My search for gainful employment continues. Here in Britain we have job agencies, people who sell people to companies as employees. I don't know about you, but thats perilously close to slave labour in my view. However, the reality is that if I want a well paid job, then I'll probably have to do business with them. Then again there are job agencies and there are job agencies. Some inhabit plush air-conditioned office, others have small dingy first floor rooms with coffee making equipment that was declared military surplus in 1958. The first will expect you to be a hotshot executive able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, the second doesn't care as long as you can clean thirty toilets an hour. Take your pick.

Funnily enough, I chose the former. My previous experience with the agencies in-between the extremes I described has not been outstanding, so perhaps I'll aim a little higher and see if appearances really do make a difference. So I wandered in, and the busy executive office was crammed full of shirts and ties. The lady on the reception politely asked me if she could help, and her professionalism allowed her to keep smiling when I said I wanted a job. "What sort of work are you looking for?" She asked.

Well now. Warehousing, but I'm experienced in admin, I.T, and my last job was as a trainee manager. She beamed with delight. I wasn't a scruffy beggar after all, but a real person down on his luck. "Wait there, and I'll fetch someone to see you."

Cheers, thanks. I waited for a while. They even asked me if I wanted a coffee. That never happened before. At last a young man, full of confidence and clearly someone used to dealing with Sir Alan Sugar introduced himself. He whisked me upstairs to a quiet meeting room for my interview, where I accentuated the positive. He very slyly asked me if I wanted some manual labour to tide me over. Ahhhh... no... you mentioned that other job that pays three times as much?

Turned out the job was too far away, and since the car is immobile, that was that. But he promised to look further. Agencies always make that promise. I have noticed that unless they can fit you in right there and then, you get forgotten. So I went home, carrying the business card he gave me.

Two months later, I rang him. Whats happening? Any jobs likely in the near future? "Oh... Yes... We have one. Why not drop by?"

Excellent. I turned up for my appointment and was introduced to a young lady who would be conducting the interview. No offer of coffee I see... Having been dropped by the male executive, I was now at the level of a woman wearing leopard skin shoes. I answered the same questions as last time, and made the same replies. I suspect I'll get the same brush-off when they can't sell me, so what happens next? Am I to be interviewed by some blue rinse dragon with a cigarette hanging out her mouth asking if I can clean thirty toilets an hour?

We shall see....

Morale Boost of the Week

The lady who ran the agency further down the road sighed. She looked me straight in the eye, and suggested I do bar work. In sheer frustration I thumped my forehead on the desk a few times, and she waited impatiently for me to leave. Same time next week? She gave me a brief acidic smile. You know, I do believe she's warming to me....