Regular readers will know that for many years, I've had a series of negative and often time wasting experiences with job agencies.
Today's has been a record breaker.
I'd been told by Trinity Personnel in Stourbridge, that a job I'd applied for had got me through to the interview stage and I'd got this interview tomorrow at 11am somewhere in West Bromwich. Imagine my delight a week out of work and getting an interview doing something very similar in IT that I've been doing for the past 14 months.
BUT, said the girl, you've got to come register with us over in Stourbridge.They wouldn't reveal the location or name of the employer til I did.
Now it's a bit of a trek from Walsall. Bus to Dudley then another to Stourbridge, but I was so excited about the interview, I spent 4 hours or more, putting together a showreel of my social media and web work yesterday which I hoped would help show them that I was the right bloke for the job, despite being old and up against a load of snot faced 16 year olds who can whiz through a level of Candy Crush in a thrice and are therefore considered experts in IT.
Utterly shit journey over there. Left home at 7am, bus to Dudley packed with what could only be described as extras from an episode of Fraggle Rock. Morning traffic too almost an hour to get to Dudley. Time to change buses. Two failed to turn up.
When one did appear, also late, the number of passengers had swelled to the point of standing room only, thanks to the prams the size of Fiats taking up room.
Got to the agency, was presented with about 6 pages of repeat form filling, then as soon as I sat down with the young lady who had been handling this case, I was told that the interview for Friday was cancelled, as the employer had suddenly got so busy, they have no time to interview any more...
It was a bit like the Monty Python cheese shop sketch where Thomas Wensleydale was making every excuse in the book about not having any cheese, he came to the point where he had to claim "the cat's eaten it".
"Did he" enquires the John Cleese character,"she sir" replies Mr Wensleydale unconvincingly.
Seething with rage on the bus at wasting quite so much of my day on a wild goose chase, the more I thought about it and the less than convincing answers I received to my questions appeared. I felt there never really had been an IT job somewhere in West Brom or, if there had, the company had pulled the plug on the agency because they either found a better (cheaper) agency or a candidate for the post. Either way, I'm the one who was royally fucked about.
A while back, I posted about an agency in Cannock who phoned me out the blue and wanted me to do work on my cv. When I pressured the caller, I found out that she was leaving on Friday and her boss had tasked her with calling "marks"like me to have us jumping through hoops as an updating of cv exercise, but there was no actual job opportunity in the offing.
Then there was the day shortly after, a similarly junior practitioner of the art of wasting other people's time, called and asked if I would pop in for a chat. Any specific job opportunities I enquired. No, came the answer.
The last time I went into this place, they sat me down and gave me a typing test, filled out some forms and I never heard from them again.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I don't suffer fools gladly. In fact an old boss of mine put it in a job reference which is something I am not actually sure is a selling point. I really do tire of box tickers and pen pushers justifying their pitifully smug existence wasting my time.
Fortunately, the four or more hours I spent yesterday is not a wasted exercise, as it is material I can use with my other job hunting activities, of which you are now having to prove to the DWP you spend 35 hours a week doing.
Additionally, you have to write up a diary to show how you spend your day.
Disappointingly, the commitment you sign has more reasons why you will be sanctioned, than positive points to help someone find paid work.
As for my 35 hours a week (you're expected to do weekends too), I got my day in !
#File under fucking wastrels
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