This Thursday morning, at the pants scorchingly early time of 8.30 (don't laugh) I have to go to a seminar at WINZ, that most hated of institutions. For you non Kiwi folk, WINZ or Work and Income New Zealand, are the organisation that handle the unemployment benefit. Whilst in more innocent days you could just meander into the office, sign a form and get money to aid you whilst you "looked for work", in these less trusting times applicants must first attend a meeting where they pump the virtues of honest labour into you, possibly with tea and sandwiches involved.
If past experience is anything to go by, I'll be the Token Guy With Degree (there's always one, looking totally out of place with all the cheerfully cynical white and brown trash folk), sitting there in a suit and wondering why they're being told that Working Is Good when they just want to get out of there and find a job. I'm being somewhat uncharitable here, but not by much, especially as I was once one of the semi brown-trash just wanting to screw the system out of 150 bucks a week.
Having said that, I plan on playing my part. I will show up in a suit. I will radiate Slightly Bewildered Keen, which will turn into Slightly Irate Indignation, when it inevitably turns out that WINZ is, in fact, completely useless at helping people look for work at the tertiary degree level. I will inform them that I am looking for graphic design work, and that if they have any that would be lovely, and I will have Words with them when they offer me that job cleaning toilets*.
In any case, I'll be sure to get an entertaining blog post out of the experience, so I'll let you know how it goes.
*A friend of mine went into WINZ with his masters degree in somethingorother and was offered a toilet cleaning job. He yelled at them a lot.
