Learning Resource Centre

At my college the library isn't called the library, it's called the Learning Resource Centre. It's an amusing contrast with the libraries in Cambridge. Unlike the University Library's austere corridors, it's open plan and I keep getting caught up in the graphic novel section on my way to Social Policy. The Divinity Faculty Library thought itself terribly forward thinking and liberal because it allowed you to whisper "excuse me" or "have you finished with that?" without the head librarian belting you round the head with Cruden's Concordance. The other day I was sitting in the Learning Resource Centre and two young gentlemen began playing the rap music of a popular beat combo very loudly on YouTube. This would be a sending down offence in the UL but in the Learning Resource Centre, after about five minutes, a librarian scurried over and said, with the utmost politeness, "Boys, this is a library, could you turn that down a bit please."

I like that it's practically the polar opposite of the Cambridge libraries. It means that even if it's never quiet due to ESOL lessons going on in cordened off areas ("Used to is pronounced useter. Repeat after me 'useter, useter, useter'") or teenagers much cooler than me shrieking with laughter, I can spend time there getting work done without the panicked and tearful feelings that the DivFac and the UL useter inspire in me. I've noticed over the past few weeks, however, that the relaxed atmosphere has lead to something I've found common in public libraries: nutters distracting you when you're busy.


My favourite nutter of the past term has to be Christine the Christian. I first met Christine when she asked a friend from my class to help her understand a sociology question. It transpired that she had the same teacher for Sociology as us. Later that afternoon, as I was diligently working away, I felt a tap on the shoulder. It was Christine. She asked if I could help her with something and, naively believing that that something would be to do with sociology, I agreed.

Christine the Christian: I wonder if you could help me understand this, "I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God."
OGH: Erm...
CtC: What do you think it means by crown?
OGH: Um, which book is it from?
CtC: Revelation.
OGH: Well, I'm not too sure that anything from Revelation should be taken literally given that it's most probably an allegory for the fall of the Roman Emp...
CtC: [louder] What does it mean "so that no one will take your crown"? What crown?
OGH: [wearily] Er, I expect it means your belief in God. That people will try to persuade you away from your faith.
CtC: [with a big smile and wide eyes] Yes! That's a very good interpretation! You know your scriptures! Thank you!

At that point I should have pointed out that although I'd spent a good few years studying Theology, I was in fact an atheist and not interested in joining her God club. However she was already walking across the library with a beatific grin on her face so I left it. Big mistake. Now whenever Christine sees me in the library I'm greeted with a cheery smile and a bible verse. Or worse.

OGH is sitting working. ENTER CtC.
CtC: Hello!
OGH: Oh, er, hello.
CtC: You are working hard as usual.
OGH: [Nods while trying not to look up and make eye contact]
CtC: Do you like my hat? [Brandishes a hideous woollen pink and purple number] I got it from Fat Face, you know Fat Face?
OGH: [Looks up, resigned to the inevitable conversation] Yes, yes, very nice.
CtC: [Grins maniacally] I love it, it's a present from Jesus.
OGH: [Looks away very quickly to avoid a laughter incident]
CtC: What are you studying?
OGH: Sociology.
CtC: Ah, yes. I gave that up.
OGH: Really? Why?
CtC: I found it too difficult to think about. And the scriptures say that you shall call no one father except God but we were being taught about the founding fathers of sociology. It was confusing.
OGH: I can imagine. But that's just a figure of speech, surely.
CtC: What do you mean, a figure of speech?
OGH: Right, erm, you know in the Bible, when Jesus talks about the sower of the seed?
CtC: [nods enthusiastically]
OGH: Well, he's not talking about an actual person sowing actual seed is he? He's talking about the different ways of coming to belief in God. So when we say 'founding fathers' we're not saying that they are physical fathers, just that they were the first people with certain ideas.
CtC: Oh. Well I spend so much time studying the scriptures that I don't have time for it.
OGH: [looks at CtC's notepad and sees that it is full of painstakingly written out bible verses in a carefully constructed chart, rather than college work.]

See? Nutters. I feel slightly sullied by engaging on her level but I honestly don't think she's all there. Her course? Access to Teaching. Next week on Lizzie's Loons: the African plumber that keeps asking me to go out with him, despite the fact that I'm a snorting, wheezing snot-monster at the moment.

