... at the job club ...

I've joined a government sponsored 'job club' which is supposed to help me get a job. The training is OK, but not dynamic. Still it is helping in that it forces me to look at my strategy objectively. I have had to junk most of most qualifications and minimise my experience and conceal my age.

Anyway yesterday we merged groups with a compulsory 18 -24 New Deal group. In a week four out of the original six had not turned up. The two that did were a seven month pregnant girl, who did not want to get a job and would be unlikely to get one and a 'Nike boy', one of those that wears a white Nike hat.

Through the lesson Nike boy plugged in his sound system and apart from making annoying stupid remarks like interrupting the lecturer in mid flow to ask him his age. Nike boy ended the class by announcing that he would be off 'sick' the next day. The pregnant girl just groaned, holding her stomach. She was suffering from bad back ache and was looking forward to be signed off in about two weeks time, when she did not have to sign on. How she was sent on this course defies common sense - but I suppose somewhere it will hit some government target.