The Dole Scum Days Feb - Aug 2009

Last February I got made redundant and had an enforced 6 month 'career break'. Like everything that happens in my life I tried to chalk it up as another life experience and thought that some of things that happened could at a later date be turned into a novel or sketch in my often talked about script show...well instead here's a blog about it.

I used to work for " a well known travel publisher" and my job was to sell the list to bookshops, wholesalers and other retailers in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. In a nutshell I used to visit this territory on average every three weeks for anything between 1 and 9 days. It really was amazing, I'll admit it was a wee bit of a doss: try and get your meeting done fairly quickly (but efficiently) and then spend a few hours tramping round Copenhagen (or wherever) off your t*ts on coffee AND GETTING PAID TO DO IT!!! It really was a whirlwind 18 months which saw me being lucky enough to visit places like The Baltic States and Reykjavik plus fall in love with Switzerland and remember how much I loved Vienna (I previously worked for another publisher and used to get to dabble a bit in Northern Europe/Benelux).

But all good things have to come to an end and it was a case of 'be careful what you wish for'... during the bad snow of February 2009 I was unable to commute to the London Office for a week or so and it made me realise just how fed up of commuting to London I was. Shortly after that a meeting was held where we were told of the company's plans to restructure the sales department cutting 7 jobs down to 4. We could reapply for one of the new roles or choose to stand down.

After much soul searching (and a very messy night on red wine) I decided to apply for two of the different roles on offer but then suddenly something in me changed. I no longer wanted to work at this company and I strongly suspected that it was constructive dismissal. They knew who they wanted to keep and I knew my face didn't fit. Over the weekend before my interview I worked hard at putting together a presentation for a job I didn't really want for a company I didn't really care for anymore and thus my mind was made up... do the interview but if they by some fluke offered me the job (they wouldn't would they?) I was going to turn it down, take the money and run...

Surprise surpise they didn't offer me the job and surprise surpise I was spot on in guessing who was going and who was staying. So, s*** I was unemployed. I had three months garden leave and was allowed to keep my laptop and Blackberry for that time. Feeling strangely elated I went to the nearest Starbucks, bought some Wi Fi time and went into a strangely robotic organised overdrive. My emotions were plenty and varied "I'm free I'm free no more commuting whoop whoop" to "s*** I'm unemployed!". Since the age of 15 I'd always worked and I'd always actually loved working. What the hell was I going to do now?

The first few weeks felt like a glorious and illicit holiday. I didn't have to get up at 5.30am and spend £100 a week to get the sardine express up to Waterloo. I discovered 6music (I'll always be grateful for George Lamb's weekday show for getting me through some dark moments), was able to spend even MORE time at the gym, established 'Coffee Club' to meet up every week with my mates, lunched with pals, could find the time to go and see my small niece & nephew in Bath. Aha, now I knew the answer to the question I always wanted to ask people who didn't work "What do you DO all day...?".

As part of my redundancy package I had to schlep up to London a few times to see an outplacement company for advice on CV, jobsearch etc which was when I found myself compiling anecdotes for the book/sketch show. Talking about stating the obvious, they imparted such pearls of wisdom as "when you have an interview don't be late" and "dress accordingly" no s*** Sherlock? I forget the name of the guy I used to see but lets call him Mr Camp. Mr Camp had worked for M&S and seemed to find it hilarious that one of the buyers for marmalade didn't like jam?! I think the relevance of this was that if I chose to stay in sales I could still be a brilliant saleswoman for something I wasn't necessarily convinced by...erm, I think? Still the three free visits there passed the time and got me out of the house!

So, great! three months garden leave bring it on! I naively thought that after that I would definitely have found a job and would effortlessly sail back into a new role and be rolling in it with the redundancy pay. I planned to pay off the credit card (well some of it), get a laptop and treat myself to a much coveted Paul's Boutique handbag.

In reality the three months came and went and I then had to start signing on. Eek, I really was dole scum now...

Visiting the job centre also provided an amusing range of comedy characters to use at a later date: Mr Creosote and Ol' Plastic Man to name but a few. The most bizarre moment was when I first phoned the job centre for them to start processing my claim and she asked if she could do a job search for me and for what job I told her I had been a Sales Manager and she inputted this information and started reading things out to me:

Her: "Do you like horses?"
Me (confused as hell): "Um no? er, why...?"
Her: "Well there's a job here for a stables manager"
Me: "Oh right, lovely...but I don't like horses..."

Baffled, we carried on looking at possibilities. It was only a few hours later after still being bamboozled the penny dropped. I asked her to look for SALES MANAGER this is how S(T)A(B)LES MANAGER got through....! FFS!

During my unemployment I realised just how important working was to me. I felt worthless and didn't feel like I was contributing much to society. I was desperate to start working again. Gissajob, I can do that...? I am a sociable and gregarious person and love meeting new people but found that I was avoiding such situations as I felt really embarassed when people asked me what I did. I know that it was nothing to be ashamed of. Britain was in the grips of the worst recession for almost 20yrs and I was an unfortunate victim of this.

Trouble was if someone had been able to tell me the expiration date I would have enjoyed my 'time off' a whole lot more but the uncertainty of the situation made it hard to enjoy the time. Just as I was beginning to despair (and run out of money) I took the first role I was offered at a new local company to get me out of the now increasingly boring rut. I've been there about 8 months now and it's going ok but I am quite bored and not at all challenged. I won't deny that there are times when I want to swap back to the halcyon days of doing a few gym classes, sitting in Starbucks with The Guardian (hello? jobsearch?) and then mosying home to watch a few episodes of Six Feet Under. But at the same time I realise I am lucky to have found a job even if it's not quite me...

The searh continues...