Political correctness gone mad

I don't know if it's a peculiarly British thing but I think most of us secretly like being a bit offended or angered. There's a sign on platform 6 at London Bridge that proudly proclaims, "90% of South Eastern Trains run on time!" and when I'm waiting for a train I take a perverse enjoyment in standing in front of it seething, muttering like an enraged Gollum, "90%! 90%! South Eastern have the temerity, the audacity, the gall to say that when I am late at least twice a week!" It's like a pressure valve, or something.

I would, however, hate to turn into the wrong sort of offended. The sort of person who rants into the comment boxes on newspaper websites. The sort of person who, when presented with a harmless, if banal, question on the BBC Have Your Say website, such as, "Are you bracing yourself for the cold weather?", rather than scrolling on by is gripped by rage and feels compelled to give answers such as these:

The worlds most sophisticated weather system exists in Britain.
it's called sticking your head out of the window!
Why are we so obsessed with the weather? It's winter, it's going to be cold and snow. Get over it.
Harry James, Warwick, United Kingdom

To be honest, we may as well throw our bodies out of the window too as we'll never be as enlightened as Harry James. Except maybe this next commenter, both called Harry, separated at birth?

The BBC have been telling me that the planet is getting warmer for years, and now ITV now inform me that the polar bears are dying of heatstroke, so I will be breaking out the deck chairs and tee shirts this weekend.

Why does the British weather, which is exceedingly agreeable and temperate by any measure, animate the British so much ?

Its the weather, not the apocalypse. Get a life.
[Potty_Harry], Coventry, United Kingdom

Before the Harries get too animated, here's Dave to calm it all down:

The weather in this country is NEVER cold in world terms.

How do you think people cope in Canada, Finland or Russia cope? Or what about Central Europe where it is consistently colder than this for three months every single year?

Slow news day, BBC?

Davie Hay

Glad we cleared that up. And finally:

Hello? It's late November; what are people expecting, a heatwave? I wouldn't trust the BBC to tell me what the weather's going to be like anyway. A couple of weeks ago in work, we all had a good laugh at the current weather map on this site, which showed a cloudless sky over the whole of Wales. It was chucking it down outside!

[BrimfulOfAshes], Cardiff

Hello? Can I be your friend Brimful? Please? I bet Comic Relief at your work is hilarious.

I worry when I find myself almost tutting at someone standing on the wrong side of the escalator that I might be turning into someone like this. Is noting spelling mistakes on signs with amusement the start of the slippery slope to writing into supermarkets informing them that it should be "Eight items or fewer" rather than "Eight items or less"? Will my irritation with South Eastern trains grow until it leads me down the dark and sullying path of writing a letter of complaint to The Metro? Do you secretly like being angry or offended? What apparantly trivial things anger or offend you?

And I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats

Carol had short brown hair and "ethnic" dangly earrings. She was wearing elastic waisted trousers, probably made from fair trade cotton, and had the sort of gold cross around her neck that is supposed to be discreet yet managed to be the first thing I noticed about her. Her smile dripped with so much pity that I wanted to punch her. Instead I sat down opposite her, next to an ailing spider plant probably being slowly choked to death with fake empathy, and waited for her to start. "So," she sighed, "how are you today?" I was in the Cambridge counselling service beginning my second (and last) session.

The previous week I'd sat in the waiting room staring at a poster proclaiming, "Depression feels the same in any language!" with a picture of several people of various creeds and colours standing united in an act of multicultural misery and wondering what I was doing there. This feeling only increased throughout my session and reached a peak during the second session where I was subjected to a barrage of sub-Freudian techniques. Regard:

THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX
Carol: Now last week you said you don't get on with your father...
OGH: No, I said we weren't close. That's not the same.
Carol: You see him as a distant figure?
OGH: I see him as someone who is busy working hard for his family.
Carol: [disappointed] Oh.


