Unclean, unclean!

So, the powers that be in the unemployment office having finally decided I qualify for their paltry handout, yesterday was my first official 'signing on day' and I didn't relish the prospect I can promise you but I duly turned up at the allotted time clutching all the required paperwork.

I hate it! Almost from the moment I first spoke to a member of staff I could feel my hackles rising, they just seem to have an inherent 'attitude' issue....service and manners not being a top priority apparently.

I wasn't sure exactly where I had to go so upon arrival I approached the reception desk, where almost ten minutes later a frousty faced woman asked if she could help me, completely without smile or interest. 'Help' was not her forte I suspect! I told her why I was there, she pointed aimlessly at a queue and grunted at me to wait there. Now my appointment was for between 3 and 3.15, I was happy to wait but she then grumbled at me that I was too early, big sin and that I should wait where she had indicated until exactly 3.03 and then join a different queue....which was literally 2 paces in a different direction. Quite why queue number 2 was so important or why she was quite so pedantic about the timing is beyond me....because I stood there from 3.03 (check your watches guys) until 3.25! Apparently their timekeeping is not quite as precise as they expect mine to be!

Add to that the place is horrible, grubby, smelly, cramped and without as much as a single seat to sit on anywhere for anyone but the staff! Lord help anyone who has a disability!

So, as I waited I eavesdropped on the conversation going on at the desk in front of me, where a maybe mid twenty something, well dressed woman was getting a 'dressing down' from her interviewer for being 5 minutes late. Really, she was speaking to this lady like a five year old, no, I would hope a five year old who had been 'naughty' would be spoken too with more respect actually, and issuing her with a 'late letter', which she had to sign to say she understood that if she did it again she would lose a days benefit!!! Rules and regs. we may have to have but the delivery of them in this instance was utterly appalling!

By the time my name was called I was about ready to implode but I held my tongue, answered all the questions fired at me, signed on the dotted line and then dared ask a question. Why had I not yet received any monies given that I had been advised I would have last week? 'Madam miserable' looked at her screen and told me haughtily that I had....£8.17 last Friday!

Sorry, but you might understand how I had managed to miss that princely sum hitting even my meagre bank account!

By now I had had enough of being condescended too so I played my trump card and told her I wasn't feeling too well as I have shingles....she couldn't push me out the door fast enough! Ooopsss....did I forget to mention I am no longer infectious?! Result!

What concerns me most is this. As more and more people are forced to join the dole queue by no choice or making of their own, are the staff going to learn that not all of us are life-time work dodgers intent on playing the system and acquire a few manners and a little of the principles of customer service? Or are they going to continue to make this a much worse experience for everyone than it already has to be?!

If you felt crap and a little 'low of self esteem' about being out of work in the first place I can promise you the attitude and approach of these people makes you feel a whole lot worse! For me it really is a case of having to grit my teeth on the principle that I am entitled to this benefit, accept I am going to feel miserable and degraded, dig my heels in and get on with it....it's much tougher than it ought to be or than I had expected and it's utterly and horribly humiliating.

So here I am...

....staring blankly at the 'new post' page on blogger and I can think of absolutely nothing to blog! I hate that, I find it frustrating! Well in actual fact it's not so much that I can't think of a subject, more that I can't somehow manage to formulate the sentences to string it together into any semblance of coherence....no one told me shingles affected the brain too!

I've got the hump with it all already, every bit of me seems to hurt, I can't sit comfortably, I can't walk like a normal human being, I'm as tired as hell but I can't sleep, I have a headache that no amount of paracetamol seems to be able to dispense with and Fletch is away on business so I don't even have the pleasure of being 'ministered' too! Ppffttt.

I know, I know, shingles is no biggie really, and in fact it's still not even confirmed as shingles for sure anyway.... but whatever it is I will be glad when it sods off out of my system and I can get back to normal.

In the mean time this managed to put a smile on my miserable chops this morning.....oink!

Hobble, shuffle, grumble!

To my dismay it appears I have shingles...or at least the quack thinks it's likely to be shingles, though I have no nasty, painful rash....yet. I have that to look forward too maybe.

In my ignorance I thought that the shingly thing always presented with a rash of painful blisters and always on the torso or head, but apparently not. I have it down the entire length of my left thigh and I can only hope, that as the doctor suggested might be the case, I only have it mildly, because if this is mild I don't look forward to the full blown version. It hurts and I'm already shuffling and hobbling around like an old bint.

I have another few days to wait and see if the rash appears, if not then it may be something else, the name of which I have already forgotten but either way, no rash means no meds, I just have to let nature take it's merry course!

Joy.