Nikkipedia

Yesterday I went to a ‘back to work’ session at the Job Centre. It was completely dull and tedious, and an hour of my life wasted, that I’ll never get back.

The comment I got from a previously unemployed Twitter friend, @Brykins was ‘Good luck – if it’s the one I went to, it’s twelve people in a room learning that application forms shouldn’t be done in crayon.’

He wasn’t far off the mark.

There were 4 other people in the session. Ginger, Greasy Lady, Know-It-All and Moustache Man that can’t switch on a computer. They were all as equally unamused as I was. Know-It-All spent half of the session arguing with Job Centre Lady. I couldn’t watch, I was busy trying not to laugh.

We had clipboards with forms on them. I stole the copies from the empty seat next to me, in order to share them with you.

The first form had me tearing my hair out, such simple questions that I thought they might have been a trick. I actually struggled with them. The second, I didn’t quite have the heart to fill in saying that the session wasn’t helpful, Job Centre Lady was very nice and if I’d been interested in Health and Safety, childcare or forklift driver training, I’m sure it’d have been very helpful, but in my search for work as a PA, it wasn’t, in the slightest.

At the end of the session, we were given packs to take home – ‘How To Find A Job’, including this little gem:

This is an example of what the Job Centre believe to be an acceptable letter to approach a potential employer. They advise people to send this out to companies. Words absolutely fail me. No wonder there are so many people unemployed, if this is the standard of the advice we’re receiving.

Mind you, the standard of employers and their adverts is only marginally better. These are two adverts I stumbled upon today. I’ve highlighted my favourite bits.

The first. I realise this is just for a role as a receptionist, but the preview of the advert, which started ‘You’re brief’ – lured me in. ‘You’re brief’ – ‘Am I?’.
As for smiling and saying hello to colleagues and guests, surely that’s just common sense and common courtesy, especially if you want to work in hospitality. Could be a problem if you don’t like someone you work with though.
Flare, flair – no, you’re right, I’m nitpicking, they’re mostly the same thing. Just keep the former away from flammable items.
You don’t need a head for figures to handle cash. They hand out money to my fellow Job Centre scummers. I’m sure the Hoodies don’t have a head for figures, but they handle the cash, happily, and as for other payment methods – taking a card payment with a machine and till is hardly rocket science.

The second advert, to me, was a wonder to behold. This advert has been placed by a college. A place of education and scholarship. A pillar of the community. I can only assume that the first highlighted sentence should be read as ‘A-C GCSE English and Math is essential’ but I worry that’s not the case. THIS IS A SCHOOL ADVERTISING THIS. The ad was placed directly by the employer. They should be ashamed. Unless they don’t have an English Teacher among the staff. But surely it should have been proof read by someone.
As for the last highlighted sentence – I’m literally speechless. How is that a question? How can they have *that* poor a grip on the English Language? How am I so good at composing questions, and they be so awful at it?

‘I’m Ron Burgandy?’

When these are the adverts that are placed, the employers, and the level they work at, I am left wondering *why* I’m surprised by what the Job Centre offers us, clearly they’re just matching the market.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5090078/Salvia-more-powerful-than-LSD-and-legal.html

‘Salvia divinorum has been outlawed or its sale and distribution restricted in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Japan, Spain and Sweden. Thirteen states in the US have also passed legislation that ranges from placing it in the most serious narcotics category alongside heroin and cocaine to outlawing its sale and distribution to minors under 18.’

Yet, luckily for us, it’s still completely legal, and ridiculously cheap in this country.

To me, there’s a mixed message throughout the article, and I’d sway on the side that this is actually an advert for the drug. Although it was banned in the US because of a suicide, ’causes awful hallucinations, that it could trigger mental health conditions such as schizophrenia,’particularly among young people in their teens and twenties who may well be unaware that they are prone to psychotic episodes’ (does anyone know that they are prone to psychotic episodes?) there are numerous, genius comedy ‘user reviews’ (I like to think) such as:

‘The first time I was just giggly, the second time I saw colours and visuals and patterns and the third time I lost all sense of reality, I felt I was merging into the surface of the sofa. It was pretty scary and unnerving initially. I felt my skin was being peeled back.’

Brilliant.

