The Wilderness Diaries, Episode 5: The Real World

The day has come. It feels like an interview and, believe it or not, I am stressed. This is new, something I never thought I would do. The shame, at least, has gone. 

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I am here for a reason. I keep hearing that the job market is buoyant, and that youth unemployment is a disaster, which is true. But I rarely hear about the over-50s, whose situation I think is just as serious. That is why I wanted to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA): so that my age group is counted and the problem becomes visible in the official figures. The money? It matters, but at £95.55 a week, with children in education, it is a drop in the ocean. I would encourage anyone in my position to claim. 

I treat the appointment as an interview, because the officer can still refuse my application. 

I dress like the old days: business casual, pointy shoes. No flashy watch, no flashy phone, no flashy bike on display. This is modern London, after all, and I would rather not get mugged. I park my old bike outside, next to a striped one. Not reassuring. 

I walk to the entrance with my helmet on and am startled to find two security guards by the doors. They politely ask me to leave the helmet at the entrance. Why? This is ridiculous. I would understand why at my second appointment.

I am asked whom I am meeting and sent down an interminable walkway. Civil servants are busy with claimants on every side. Some claimants look agitated, even desperate; most look calm, almost empty-minded. Halfway along, another security guard. I get weird looks, probably because of what I am wearing. Upstairs, yet another guard asks me to wait. 

As I remember it, the officer checks my credentials and asks about my old job, what I do all day, what I am applying for. “I expect you to look for work all day long,” he says. Really? I did not know that. I fire up my laptop and show him the companies I have applied to. He is not impressed, merely indifferent. My 150 lines of Excel are a blur to him. “You need to stay in the country,” he adds, and I half expect him to ask for my passport.

I ask whether he has met many finance people lately. Not a huge change, he says, which I find bizarre. He would revise that assessment a fortnight later. 

Quietly, because other claimants are nearby, I tell him about my mental struggle. I feel useless, unloved, incapable. He says he understands and that I need to keep going. For someone of my calibre, he reckons, it will take six to nine months to find something. I know that already. It does not make me feel any better. 

He asks whether I use the professional social network and checks my profile. He offers help with my CV. Then, in a funny kind of way, he advises me to apply to a specific company. I ask him to look at its careers page, which I have already checked. “Nothing suitable for you,” he adds. I know.

Fifteen minutes later, he is keen to move on and books another meeting for two weeks’ time. I leave, head down, mind down, humbled. I collect my helmet. My bike is still there, wheels attached. 

I ride home, fire up the laptop, £95.55 richer than an hour ago, and start looking for new roles. Because clearly I was not doing that before

The Wilderness Diaries, Episode 4: Negapositivity

The Wilderness Diaries, Episode 3: The Social Misfits

The Wilderness Diaries, Episode 2: Cutting the Cloth

The Wilderness Diaries, Episode 1: Access Denied

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