A POEM

The phone rang today – it was my good friend Pippy.

She asked me to work Monday and I said YIPEEE!!!

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A LESSON LEARNED

I spoke to my friend Lucy today. She’s been working on Super Yachts for a couple of years. In the Med in the summer, and the Caribbean in our winter.

I went on her yacht a couple of times last summer. Once in Cannes and once in Majorca when there were no guests on board – just the 16 crew. It seemed like a great life. Fun people and eternal sunshine.

It got me thinking at the time, and I’ve been thinking about it more while 
I’m sitting here staring at a silent phone and listening to doom and gloom on the news. So I emailed Lucy to see if she could get me a job on the yacht. Cleaning, doing the laundry – I don’t care what. It’s good money and it’s 
tax free.

But she phoned today to say she’d lost her job. It seems the credit crunch is even affecting the super rich yachting fraternity. She had two weeks notice and had to get off in St Maarten, where she’s now hanging out, looking for another job.

I'm in the home counties, freezing my proverbials off looking forward to hitting the dole queue tomorrow. No prizes for guessing where I’d rather be out of work. If only I’d spent less time investing in Topshop and The Crown & Two Chairmen, and more time investing in ISA’s when I had the chance, I too could be unemployed in St Maarten.
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TEQUILA

Oh Tequila, Tequila. Lovely Tequila. Why did I ever leave you?!!

I worked there for almost 10 years. In that building in Dean Street, Soho, 
with it’s own bar and brilliant location. The friends, the laughs, the parties, 
the cheesy Wotsits. We even did some work. What ever possessed 
me to leave it all behind for a pantomime in the provinces, only to be made redundant 9 months later.

I went to the Tequila Bar last night for a leaving do. I’ve been back a lot since I left and it always feels so familiar and nice. I had a chat with the powers that be. No freelancers allowed at the moment – credit crunch and all that. No full timers needed either.

Today I just feel angry. Angry that I left a good agency for a not so great agency with a total disregard for anything other than the next pack flash.

I rang the dole. Apparently I can do a rapid reclaim.
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PILE-UP TV

X

I’ve tried to keep a sense of humour throughout this ordeal, but I’m afraid it’s beginning to wane. I haven’t worked for over a month (OK - there was Christmas in the middle) and I feel I’m in danger of saying “balls to it”, turning on the telly and watching Jeremy Vile.

It’s bad enough that I’ve become addicted to Celebrity Big Brother. Last week, the highlight of my week was watching a drunken dwarf crash a scooter into 
a door and declare his feelings for the helium voiced La Toya Jackson. 
If only I had some cash in the attic.

I fear I’m on the slippery slope to car crash TV addiction. I’m fighting this fear with a daily outing to my local park. I walk to the lake, run round it and try and guess if other people on their own are credit crunch casualties. I live in an affluent town which has been hit hard by this recession. There’s a lot of unemployed commuters here.
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WHAT A LOAD OF KAKA

Still no sign of any work. I sent several emails today and made more calls to remind people I’m available. I’ve pretty much exhausted all avenues.

According to the news, I’m not alone. They described it as carnage. 2000 jobs have been axed at Barclays, 450 at Jaguar Land Rover and 300 at Zavvi amongst others.

Meanwhile, Manchester City have bid 100 million quid for some bloke called Kaka. They’re offering him half a million a week in wages. If that’s not twisted, I don’t know what is.
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PARLAY VOO LANGUAGES?

Every day I get about 20 job alert emails from Creative Pool. These alerts for suitable jobs are automatically sent based on the criteria I filled in on their website. Here’s a selection of job titles I received today:

Multi-Lingual Artworker: Greater London – TBC
Junior Artworker for Transport Co – Central London: 20k
Cantonese Speaking Typesetter – Central London – Excellent pay

I must log on and check my details. I’m sure I didn’t add languages as one of my skills. Unless I got confused and thought I was signing up for a dating site, in which case I speak Cantonese, Afrikaans and Urdu.
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CALLING ALL AGENCIES

As suspected, no joy with the agencies. Only one answered and was highly optimistic about all the briefs they’ll be getting in the next few weeks (the first week in January is always dead apparently). The others simply don’t take my calls. The worst culprits are the ones that are ‘not a colour’. I haven’t even spoken to the guy since I went in and registered in October. And it’s not for lack of trying. This is how the conversation goes:

“Hi. Can I speak to Trevor please?”
“Who’s calling?”
“It’s Jo Elliott.”
“What’s it regarding”
“Errrrrrm... work.”
“Are you available for work?”
“Yes. But can I speak to Trevor please?”
“I’ll just try his line for you”

[I hold for a while].

“I’m sorry. He’s in a meeting. Can I take a message?”
“No it’s OK. I’ll try AGAIN later”.

Aaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh
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NEW YEAR, NEW START?

Christmas came and went. And so did New Years Eve. Usually I go somewhere exotic but this year I hibernated in rural Northamptonshire, licking my wounds from the previous year and wondering what this one will bring. This – the year when I’ll be 40. I should probably be settled down with a couple of kids by now. Passing my time baking cakes and meeting my new friends from the NCT class to slag off our husbands over a skinny latté.

But I’m not. And I have to find some work.

I thought I’d give the agencies a few days to settle back in before I start sending them emails to ignore, or calling them when they’re in a meeting.
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