Why this is hell, nor am I out of it

Nine thirty on a Saturday morning is for being in bed. It's for reaching groggily for pain killers to numb the hangover before turning over and going back to sleep. If you're a particularly enthusiastic type, it might be for fucking. But what it's emphatically not for is standing in the grim lobby of Woolwich Job Centre Plus. I was greeted by two security guards, and a man with his shirt hanging out who handed me a sheaf of papers and pointed me towards a chair. There I studiously checked over the details that I'd given over the phone (she'd misheard my phone number and apparently not even made an attempt to hear my last work dates). I painstakingly signed and dated every correction and then turned my attention to a form I had to fill in. The first question read, "Do you have any problems with English or Math's that would prevent you getting work?" Yep, "math's". This was a portent of things to come.

When I was finished I was called over to see Julie (not real name obviously, especially not with my memory).
Julie: Hello Miss F. [shuffles papers] Now I see here that you've studied at university.
Our Glamorous Heroine: Well, I...
J: Oh! Sian! I thought you weren't in today!
Sian: I was feeling a bit sick but I thought I may as well come in... Dave, fuck off out of my chair! Did you hear that Darren walked out yesterday?
J: Really?
S: Yeah, he had to be escorted off the premises!
J: [Realises that half of the job centre are looking up from their forms, listening with rapt attention] Sian! That's company business! Don't talk about it in front of customers! Yes Miss F?
OGH: Well, I actually dropped out after two years due to illness.
J: Right, have you got the letter from your university stating that you no longer attend?
OGH: Er, no, the woman on the phone didn't mention having to bring one.
J: Tchuh. They don't make our job any easier for us!

After that little chat I was asked to take a seat again ("No, not that seat Miss F, the completely indistinguishable one directly next to it.") where I waited to see another 'adviser'.
Claire: Right, I just need to ask you a few more questions Miss F... just one minute... Sandra! Sandra!
Sandra: [comes over leaving her own client] Yeah? Oh, right, what you do is you just click yes or no for each question and then it comes up red or green at the end, then you just delete it and put successful or unsuccessful.
C: So you have to do it even though you just delete it straight after? That's stupid! [sticks tongue under bottom lip and gurns making an "uuh" noise]
[Enter manager, a bloke about my age who could have done with a shave, from behind a glass partition having noticed the conflab.]
Dale: Everything all right ladies? You're remembering to do the [incomprehensible jargon procedure]?
C: Yeah, yeah.
[Exit manager Dale.]
S: Hahahaha, he asked me if I was doing that earlier and I was like, "Of course I am," but I didn't have a clue what he was on about!

Having finally got through the questions (Claire: Any qualifications? OGH: Yeah, 10 GCSEs, 5 AS levels, 3 A levels Claire: AS levels? Never heard of them! OGH: Just put 3 A levels...) I was informed that yes, I was eligible for JSA (green, successful) and asked if I had any questions.
OGH: Er, yes, I have to bring in proof that I left university due to illness. Where shall I bring it in to?
C: One minute... Dale! Dale! This lady needs to bring in proof that she's left uni because she was ill. Where does she give it in to?
Dale: [comes out from behind his partition again] Er, that would have to be Procedures.
C: But the public can't give stuff to Procedures.
D: Oh, right, yeah, I guess she'd have to give it to New Claims then. Yeah, just come in and go upstairs to New Claims...
C: But she won't be allowed without an appointment
D: Nah, she can just tell reception that she needs to hand some stuff in and it'll be okay.
C: Right, so what you need to do is come in and ask for New Claims
OGH: Oh really?

I have to go in to sign on tomorrow. I haven't filled in my form stating what I've been doing to look for work this week yet. Somehow I don't think "read article in the paper about the phone sex trade" is going to cut it either. Sigh. Wish me luck.

I've been framed

Last week I was wrenched from my slumber by a mad figure careering around my room shouting obscenities. I sat up in bed with a start and realised that I was in my room at my parents' house and the figure was my mother.

Mummy Dearest: ...want to know what the fuck you've done to my fucking laptop...
Our Glamorous Heroine: Wuh? Laptop?
MD: I can't fucking turn it on and I don't know how to wake your brother to deal with it!

And it dawned on me. I'd used my mother's laptop the previous evening as I hadn't brought mine from Cambridge. I searched my still sleep-addled brain for any clues as to what I could possibly have done to it.

Now, my mother is a writer and so her laptop is understandably extremely important to her. That is why, once I'd finished on it, I asked her how it should be shut down. Just how you normally shut down a computer? I asked and she said yes. So I went to the start menu and pressed the familiar red button. Mistake.

