Signing on

I signed on today! I went to the job centre in Maidstone and signed up as a 'job seeker', which means that I will (once it all gets processed) get around £60 a week paid into my account because I am 'job seeking.' It's all very bizarre. To be fair I didn't think I was eligible to get any sort of benefit and that's why its taken me two months to actually go and see about it. It's only because one of my ex-colleagues told me that most of the people who had left at the same time had signed-on that I went to find out because it seemed like the right thing to do. As she pointed out - I've paid my stamps over the last 13 years and so now I'm unemployed I should claim it as I'm eligible and entitled to the money.

I'm slightly uncomfortable about it though. I mean, I don't actually need this money. I do have a nice lump sum of redundancy money and plenty of savings. But I'm eligible. So does that mean I should automatically claim it? I don't know. I do know that benefits are supposed to be for the people in our society who really need it and it seems ridiculous that a large number of people who I used to work with, all of whom earned a very decent wage and got a hefty redundancy pay-off, are now all being paid money by the state. But we are eligible!

Rob hasn't worked much in the last two years and hasn't claimed a penny in benefits. We're not sure if he would even be entitled to any at the moment because he probably hasn't paid enough NI stamps in the last tax periods. He has always looked after his money and made sure he had enough to live on. But I'm entitled okay - but does that make it right? I'm not sure. It seems like it's what I should do but it still doesn't feel quite right.

Going to the Job Centre actually made me really giggle. (That sounds awful - there is a reason!) I've only ever been to sign-on once before and that was briefly when I graduated and went back to live at home with Mum and Dad. (As it happened I only ever got took one weeks payment from them before I found temporary work in a warehouse for the summer. But anyway, back to the story..) It was a total coincidence that Dad was made redundant shortly before I came home and so the next Monday we found ourselves going up the City to sign-on. Neither of us had done it before, neither of us had a clue what we were entitled to or what to do and so there we were outside the Job Centre both feeling nervous but glad we didn't have to do it alone.

So in we went, joined the massive queue and gradually shuffled our way further and further to the front. To understand my Dad and me you probably have to see us together but if you get us on the wrong day we just make each other laugh. (When we went looking for venues for weddings - sorry I'm starting to sound like Ronnie Corbett going off in different directions - the first time we went to look at Woburn we got there and were shown upstairs and Dad and I were just having absolute hysterics. I can't even really remember why or what started it but I just remember sitting in a room upstairs, waiting for the guy to come and show us around and my Dad having to get up and stand by the window because every time he even looked at me we both just exploded into laughter and just couldn't stop. It was one of those occasions when you know you shouldn't be laughing and know that people can probably hear you and know that you need to be behaving properly!! 'Highly embarrassing' as my Mum would say ha ha..)

Anyway, so there we were in the Job Centre queue, joking with each other, feeling a bit nervous, looking at each other sheepishly and generally feeling a bit like fish out of water. We finally got to the front and Dad went to one desk and I went to another and guess what? We were in the wrong queue - we'd queued for ages for nothing and had to start again at another. It wasn't funny at all but I stood up to go to the other queue and faced Dad who was also starting to stand up to go to the other queue and well, you just had to giggle about it. 'Typical' we said to each other! But it was funny. And just thinking about that today made me giggle as we walked down to the Job Centre. I'm probably one of the only people in Britain who have good memories of going to a Job Centre.