I Ate Your Heart Out

Oh I do love the world we live in. I like to have a nice easy life and it is clear that everyone and everything around me does not! Life likes to make life difficult for me. I am currently unemployed so I have to contend with the stupid Job Centre as well as stupid job application forms. Let's start with the Job Centre...

I am going away with my parents for a few days soon and this means that I will not be able to attend my meeting with the Job Centre in order to sign on. I told them and they gave me a form to fill in and return to the Job Centre before I go away. It is a tiny form but it is so badly written. It took forever for both me and my dad to understand it. It starts off with "Please complete all questions." It is not possible to complete questions. One can complete a questionnaire. One can complete a form. But one must answer questions. It then keeps asking me if I'm "available" but it does not say what I need to be available for. Then there are random commas all over the place making the sentences awful to read. They make no sense and because of these grammatical mistakes I found it very difficult to read and complete.

So I copied it, corrected it, and am going to send it back to the Job Centre head office place asking for a job as proof reader.

So I have been looking for jobs. I just typed 'publishers' into Google and have been trying to send off applications to publishing houses. Many of them have general applications where you can just apply to work there. I did a couple the other day and they were pretty straight forward. I then tried to fill in the one for HarperCollins. I have never known an application form to be so difficult. I put it off for a few days but finally finished it today. The first 2 pages were deceiving ... what's your name? ... what are your qualifications? ... what work experience do you have? ... Nice and easy, I thought! Then ... who are your personal heroes? ... is publishing about making money or art? ... what is the most powerful type of media? ... and a load of other pointless questions. I managed to bluff my way through it all and send it off.

I can't believe they need to know all this crap before they even consider you for a job.