FREE ASSOCIATION
Carol: [Stares at me with a gormless expression mirroring that of the Jesus in the icon of the crucifixion on her wall]
OGH: [Stares back]
Carol: [Sighs]
OGH: [Stares]
Carol: Why all the silence?
OGH: Er, you haven't asked me a question yet.
Carol: [sighs with what sounds like the tiniest bit of irritation]

THE ELECTRA COMPLEX
Carol: How about your mother?
OGH: Really, my parents aren't to blame for the fact that I'm a miserable cow.
Carol: You're being rather obstructive to the therapy process.

LAST DITCH ATTEMPT AT ANALYSIS
Carol: You're all dressed in black, with black hair and black make up. It's as if you're in mourning and I wonder what you're in mourning for?
OGH: The lost minutes of my life spent with you dear.

The other day I was watching Bad Girls with the wife (shh, I only watch it for the lesbians). The story line was tackling a particularly gritty subject with its usual rigour when I interjected, "For god's sake, they'd have got a social worker in by now," and then a smile crept accross my face. It finally hit home that I'm going to be a social worker. (Well, in about four years' time if I can find the money to fund another go at university.) And I've got Carol to thank for that. I walked out of her room in 2004 and have spent a fair part of the years since then in the throes of drooling mentalism. After that bad experience it was a year before I sought help again and by that point it was too late for me to remain at Cambridge, but that help was good. I was diagnosed bipolar and have CBTed myself back to functionality and along the way I decided that I wanted to make sure people got the same help I had. That sounds vomitously trite and I do apologise but I could tell you horror stories, there's a lot worse than Carol.


So I've just done the first half term of an access to social care course, with a view to becoming a mental health social worker, and it seems to be going well. Leaving Cambridge was hard, it was so mentally shattering that until quite recently the mere sight of an academic book had me reaching for the whiskey but now I'm actively enjoying using my brain for more than counting out change. I appear to be living up to the potential that I thought I'd comprehensibly pissed up against a wall. It's nice. And it will be even nicer not to be on the receiving end of the social care for once.

Nowt so queer as folk

My first crush, at the age of about eight, was on Kenneth Williams. I'm not telling you this to carry on the theme of humiliation, although it is quite embarrassing, but because it appears to be the first sign of what has become quite a pattern in my life.



When I was in my first year at secondary school, various popular and influential people in my class coerced my best friend George and I to "go out". All this involved was going about our normal business with added hugging when they told us to. Apparently this was "sweet" as we were both short, speccy and swotty. I believe this relationship came to an end when we completely failed to call each other over half-term. Neither of us was in the slightest bit upset and quickly got back to being best friends without the irritation of constant demands from other people to touch each other. Time passed and by Year 11 I'd blossomed, if that's the right word, into a moody, sulking goth. George, on the other hand, had grown into a rather flamboyant personality, "camp George" as he was affectionately referred to throughout the school. So it was absolutely no surprise when he came to my goth friends and me, who wore eyeliner and fishnets and pretended to be wordly, to confide that he thought he might be gay. Looking back on it, I'm quite proud of the emotional maturity with which the fifteen year old me and friends dealt with the situation. By the beginning of the next school year he was happily out to most people and a much more relaxed person for it. But it stands that my first "boyfriend" turned out to be a homosexual. A portent of things to come?

As a seventeen year old I had self-hatred down to a fine art. I was consumed by it. The years of being told I was fat and ugly had paid off and it became fact, it was burnt into my retinas so that that's all I saw when I looked at myself. It's pathetic really but I want to cry when I see one of the very few pictures that I allowed to be taken from this period. I looked nothing like the hideous monster I envisioned myself as, yet I spent hours scribbling Placebo lyrics into black notebooks and ineffectually attempting to carve "ugly" into my arm with a compass. Emo before emo was invented. That's how cool I am. I've got my razor on the pulse of modern trends. But anyway, you can imagine that Valentine's day wasn't a joyous occasion for me as a permanently single lump of self-loathing. Imagine my surprise, then, on seeing a very attractive man obviously eyeing me up from across the pub my friends had dragged me to in order to "celebrate" the day of cheap cards and insincerity. I couldn't believe it when he came over to speak to me, and only me. His name was Pratesh and he was all gorgeous brown eyes and long black hair. I was still in a state of shock when, after talking for a while, he leaned in to kiss me. I couldn't believe my luck when after a fair bit of snogging (including an unfortunate face-biting incident that I glossed over at the time but really, bloody goths and their vampire obsessions) Pratesh decided to accompany my friends and me to the club we were moving on to from the pub.

