Tag Archives: unemployment

Job Hunting: Avoid depressing workshops- don’t be a dick- keep your chin up

Employability by Tom NashA little while ago, I was asked by someone very dear to me to accompany them to an ’employability workshop’ for unemployed graduates. Being the warm, generous, caring soul you all know me to be, I said ‘sure’, then found out it was on a Sunday. Not happy. But it was at a big, wanky hotel and they were laying on a free lunch. Still not happy, but happier…

So we turn up at said big wanky hotel and wander about the place completely failing to find the room the workshop is in (picking up a few other strays along the way) as some numbnut thought a single A4 sheet was plenty of signage. Twenty minutes late, we finally get to where we’re meant to be and we sneak in all casual-like.

What followed was three hours of the most awkward, uncomfortable, utterly optimism-draining ‘ice-breakers’ I have ever had the misfortune to be involved in (You remember that I’m from Croydon, don’t you?). It was so bad, we scarpered at lunchtime- even the lure of curly sandwiches wasn’t enough to keep us there.

But I did learn some stuff and I got this blog post out of it so it weren’t all bad, you could argue…

Anyway, here are a few choice observations I made during this strange, soul-destroying event:
Continue reading