MD: You've shut it down wrong and I can't fucking get into it. I need to do my fucking work.
OGH: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do anything to it, I just...
MD: The only fucking constant I need in my life is being able to get into my fucking laptop...

Information swam back to me as I regained consciousness. She had an imminent deadline with her agent. I probably wasn't as clear as I could have been when asking how I should shut it down. Nothing makes a writer more angry than not being able to write. That scene in The Shining when Jack Nicholson has a go at his wife for interrupting him when he's working at the type writer ("Whenever l'm in here. . . and you hear me typing. . . or whatever the fuck you hear me doing in here. . . when l'm in here, that means l am working. That means don't come in. Do you think you can handle that? Fine. Why don't you start right now and get the fuck out of here?") could be documentary fact as far as my experience with writers goes. I'd fucked up big time. I decided to duck and cover and weather out the storm.

My mother finally left my room with a slam of the door and a shout of, "And don't ever go near my laptop ever again!" No fear of that, thought I, and very definitely remembered to bring my laptop down with me when I came back at the weekend. So, when this morning I heard a scream that Grendel's mother would have been proud of emanating from my mother's room I ignored it. Nothing to do with me, I thought. Mistake. I've written before about how technology has conspired against me and it appears that it has happened again. As my mother was leaving the house she gave me a steely glare.

MD: You've fucked up my laptop up again.
OGH: I haven't been anywhere near it.
MD: Well it wouldn't turn on, exactly the same way as last time, and then it said that you were logged on.
OGH: I don't know why that is because I really haven't been on it. I've got my laptop so why would I want to use yours?
MD: Well it says Elizabeth is logged on and I don't know any other Elizabeths who would be on it.
OGH: I promise I haven't been on it, seriously.
MD: Well you were on it last week and that's started all this. Just don't fucking break other peoples' stuff. You obviously left bad seeds on it.
OGH:...

I didn't ask if that was a technical term or if Nick Cave had been there with the 'bad seeds'. I just resigned myself to the fact that the laptop had planted my finger prints all over a crime I didn't commit and so I must endure another dose of writers' wrath. I bloody hate technology.

Coda

Something worrying happened this morning. I found myself getting nostalgic about work. I miss my cinema friends, it was always the fantastic people that made the job bearable and I probably laughed as much as I seethed with rage. However certain things bear remembering.

Just before I left, Mamma Mia came out. I thought Sex & The City was bad for rude harridans with entitlement compexes ("I have to queue? But I've booked tickets and paid for a babysitter!" "Why can't you tell me exactly how much fat there is in the low fat natural yoghurt?") but Mamma Mia brought them all flooding back in with the added bonus of a song they could sing endlessly and off-key. It was always the small things that made working at the cinema that bit more difficult. When new members of staff join they have to undergo training. One of the training modules is entitled "Tools of the Trade" in which new Guest Assistants are informed that the tools of their trade are the wheelie bin, the pick up, and the slop bucket. Inspiring stuff.

So Mamma Mia had just come out meaning that several screens were sold out and there was more mess than a reception classroom after an "art" lesson. The ushering team reach for the tools of their trade, only what the training didn't tell us was that we'd run out of bin bags on every busy weekend and there would only ever be three pickups between five. Three pick ups: one with the stick attatched to the bucket broken in half, one with the stick attatched to the brush broken in half, and one where the minute the bucket became full it flew off the stick disgorging its contents all over the floor. But we did our best stooping and periodically swearing only to realise that we were being subjected to yet another cruel and unusual punishment.

In order to celebrate the release of Mamma fucking Mia [cinema] was sent a tape by head office to be played in all the screens between showings. This involved the same seven Abba songs being played over and over again with some "advertising" in between songs. Said "advertising" was obviously being read out by Dave from accounts whose uncle had once done a brief turn on hospital radio and was therefore the best man for the job. The terrible American accent was embarrassing enough but the puns were unspeakable. As "Take A Chance On Me" faded out we hear, "But don't take a chance on seeing the sold out sign and book tickets from a member of staff". Pretty cringe-worthy. But it was after "Voulez-Vous" when Dave-from-accounts intoned, "And don't forget to view les Vue listings at myvue.com," that I seriously considered committing suicide with the sharp end of a broken pick up.