So I was on the dance floor at my favourite club with a handsome young gentleman making inept attempts to put his hands down my corset and I was thinking, "Gosh, this didn't turn out too horrendously after all," when he whispered in my ear that he needed to tell me something. I followed him to a table in the corner and he took my hands and said, "I'm really sorry but I'm gay. I thought I could do this but I can't. You're the only girl I've ever felt anything like this for but it's still not going to work. I'm so sorry." I stared at him, gobsmacked, then proceeded to cry in the corner for the rest of the evening, convinced that I was so hideous I'd forced him to make up this outlandish excuse, while my best friend got off with the most beautiful man I'd ever seen. Or, as a friend summarised on being informed of the night's events at a later date, "It was Valentine's, Alice pulled fit James and you turned someone gay? Wow!" Wow indeed.

And so we come to Travis. Yes, that Travis. I'd fancied Travis for quite a while before we got it together and when it happened I was pretty happy. That might be an understatement. Travis had charisma and big, piercing blue eyes. He also had an alcohol problem and mental health issues but that was by the by as didn't I too? He and I had drunken conversations late into the night about Issues and Art and we discovered a lot in common. He had a fierce talent for writing and observation and could make me laugh about absolutely anything. I fell for him hard and fast and, miracle of miracles, he seemed to feel the same way. Travis identified as bisexual when we got together, although his past had been swathed with confusion. That was fine, as I too believe that variety is the spice of life. After a while he stopped identifying as bisexual though. "You're the only woman I fancy," he said. And I liked that. I'd refer to him as my gay boyfriend and we'd go to gay clubs where I'd watch him tarting about in skinny jeans with a faux-hawk, happy in the knowledge that this gorgeous creature was coming home with me.

We were together two years all told and towards the end of that I was stupid enough to relax, to look forward to years of what I had at that point, we 'd got each other through some difficult times and just seemed to be coming out of the other side. And so it was as inevitable as Shakespearian tragedy that it would all come crashing down. It was during a perfectly innocuous phone call that he dropped in that he'd decided he was gay. I think he may have said that the idea of being with a woman made him feel panicky and deftly delivered an enormous kick directly to my self-esteem. To add insult to injury, at the time this happened an almost identical storyline was running on Hollyoaks. So it was like living in the most ludicrous of teen soaps, only with less facially gifted people, and in certain cases worse acting. So, despite my love for the sexually ambiguous, I've been confining myself to red-blooded heterosexuals ever since in an attempt to break the pattern. I'm sure the gay community are devastated but it's all fun and games until someone breaks a heart.

Wardrobe Malfunctions

I believe that anyone can look attractive if they dress well and clothing is something I've learnt to use to my advantage. Corsetry, stilettos and seamed stockings, fascinators, red lipstick and jewellery help me pretend that I'm not just plump and plain, help me create an illusion, a glamour. I love glamour. Every time someone tells me that I make them feel underdressed, every time a stranger comments on my outfit, it makes my whole day. But while what you wear can turn you from a little bown bird into a peacock, it can also just make you look a bit of a cock. I'm talking about Judy Finnegan's hammock-like bra making a bid for freedom at an awards ceremony, or Janet Jackson's bizarrely spiky nipple fighting its way out on stage. The wardrobe malfunction is one of the cruellest forms of humiliation and as I'm in a confessional mood, here are my top five most embarrassing instances.

Number Five: Picture the scene, I'm at the Leipzig goth festival, I'm with my boyfriend of the time and his band are playing the festival so I have a special access all areas wristband, I'm at the main venue and it's heaving with goths but with my magic wristband I can jump queues, I'm eyeing up other people's outfits and feeling pretty pleased with myself, I'm standing swigging mead with people from bands and feeling pretty damned cool. But what's this? Are these German goths staring in wonder at my amazing dress sense or has the zip on my skirt broken exposing my bum crack to anyone who cares to look? Yeah.

