Communication Breakdown...

After my last blog I started to feel a lot more positive about looking for work, I told myself that by the end of that week I WILL have a job, I’d go to the job centre, go to the agencies, phone round, look online and apply for stuff, nothing was going to stop me.

So that night after my tea I turned the computer on to make a start by looking on the internet for work, however I couldn’t get connected, I turned the modem off and back on and it still wasn’t connecting, I decided there was nothing I could do and I’d try again in the morning.

The morning came and I tried it again but it still wasn’t connecting, at this point I decided to check the TV and phone to see if they were affected too (because we’re on cable) and they weren’t working either.

I told my mum about what had happened and she admitted that she hadn’t paid the cable bill and she couldn’t afford to pay it for weeks either, normally this wouldn’t bother me much but I really needed the phone and internet for looking for work.

My mum leant me a few pounds to get the bus to Solihull to try the job centre and the agencies, but what is the worst possible thing to happen when you’re about to go out?…Yeah, I somehow caught some stomach bug which not only meant I couldn’t go out but I couldn’t eat either.

I couldn’t believe this, I was stuck at home with a stomach bug, I couldn’t look for work, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t phone anyone, I couldn’t use the internet, I couldn’t watch TV…yeah I was bored, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored in all my life.

After a few days the stomach bug was gone and I decided I’d venture out of the house and finally look for a job. I got into Solihull and first reregistered with Ashfield, that was fairly straightforward, I then tried Adecco who told me that I’d have to register online even though all my details were already on the system, I made an appointment for the following Tuesday and just hoped I’d be able to get online by then. Next I checked the job centre, now a year ago when I was looking for work I’d check all of the weeks new jobs and there would be about 600, I knew that I would be in with a good chance there, I checked all the weeks new jobs…‘42 new jobs found’…42?…42?! Slightly shocked and pissed off by the lack of jobs I printed off a few before walking out and going home, I felt like it was a bit of a wasted journey as I couldn’t even phone up about the jobs anyway.

When the week came to an end we managed to get the cable bill paid and everything was back to working order, I even managed to top up my mobile for the first time in months too. One of the first things I did was head to the Adecco website to register with them, the only thing they forgot to tell me was that the website doesn’t actually work properly if you’re trying to register. Why is nothing ever simple?

So anyway, Tuesday comes and I have my appointment at Adecco, I registered online there (on some completely different site to what they told me) and had to do several tests on the computer, while I was doing these tests people were walking in off the street asking about work, the only thing was that none of them spoke any English. This is one conversation I overheard…

“Hello, how can I help you?”
“Work”
“Ok, what kind of work are you looking for?”
“…Work”
“Can you tell me what qualifications you have?”
“I…er…work…um…money”
“Ok, can you tell me what hourly rate you’re looking for”
“Burger King”
“I’m sorry?”
“Burger King…I work Burger King”
“…Ok, I think you’d probably be better off speaking to our Birmingham branch”

I really hope this person who can barely speak a word of English doesn’t get a job that I could be doing.

After finishing the tests they told me about some work for the next week at the NEC setting things up and taking stuff down, I said I’d do it and then they told me the hours, it would have been 5pm-12am most nights with one night being 8pm-2am, how on earth an I meant to get back from the NEC at 2am? I had to tell them I couldn’t do it in the end.

So now I’m back where I started again, although I’ve got some jobs which look rather hopeful and they all sound pretty good jobs too.

I’ll keep you posted…