Truth be told, I was getting pretty intolerant by the end. Woe betide the customer that annoyed me. For example the woman who ran up to me in the box office shouting, "I need a student ticket for this girl for Kung Fu Panda now!"
Our Glamourous Heroine: Does she have a student card?
Posh Harpy: No! She's an international student. She's staying with me over the summer!
OGH: I'm afraid it's company policy that I can't sell a student ticket without a valid student card.
PH: Well you either believe me or you don't.
OGH: I'm afraid I...
PH: [banging the counter with her hand] Could you just hurry up! The film's about to start! Just give me a ticket!
OGH: Right, here's an adult ticket and some manners wouldn't go amiss. That'll be £7.10 please.
PH: Oh, er, thank you.
I suspect it was best for everyone that I left before there was a murder.

An amusing post script to my time at the cinema is that there was a visit by a mystery shopper on my last shift. "Guess who got 100% at box office? Gave a voucher, was helpful, and smiled?" asked my best work mate Stephen over a drink recently. That's right bitches, it was me. I have some really good suggestions as to what management can do with that information.

Getting over it

It's a typical British summer holiday. I'm trying to eat a fish cake with one of those wooden forks before the seagulls notice what I've got, and watching the grey sky blend seamlessly into the grey sea. People are huddled on the beach wrapped in multi-coloured towels and ponies trudge up and down the sand. It's nearly 20 years since my family came here for the first time and there are memories everywhere. Up the sea front is the Sea Life Centre where Middle Brother would stare at the seals for hours and we'd eat jelly snakes. To my right is the funfair with the wiggly slides which we used to visit for a treat in the evening. I remember fondly the first time I publicly humiliated myself, going down them in a dress which I was convinced made me look very grown up, only for my skirt to blow up exposing my underwear to all and causing the man taking the money to exclaim loudly in case anyone had failed to notice, "Look, she's showing her frillies!" I remember the game my father used to set for us, to see who could spot the most tattoos on people walking along the front. One point for an inked arm, five for a neck. I have my own now and god knows how many points that's lost me in his eyes. And I can see Littlest Brother, now 19 and six foot, standing on the beach aged four trying to get his mouth round a gobstopper bigger than his head.

I'm losing myself in these memories, digging deeper and deeper. The first meal I ever had here was fish shapes, chips, and beans. The first grumpy pony I rode along the beach was called Minnie. The first time we came we made a scrapbook, my mother painstakingly helping me to stick shells into it every evening before we ate, Middle Brother doing detailed scribbles on the blank pages. I'm losing myself on purpose so I won't have to think about the most recent time I've visited. The time in freezing, windy January when the fish and chip stands were boarded up and the front was empty save for a few birdwatchers huddled in the only tea room open out of season. The time when I was so desperate that I packed up and ran away fom Cambridge on the spur of the moment. I was stuck in a labyrinth of unfinished work, depression, failed potential, and panic. Some psychiatrists say that 'home' is reliving your childhood and so perhaps unconsciously I sought safety in the place of my childhood holidays. At a time in my life when I could have felt so utterly alone he came with me.

I don't know how long you're allowed to feel heartbroken for before it becomes horribly self-indulgent. I suspect at nearly a year since he dropped his bombshell I'm pushing the bounds of sympathy when I get maudlin like this. It's not the searing pain of the first weeks, pain that I was too terrified to look straight at in case I couldn't take it. It's just an ache that nags me occasionally. He came with me and we ate chips in the cold and he was sober then but he sat patiently and watched me drink it all away and we giggled in the prissy guest house and stared at penguins in the Sea Life Centre. And even though the sun almost came out earlier and I'm on my way to getting my life back on track, it hurts that I'll never have that with him again.

We went to a film the other day, I say we, he brought his new partner with him, and as I was saying goodbye, he dropped another bombshell. He's going away for six weeks and by the time he gets back I'll be in London starting college. As I walked home I wondered if this wasn't for the best. Detach yourself! I mentally yelled. Later, at the goth night I organised a goodbye coffee for the next day. An old song came on and I walked to the dance floor and danced alone, hair in my face, balanced on my 6" heels. I saw him across the floor and lifted my head to sing the chorus. "I take back my trust in you." I wanted it to be an exorcism, I spat the words trying to forget the times we danced together to songs he now pulls his boyfriend onto the dance floor for. And the next day I was calm. We talked about nothing and politely caught up on each other's lives. We hugged goodbye and he said he'd come to visit in London and I nodded knowing that if he did it wouldn't be for me and nor should it be, I suppose. And then we went our separate ways and that was it. Not with a bang but a whimper, I thought. And just maybe I'm slowly getting over it.