Did you know that if you’re out of work you can claim around £50 a week in “job-seekers’ allowance”? No? Neither did I. That’s because at age 41 I’ve never been unemployed until now. Ho hum, it’s the end of Week 2 in Unemployment House.
It’s all modern these days, of course. You register your claim online and wait for a phone call inviting you to pop in to the local Job Centre Plus (no idea what the “Plus” is for). I got the call: please attend an interview at 11:00 on Friday 13th; failure to attend could mean your application gets turned down.
I went along, turning up promtly at 11:00 as instructed. Then I waited. It was like all waiting rooms everywhere; you just wait for the processes to catch up with you and then you get processed.
At 11:30 I was called over. To her enormous credit, the lady was hugely apologetic and explained why I’d had to wait half an hour (I was getting grumpy!). 20 minutes later I left, armed with a new list of websites to peruse and opportunities to seek.
It’s interesting to ponder a change in career direction. All the job adverts are looking for experience, so to switch tracks means starting all over again. This will make me think differently if ever I look to employ someone again…
More importantly for now, my telephone interview for a job later in the afternoon went well - through to a face-to-face next.
