Entry posted by caldrail
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Last night I wearily wound my way home from work. That's right, I'm working. Or at least I'm trying to. I've discovered that being over fifty years old isn't what I thought it would be. Blisters on my feet, a long bruise on my leg when a sixty eight kilo carton fell on it, stiff legs from constant walking, and worst of all, a well and truly bruised ego. Being a dustman in a warehouse isn't exactly what I 'd planned for.
Across the street were two doormen outside a gentlemans club. I've always called them the 'Bruise Briothers', identikit bruisers with overcoats and bald heads, looking like refugees from a Bond movie audition. They don't think much of me. I'm not bothered about that, but making it known at the top of their jocular voices wasn't welcome. So I'm living in dreamworld, eh? Feels more like a nightmare right now. But maybe you're right. Maybe I should stop believing the world is about possibilities, that I should be arrested for conspiring to be success, or that a migistrate should punish me most severely for several counts of gross assistance to others? Perhaps I should take their example, and stand in a doorway all night haranguing passers by? Then it occurs to me. These two idiots have nothing in their lives other than the right to obstruct whoever they don't like from entering a premises. So they feel powerful. Big fish in a very tiny pond. You know what? They're welcome to it. Okay. Back to the dreamworld.
Well And Truly Mistered
There is also a rumour that I've had my title taken away. Not true. I can squish that rumour with one sentence. What did happen was that instead of an interrogation, my claims advisor then decided to try and become a sort of mother figure. Why is it that middle aged women from northern England have to be so odious? Or is that people in the north push these harridans elsewhere because they can't stand them either?
In an impossibly condescending tone, she informed me that my title was 'just a bit of paper' and that it was a serious impediment to getting a job? Pardon me? I've had more interest from employers in the last six months than I did in the last six years. Well. She's devalued all my efforts to find a job, reduced me to plebian status in the eyes of the Job Centre, accused me of acting illegally, virtually blackmailed me by witholding dole payments, and then had the gall to think I would in some way begin to respect her. No wonder I'm feeling a bit woebegone.
The irony of this is that barely minutes before I was obliged to change my CV on the internet to a politically correct and colourless mini-me version, my somewhat more colourful CV with title and heradlry finally got me a job. As a dustman in a warehouse.
Unfair Life Of The Week
It so happens that one of my colleagues at work is a caucasian immgrant from Bradford. He sympathised with my description of my claims advisor - maybe I was right about northern women after all - but what amzes me is how this twenty one year old is getting interesting things to do. Technicaly he's supposed to be doing the same sorts of things as me, but on one day he was asked to go upstairs into the IT department to help out, then the other day, got a message that he would spend the next day in the offices doing photography for their marketing department.
Yeah. See you at work mate. At least I've still got the weekend to feel sorry for myself and find the will to do the dishes.
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