Nikkipedia

The Job Centre today was ace, my favourite so far. I caught a glimpse of some of the sort of stuff I’d hoped (and sort of dreaded) seeing when I was there.

Hopefully, you’ll live your life without ever having to visit these god awful places, so you’ll have to make do with the second-hand experience of reading my adventures there.

My previous visits to JC have been really rather uneventful, first time, I was actually in and out of there within the space of 5 minutes. I was impressed.

The second visit, I was slightly late – and fuck do they moan about it, but nonetheless, the transaction was again smooth and speedy, in and out within 10 minutes, with only a brief accosting from security on the way in. I knew where I was going, what I was doing, but apparently THEY *have* to know too. I’m not a hoodie, I don’t wear baseball caps, I was dressed smartly, with shoes on, not the uniform prison-whites that most of them wear, not so much as a cigarette tucked behind my ear, or a packet in my hand. I don’t fit in there, but I’m treated as if I’m one of the scummers regardless.

Today, after the nagging I got for being late, I was there a few minutes early. The security guy today was younger than the Nazi from last time, and gave me a big smile as I pushed the door open, covered head to toe from the freak blizzard that happened the second I got out of my car. I told him I was there to sign, and showed him my Job Club pack, so he knew where I was going (that’s how it works, see, I’m getting it!) He pointed me to where I needed to go, and I thanked him, and headed over to the sofa to wait to sign.

Job Centres have a pitiful amount of seating in the areas where people have to wait to sign. There is a sofa-esque, soft chair by the people you see to sign, it will seat about 4 normal weight people, or 5 undernourished chavs/druggies. There were 2 chavs on the sofa today. They seemed to know each other, they were talking. As they’d parked themselves in an entirely selfish manner, I had no choice but to sit between them, despite their conversation. So I said ‘Hi’ in my cheeriest tone and plonked myself down. They looked baffled.

Flat capped chav, to my right, clearly had a chip on his shoulder. He was angry. He asked hoodie chav (on my left) what the time was. It had just passed 12:20.
“Fuckin’ell mate. I’ve been ‘ere since ten fuckin’ to. They fuckin’ moan when you’re late, but then fuckin’ keep you hanging around when it suits ‘em.”
Hoodie chav mumbled something in agreement. Flat capped chav continued his monologue, repeating the same thing to no-one in particular, complaining what a joke it was. In reply to this, the baseball cap chavs that were standing using the touch screen computer the other side of him joined in to agree what a “loada shit” it was.
“I’m gonna fucking start getting angry, and pointing at people. With my fists.” Flat capped chav said. Quite what that would achieve, I have no idea. He complained again about his wait then shut up.

Another chav, white tracksuit top chav, came over and sat next to flat capped chav.
“Mate, you still ‘ere?”
(I rolled my eyes. Obviously he was still there. Moron.)
“Yeah mate. Been ‘ere since ten to, an I?”
At which point, the security guard came over.
“You can’t sit down yet mate” he said to white tracksuit top chav.
“Why not?”
“Not time for you to sign yet.”
He got up and took 2 steps to his left.
“Alright, I’ll use this fuckin’ job machine” he says, aimlessly prodding at the screen in a ham-fisted manner, without looking at it.
“Jobsworth” said flat capped chav, as the security guard walked off. Classic insult that, coming from someone that’s unemployed. It took a lot for me not to laugh.

It fell silent.

Then my name was called. I stood up. The 5 chavs looked at me simultaneously. I felt sure they were going to murder me.

Less than 5 minutes later, I scurried out of the Job Centre, as quickly as I could. Done, dusted, free. They were all still there, waiting.