Beside the health warnings, we’re directed merrily to YouTube, where we’re told there are many videos of people that have taken the drug and turned into jibbering idiots. Of course we’re going to look! Surely this is promoting the product?! So what if there’s health warnings – it states quite clearly that there are no known risks at this time for it causing any damage to the user – (though obviously if it’s being smoked with baccy then there’s the usual smoking associated risks.) And, after all, it’s still legal.

‘Even if it’s non-addictive, you lose your ability to reason, you are incapacitated, you cannot make informed decisions about your behaviour.’ No different to alcohol then really?

And, selling point of the century? ‘Since it metabolises within 15 minutes, there’s no way it would show up on a drug test of any kind.’

But of course, the icing on the cake, to me, has to be the targeted Google Ads a the end of the article. Genius. It’s bad for you, don’t take it – but you can buy it online here…

Targetted advertising at it's best.

As well as being great for connecting people and sharing -I’ve lately found that there’s a more sinister and irritating side to sharing your life online.

First up, status updates – it upsets me that the majority of my friends seem to be rather stupid. I can write this with confidence that the people I’m thinking of right now would never in a million years take it upon themselves to read a blog – far too many words, for one, and for two, they’re all *real* words, not awful text abbreviations. There’s very little I find more annoying than my News Feed being spammed senseless by people announcing their boredom (I really don’t care), or the inane announcements by people that they’re daring to exercise, or going to the pub. I realise that the concept of a status update is to share with the world what you’re doing at that time, but Jesus, someone tell these people to try and make it interesting! If you can’t contribute something of worth to the world, please, just don’t bother at all. Your half-arsed attempts are driving me mad. I’d like to add to this that spamming my News Feed with ‘Which Skins Character Are You?’ and ‘What Date Will You Die’ quizzes is also not cool. Nor is repeatedly joining pointless Groups set up by someone equally idiotic where the Group title is poorly spelt and lacks punctuation, and on occasion contains a kiss at the end, such as ‘lets all pray for jade goody and her two boys xxx’.

Another evil side to status updates is the spoiler. Not good. Why would you do that? Just because you know he’s a ghost, and the little boy can see dead people, including him, don’t tell me.

Next up, the announcement. I have recently found out by status update that I have friends now engaged or pregnant. At first my reaction was that they were just lazy, or rude, for not bothering to tell us properly, but a deeper meaning emerged – that actually the people that I believed to be my real life, proper friends, actually might not hold me with the same regard. That I’m not in the inner circle that I thought I was, and I’m just another person not worth telling personally. It really comes to something when you’re not added to a text being sent to multiple people already, to be told some news. Upsetting really.

Last on today’s agenda is the newest bitter pill on the block. Thanks to the ‘See Wall-to-Wall’ feature on facebook, you can now view people’s conversations if you are friends with both parties involved, and now we get in our News Feed a note that people are writing to each other. Lovely stuff. Except when a few of your friends, through wall messages to each other, are arranging a get-together, and you’re not invited. Worse still is when you know that you would usually be invited, and you’re not sure what you’ve done to offend/upset everyone. The icing on the cake, of course, is that when you all have the same mutual friends, that everyone else gets to see you being snubbed and ignored too. Public humiliation of sorts. Modern day comedy without needing to leave the house. Memories of playground taunts ring in my ears, and I’m last to be picked in PE again…

I used to blog quite a lot – back in the days when myspace was my vice. I would spend my mornings at work furiously typing whatever thoughts had come to me that day – they were often rants. These days I’m all about Twitter – it’s overtaken Facebook, though I maintain a presence on both, and occasionally stop by on myspace for good measure. My blog received kudos and comments galore with my nonsensical witterings, until stupidly, I turned it into my photo gallery in a futile attempt to ‘promote’ my then boyfriend, a DJ, who is now long gone, apart from an entry in my phonebook as ‘Copperknob’. This is my revival of my beloved writings. Should you wish to read the works of old – http://tinyurl.com/nikkismyspaceblog

Apart from spending my life on the internet, stalking celebrities and making cutting remarks at people, I harbour a set of dreams that I endlessly pursue in rather meek forms. I cite myself as a wannabe, I do, I wannabe a writer, musician and beautician. But I seem to be a Jack of all trades, and give up fairly quickly on almost everything, and go back to my daydreaming. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, this and a HUGE pad full of scribbles, doodles and drunken notes, are my writings – for as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to write. I had lessons on the Piano for 8 years, Saxophone, Clarinet, Trumpet, I own 3 guitars, which sit gathering dust, as each time I pick them up and play I remember how much it hurts my fingers. And as for pursuing being a beautician – well, it’s quite different to my 2 other passions, but I have just completed a course to be a nail technician and have 2 more lined up – and I do my make up every day. I live in hope.