I've written before about the Hancock incident at the cinema that, along with the surfeit of bodily fluids, pushed me to resignation. What I didn't mention was wardrobe malfunction Number Four. So, I arrived at work having had to clean up shit the previous day to be presented with a costume to wear. That was quite bad. The costume consisted of a woolly hat and sunglasses in the middle of summer to be worn whilst standing in front of a hot dog grill. That was fairly awful. I hadn't put my contacts in so I was forced to wear the sunglasses perched above my normal glasses, looking like a mental who couldn't dress themselves properly. That was pretty appauling. Just before going down to my till I bent down to get my name badge and the seam on the inner thigh of my trousers split right up to the gusset meaning I had to spend the entire shift shuffling around concessions like a demented penguin with my legs together so as not to flash anyone. That was the icing on the cake of humiliation.

I try my very hardest to present an elegant exterior even if, as many people have told me, it only lasts until I open my mouth. Unfortunately events often conspire to rid me of any such illusions before I've even managed to do that, such as in incident Number Three. I realise that the tinned foods isle in Asda isn't the classiest of locations but you never know who you'll bump into at the supermarket and I was wearing a new pair of holdups. Has ever such a misnomer been applied to an item of hosiery? I was walking down frozen foods when I felt the right "holdup" come loose. I prayed it would stay put but by the time I'd reached baked goods the rubber top was flapping around my ankle like a bell around a clapper. Class, poise and elegance is not having to dive into the George changing room to peel off an errant stocking, then being forced to walk home in the rain one stocking on, one stocking off.

Class, poise and elegance were exactly what I wanted to present to the gentleman I went on a date with, who was instead confronted with clothing disaster Number Two. I met him for a drink and quite wanted to impress him. Unfortunate then that within the hour I'd gone arse over tit with a full pint in each hand. However, like the trooper I am, I picked myself up, resigned myself to smelling like a brewery and continued in my attempt to charm him. As I got up to go out for a cigarette I noticed him eyeing me up. I raised an eyebrow quizzically, "Just enjoying the view," he smirked. I felt pleased that he fancied me depite my enormous clumsiness and general ineptitude. It was only when I got home, via several modes of public transport, that I realised that when I fell over I'd split my pencil skirt right up the vent, exposing stocking tops, suspenders and far too much thigh to half of London.

Here we are at my Number One most embarrassing wardrobe malfunction. It has crossed my mind that most people probably haven't even had five, never mind enough to make a chart from but that's part of the exciting life I lead, I suppose. Anyway, when I was in my second year at Cambridge I was a member of a society whose entire purpose was to dress up as goths and get drunk. As you can imagine that was quite a stretch for me. On this occasion we were attending the formal dinner at Kings College. I was wearing a new corset and was somewhat over-excited and showing off, therefore managed to drink all of my wine but somehow not to eat anything. We'd hired out the Kings Cellar after the meal for playing of cheesy music and dancing. Among said cheesy music was the Timewarp from Rocky Horror. I think it might have been played twice. Both times I was there enthusiastically stepping to the right etc. to much encouragement. So much encouragement that I did it again in the bar once the cellar was shut. And possibly again another time after that. I may even have got home and done a bit of timewarping in the mirror. Where I discovered that when my arms were raised above my head they pulled my breasts out of the corset, making my nipples visible to everyone. Suddenly most of the applause made sense.

So, come on, what's your most embarrassing wardrobe malfunction?

SHAME!

I discovered Bête de Jour's blog a few months ago and it's become a firm favourite. It's well written, funny, and at all times painfully honest. Today he asked his readers, "What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?" and as I have an internet crush on him am so good at humiliating myself, I thought I'd (over) share.

As with many of the incidents that sneak up on me when I'm trying to go to sleep, filling me with so much horror as I remember them that I have to stuff my duvet into my mouth to stop myself from screaming, I was very drunk when this occurred. I'd just started sleeping with a bloke in my friendship group that I'd fancied for ages, we'll call him Travis, and was in the pub with him and some others. I'd been drinking all afternoon on an empty stomach and was already about six pints of snakebite and black down before my mate, who we'll call Dan, got the evil glint in his eye that means he's about to suggest some sort of heinous drinking game. Dan's drinking games are always completely incomprehensible, involving all sorts of 'international drinking rules' to catch you out. I know hardened alcoholics who pale at the thought of Dan's drinking games, yet out of some sort of pathetic need to prove myself in front of Travis I decided to join in. Cue me having to down two pints in quick succession and half the pub watching as myself and a friend attempted to recite a ridiculous rhyme with added actions. Pretty embarrassing already, to be honest.

