somebody else does.
OH ALRIGHT. I'll do it. It is JJ who has convinced me, strangely. I'm not ashamed of it, and I'm not even being politikal about it (I don't DO politikal in public, ever; it is between me and my own head and the polling booth, but I do like a free cake). There's a bit of me that's a bit "but I don't really need it, and someone else does"... but that sounds a bit wet and liberal in a tofu-shoes kind of way. And. And. And.
Z. Hope you know I know the difference. I think it was the way Richard said it and his sympathetic pause that made me also hear it in the other way.
Philip and TL, it is a Curse, not a Blessing. Also P the idea is Yours. I think you put the GPS tracking thing on the bike, like it up to an internet site, ascribe a reference number/code to Da Consumer, who can track the perilous progress of their takeaway from the comfort of their own home. Big Brother indeed.
JESUS CHRIST, Clare, I'm not COMPLETELY mad. I had a bit of paper in front of me from Royal Bank Insurance Services and thought, as Richard was talking, that it was Frankly Bizarre and that I should write down some of his Stranger Utterances, which I did. Apart from that I have a strange memory for conversations, but not for anything else. Which is a bind.
Oh. And Sting is indeed a twat. Why I Hate Sting is a week's worth of posts, so probably best I Don't Start.
I went into my local job centre (which was St Albans at the time) after being made redundant a few years back and the way they spoke to me you'd think I'd just crawlled out of the sewer.
But then I do have an accent that sounds like a cross between scouse and brum. I think I might've lost my civility entitlement there.
there are few things left that make me giggle wildly.... i'm giggling wildly now.
and sting is an unutterable wanker and that trudy styler. ew.
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