So – that’s me. I have a bit of webspace, as you can see, and felt left out that everyone else seems to have WordPress blogs apart from me. I was driving earlier and lots of random thoughts came to me, in the sort of way that they do when I’m driving in rush-hour traffic.
Let me tell you, it’s a real problem. Not only am I trying to concentrate on the driving, but, as those who know me will testify to, I sing all of the time, quite happily to myself, always at the top of my voice when I’m the car. It makes people smile and point at me, but I don’t care. So on top of driving and thinking about that, I’m singing, and then am planning what I want to write in a blog. And to finish the whole lot off nicely, I’m then left with no means of noting down my thoughts, so have to play them endlessly in my head until I get home at which point they end up scribbled on the nearest thing to the door when I get home. This, dear reader, is how I arrived here today.

I love to talk to people. I talk myself into, and back out of all sorts of trouble. I can’t help it. As a people watcher, the internet is a marvel. I used to work in a shop, at Bluewater, where I would spend my days endlessly gazing out at people, laughing at how dressed up they all were to walk around a shopping centre. Everyone wants to be famous. Dressed up in case a talent scout/modelling agent spots them, as apparently happens, according to the glossy mags. Sitting at home reading people’s statuses is modern people watching. Without any of the effort of leaving the house, and no need for the disguise any more.

Recently I’ve pondered on the etiquette of emotional status updates. I have witnessed, and been guilty of, pouring my heart out to the world. It’s a massive conflict in my mind. Some of the people that I am ‘friends’ with on facebook are genuine, lifelong, best friends, whom I could tell anything. Others are people from my past, who I used to quite like so accepted as  ‘friends’ because I am now largely indifferent to. Is it socially acceptable to confess your deepest, darkest, most heartfelt thoughts via a status update, or should we maintain a ‘public face’ so that the world thinks we’re fine? I never know and battle with myself when my status says ‘I’m ok, I’m happy, look how funny I am!’ when really I’m sitting here crying.

When I read my friends updates and they have written something heart-wrenchingly emotional or sad, I sympathise greatly, but at the same time wonder why we announce it for everyone to see – is it just attention seeking? And, is it socially acceptable? And what for the unwitting reader – we’re not all willing confidants. I occasionally feel uncomfortable when my not-so-close friends statuses refer to things that as an accidental reader, I shouldn’t necessarily be privy to. For example, I have some friends whom are friends of friends. I’ve met them a few times. When they’re wondering aloud about how worried they are about their ‘Doctor’s appointment tomorrow’ and sometimes mentioning pregnancy (which I have no knowledge or interest in) – it feels like I’m an intruder. Like a spy, I feel like it’s something that I definitely shouldn’t know. However, there’s always a positive – another friend – not that she really is – I’m not sure why I accepted her – announced (drunkenly, I hope) that she ‘wants to let Matt no* she is so sorry for what said to David, and that she didn’t mean a word of it’ – which is, I suppose, a whole new level, to which I am amused, and proud to be an onlooker. There’s very little in life more amusing to me than such a public confession of this kind. I have to wonder – was it drunkenness? Idiocy? I neither know or really care, though I remain unamused at the thought that a facebook status might win her beau back over from an obvious blunder.
I will have to remain undecided for the time but will err on the side of caution for the time being and maintain my ‘public face’.

This blog was supposed to be a couple of comedy thoughts that I had in the car earlier – I seem to have forgotten to write them, though they’re noted beside me. I’ll save them for another time. Not all of my writings will be this long!

Anyway, it’s likely that you found me through Twitter, if you didn’t, please feel free to follow me – http://twitter.com/nik_kee_dee for daily updates on nothing in particular, I shan’t pretend ‘I’m crazy, me, welcome to my wacky world’ because I think it is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone that says that is surely the dullest person you could wish to meet. I’m a thinker and a wannabe, and I love comedy. Join me if you do too.

I will write again soon.

* For another time. Definitely.