Alcohol can lift you up and make you feel like the king of the world but it can also be an insidious bastard. And so it was only when I stood up and got out into the fresh air after kicking out time that I realised exactly how fucked I was. But by then it was too late and I'd already agreed to go home with Travis. As I began to walk back to Travis's it became increasingly apparent that I was going to have to be sick very soon. In an attempt to retain what was left of my dignity, I asked him to walk ahead of me and told him I'd catch up with him in a minute. As soon as he was suitably far away I began to vomit purple froth into the gutter. Unfortunately I was so utterly bollocksed that the mere act of bending over was enough to cause me to suffer a lack of composure and topple into the gutter, landing in a pool of my own second hand snakebite. I was hauled out by a concerned pair of passing students, while Travis ran back down the road wondering what the hell was going on. Explaining that was pretty fucking humiliating but it does not end there, for I am an adept in the art of self-abasement, an expert in embarrassment.

I continued back to Travis's house, feeling better for the fresh air. I obviously felt so much better on arriving that I thought it would be a good idea to engage in a sex act. Only there are certain sex acts that really shouldn't be attempted when the gag reflex is still quivering and sensitive from a recent regurgitation. Nothing like coating your partner's crotch in emesis to kill the passionate mood. Cue Travis frantically trying to clean himself up and change the bedclothes around me as I sat on the end of the bed sobbing. To Travis's credit, he took it in his stride and we dated for two years. Until he dumped me because he'd decided he was gay. On positive days, I like to think the two incidents aren't connected.

Running the gauntlet

Some weeks ago I went to enroll in college where I was told by a charismatic man of a certain age and attractiveness that, as I'd be leaving my job at [cinema] before I started my course, I should sign on and come back in to enroll when in receipt of benefits as I'd then get the course for free rather than paying the hefty £950 fee. "Sign on, even if it's just for a week. I'm a tax payer and I don't have a problem with you doing that. I just want my students to get the best deal," he said, sweeping his hair out of his eyes with a rolled-up-shirt-sleeved arm. I nodded, trying not to let my mouth hang open. Not paying £950 sounded good to me but little did I know I was about to face an ordeal worse than exam term at Cambridge, worse than vomit on a ten hour shift at [cinema]. We hear about people that make a living by scamming the government, claiming benefits in different cities and I say let them keep the money. It's a full time job trying to extract one payment from them, I can only imagine the effort and patience required for four or five.

College gave me a form to be filled in and stamped at the Jobcentre. So when I went to sign on for the first time I brought it with me. After signing on:
Mavis: Miss F?
OGH: [goes and sits down at the table]
Mavis: [sighs in a loud and protracted manner] Book?
OGH: [hands over book]
Mavis: Sign here. NEXT!
I went downstairs and asked about getting my form stamped. I was shown immediately to a table where a nice young man called Tristan filled out my form quickly whilst making polite conversation and then I was on my way within the hour. I felt surprised and pleased that everything had gone so smoothly. However at this point I had no idea that I was already undergoing ORDEAL BY INCOMPETENCE. I took the form to my college, which is on the other side of South London to my home and the Jobcentre, and proudly handed over the form to the fee assesment lady. "Oh no," she shook her head, "Oh no, they've put an end date!" she prodded at the relevant part of the form with a fingernail manicured in hot pink, "Can't take it with an end date! The benefits have to be ongoing, look." She pointed to another part of the form where this was clearly stated. I inwardly cursed Tristan and his friendly conversation and complete lack of concentration. I had to wait for half an hour to see a smiley woman who confirmed that, yes, the form was useless. "I'm really sorry, you'll have to get another one filled in. God, it's in Woolwich! I'm sorry hun."

