My Strange Week...

Last Monday I went to my job seekers appointment, to collect what feels like the remnants of communism. The normally friendly guy was extremely short with me and told me had cut me off because I didn't turn up to a random check on my job search the week before.

1stly WHY THE HELL are you randomly checking me? I am a graduate, do you think I paid £9k plus for my education to sit on the dole for less than a tenner a day?

2ndly WHY THE HELL don't you 'randomly' check the people that cannot seem to get a job but can make it to the bookies at 9am every day?

3rdly I called your 0845 number that you make JOBLESS people call to tell you I could not make it as I had an interview, you know the thing that is meant to make me get off the dole??

4thly This is MY NATIONAL INSURANCE money that I'm begging for!

He had no sympathy and said I should have come after my interview and waited around the job centre until he had seen all of his appointments to check in with him. Just because you haven't got a job they think they can enslave you and demand you to be there at whatever time of day. When I returned and spoke to a different clerk he said the job centre is becoming like a 'concentration camp' and 'prison' with all the new government requirements. He also let me in on another 'secret'; that now they are ACTUALLY going to really help us get a job instead of just signing us off because there are too many people on job seekers allowance. Well blow me down! The job centre are actually going to start helping us get jobs?!

Later that week I met the TORY boy, being working class and living in London I don't usually meet, or possibly have never met someone like him. He asked me my view point on so many specific topics just so he could try and prove his narrow minded point of views. I told him I was at Occupy at St Pauls, he asked me how it was, to which I replied 'fun' & he said 'I knew it, it's just a party, I bet everyone was drinking and taking drugs etc'. Errr no, they have a strict policy of no drugs or alcohol, it was fun just because it was a good experience with loads of varied debates going on. The picture on the left was a guy from 'anonymous' and a random capitalist heckler who we ended up chatting to for about 2 hours. He repeatedly kept saying 'What are you doing here with these losers?' ie what are three 'normal' non-hippy, bathing, young women doing at this protest?

Yet the people who insist on stereotyping are the people who conform to stereotypes themselves. The Tory boy is a pro-fox hunting, clay pigeon shooting, Guardian hating, anti-immigration, sticking up for colonialism, boarding school educated, racism denier. Among the least offensive things he said was that 'a foreign name does not inhibit you from getting a job'. This is 100% untrue and just shows you how naive some people are. I can think of 100 examples but off the top of my head; a lawyer family friend once left an interview in tears when the employer said she had all the credentials but wouldn't hire her because of her surname 'Mohammed'. Another friend had a disheartening short time as a recruitment consultant for professionals because her superiors would put CVs in the bin if the header name was foreign and would say 'this CV looks good' if their was name was 'Thomas' or 'James' etc. Even entrepreneur 'James Caan' changed his name as he knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with a Pakistani name. (Also see http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/2011/11/disadvantage-of-being-ethinc.html). One of the more offensive things was a sarcastic fake phone call he made saying 'We colonised countries, especially in Africa, then we left, and now they want our charitable help?'

Need to dye some hair now, will be back... Peace

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