Job Hunting

I've written at length about some of the jobs I've done, so now I want to write about the bits in between- job hunting.
Until 1994 I'd only been unemployed twice.
The first time was after I'd left Town & County Catering at Olympia and signed on with a temp agency. I was hoping for a day or two off but was back working full time within a week.
The second time was when I left Telfers, having had enough of battling against the odds, doing a job I had no training or aptitude for, and hoping to "make it" with my band.
I was out of work for about six weeks that time.
My experience at the labour exchange and trying to claim any kind of benefit influenced my decision to get married a year or so later. One government agency treated me as single for tax purposes, but another treated me as married because I was co-habiting. Both decisions meant no benefits for me. Back then married couples had a tax break so in the end we got married for tax reasons. But that's another story.
After I'd been made redundant from Volume One Bookshops following a takeover (another story for another time- I'm not writing chronologically), I took a year out courtesy of some redundancy insurance that I'd taken out a few years earlier. I used the time to work on my music and record an album for a charity at our church. One thing led to another and I recorded three albums of songs in eighteen months. However, I wasn't earning enough to pay the bills, so I embarked on a ten year career of "temporary" work.
My first "temporary" job was driving a delivery van for a firm that supplied meat and pies to pubs. My route involved travelling around 2000 miles a week around East Anglia, from Peterborough and March in the North, in and around Cambridge, east to Newmarket, Brandon, Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich, south to Colchester, Clacton, Chelmsford, Brentwood and west to Harlow Welwyn Garden City, Letchworth, Hitchin and various places in Bedfordshire. I did this for about eighteen months in a little Citroen C15 fridge van. I drove more than 100,000 miles in it and went through two sets of tires and two engines. I was out in all weathers, rain , snow and heatwave. I remember having to drive at speed through fields of wheat that had caught fire in the extreme heat of that summer, and I also recall driving through some achingly beautiful countryside. Most of the time, however, I was chasing deadlines and failing.
One day my van was in for repair, and the only vehicle that was available was the boss's Vectra. I loaded the boot, packed freezer bags around the goods and set off. I was driving around the Colchester bypass when I noticed two things. One, my speedo read 105 miles an hour, and two, there was a police bike on my tail. The van I was used to driving wouldn't do 70 downhill with the wind behind it, and I forgot how fast the car could go. I pleaded guilty and was fined £30 and had three points on my licence. That is the only time I've ever been caught speeding in more than 30 years driving.
The firm kept losing contracts and although my mileage remained constant, I was carrying less and less, and therefore the turnover was dropping. I did a few days work in the coldstore and freezer, picking orders. That was cold work, and no-one begrudged us taking frequent tea breaks to warm up.
Eventually the firm went bust and I was looking for work again.


I decided to register with the local employment agencies. I didn't want permanent work because I was getting a few bookings including midweek work, and I was spending time in various recording studios. Temping meant that I could work a few days as required and from 1996 until 1999 this was what I did.
I registered with several agencies and would visit them all in turn when I wasn't working, spending a couple of mornings a week calling in to say hello, to see what work was available and to keep my name at the top of their lists.
I occasionally walk around town and I notice that many of the agencies have closed up. There are only about half the number of employment agencies compared to ten years ago, and one of my friends who ran an employment agency for twenty years painted a bleak picture.


A few years ago I worked  at one of the vast car yards in Corby. I didn't stay long, I couldn't cope with the chaos which was due to the manager's failure to plan or organise. Every action was a reaction. They were always fire fighting. Every day the staff would miss their lunch breaks because of some minor catastrophe that could have been avoided if they'd plan ahead.
Even then, six or more years ago, the gangs that collected the cars parked across acres of Northamptonshire and brought them to be loaded onto car transporters were organised according to the country they originated from. There were gangs of Lithuanians, Slovakians, Poles and Bosnians, with only the gang leader speaking English. A few years before I'd worked at the same yard preparing new cars for delivery to dealers. We'd get the car from the yard and while one person fitted the licence plates, I'd check that the heating, aircon, tyre pressures etc were OK. We'd also strip the protective plastic from the wings and bonnet, make sure the lights and indicators worked etc etc. All the staff were English/British. Not any more.


It's tough to find temporary work now. I read that some factories won't employ English speakers because everyone now speaks Polish. Five or six years ago I saw the beginning of that.


But  hey, the food's cheap, booze is cheap, clothes are cheap so why worry?