So was I, very sorry to be trailing yet again into Woolwich Jobcentre with a new form clasped between my fingers. I was a bit better prepared this time but there's no real preparation for ORDEAL BY OBSTRUCTION. First I was told that in order to see someone I'd have to make an appointment. Obviously the most natural way to do this is to sit on a jobcentre phone on hold for fifteen minutes before getting through to the main call centre in Belfast where you give them your NI number and they then put you through to the jobcentre you are sitting in where you are finally given an appointment for an hour and a half's time. An ingenious system. I'd been waiting about for over two hours when I finally saw Don, a flamboyant gentleman who waved me over in a manner that wouldn't have been out of place directing air traffic.
Don: Now what can we do for you?
OGH: Well, I've got my P45 to be faxed over...
Don: Oh gawd! I don't know if I'm supposed to be doing that! Oh gawd! Where do I send it...
OGH: New Claims.
Don: Oh Gaw... Really? New Claims? Oh right, I'll just fax that over then! Right. Anything else?
OGH: Yeah, could you just stamp this form for me? I've brought it in before but it was filled out incorrectly.
Don: Oh gawd! I can't do that! I'm not authorised! We're short staffed today and I'm not authorised! What's you NI number?
[types it in and presses return repeatedly while the computer beeps angrily]
Don: See? I'm not authorised! Bring it in tomorrow morning and Linda will do it for you. NEXT!

Linda sat in front of me the next morning looking apologetic. "I can't stamp that for you as the claim isn't coming up as live on the system." She typed my NI number in again and the computer beeped another emphatic "NO!". I showed her that I had, in fact, had the form filled in before. She looked over it and tutted, "Tristan!". My patience was running extremely thin. It seemed that this was ORDEAL BY MISCOMMUNICATION. "I have been here three times with this form," I said, my anger barely controlled, "I need it to enroll in college, if I still have a place after all this incompetent faffing." She called head office for me. Apparently the person handling my claim was away from their desk but would give me a call that afternoon and when they called I should make sure that they'd put my claim live on the system, then come in the next morning to get my form stamped. Of course I got no such call. I spent the evening near to tears through frustration, melodramatically flinging myself onto soft furnishings demanding, "Why won't they just stamp my fucking form? All I want is to better myself! Another chance at education!"

So, Wednesday morning, day three, I awoke with a steely determination. I gathered numbers and stepped into ORDEAL BY CALL CENTRE. This determination didn't falter when, having been on the phone to him for half an hour, the first man I spoke to told me my claim would probably take four to five days, too late for me to enroll, before realising that I'd been given the wrong number by the website and his call centre didn't cover Woolwich. The next number told me that my claim should have gone through but I'd have to call my local Jobcentre to get them to enter my last signing on date. I called Woolwich and was put through to a rather confused man.
Confused Man: What do you want?
OGH: Er, I need my last signing on date entered onto the system so my claim can be processed.
CM: Right. Are you on New Deal?
OGH: No...
CM: Well you shouldn't be talking to me then, who gave you this number?
OGH: I was put through by Woolwich jobcentre.
CM: Give me your NI number... right... you can't sign on today, you sign on on Fridays.
OGH: Yes, I know, I just need my last sign on date put...
CM: You come in on Friday to sign on, you can't have money today.
After hanging up I decided it was probably best to take direct action and went into Woolwich again. At the Jobcentre I waved at Don, smiled at Linda, realised I was probably in there more than some of the staff.

At the front desk I explained that I needed my sign on date inputted so that my claim could be processed and was given a number to ring and shown to a phone. At [cinema] we were taught to use the "Talking to a Brick Wall Technique" on very difficult customers, essentially just repeating yourself over and over again. I decided that this would be my tactic.
Callcentre Employee: Hello, NI number please... right, how can I help you?
OGH: Could you put my last sign on date on the system so my claim can go live please?
CE: Right... just doing that now... Right, you sign in on Fri...
OGH: Is my claim now live on the system?
CE: Well, I'll put a note...
OGH: Is my claim now live on the system?
CE: If you come in on Fri...
OGH: Is my claim now live on the system?
CE: Yes!
OGH: Right. Thank you.
And so I went and had my form stamped and filled in correctly by Linda, then had a trouble-free enrollment at College. VICTORY. Still haven't got any money though.