A - Jobclub diary 1: October 16th 2002

"Sorry I'm late, I've got a review meeting at twelve, but I had to
sign on at Deptford at ten to twelve, so I've nashed up here as quick
as I could."


"I'm sorry, but Cath's not here, she's at Deptford this
morning, so I'll have to reschedule your appointment, what days are you
in? Is Friday okay?"


It's week three at the Programme Centre. 'Programme Centre'
is, of course, a euphemism, for something almost too embarrassing to
say. 'Programme Centre' means Jobclub.


I still remember the drop in the pit of my stomach as I sat
in front of the desk, surrounded by the muted activity of the Job
Centre, people staring quietly at the new computer terminals looking
for jobs, staff staring mutely at forms and computer screens of their
own. I was given a letter telling me to report to a certain place at a
certain time, nothing more.


I knew it was coming, I've been unemployed for over two
years. Stood in the kitchen of our flat, fingertips swelling in the
washing up water, I heard the bell tolling for me. Radio 4 news was
talking about new government initiatives to end poverty in Britain and
increase living standards. A government spokesman was announcing plans
to put an end to 'the benefit culture', saying that the best way to
help people out of poverty is to give them the self respect of a
regular job.


"These people feel excluded from mainstream society, and the
best way to get these people back into the mainstream is to get them
into employment."


Three days later I was handed the letter as I was signing on.
I asked the adviser to send me the details in the post. She looked back
at me across the desk, half-amused. "There isn't any details, just turn
up on the date specified."


That was how I ended up at the Programme Centre, twelve hours
a week. No attendance, no benefit.


The Programme Centre is one office, one room and one computer
suite, hidden away within the Greenwich School of Management. The
Greenwich School of Management is only one occupier of the building,
though. The Old Greenwich town hall is a massive monument to red brick
futurism, its square clock tower visible for miles, jutting up like a
tanned finger. You can see it from the front balcony of our flat.
Sometimes when the electricity runs out I squint at the round blue
clock face in the distance, just visible enough to make out the time.
Obviously at one point the administrative and cultural centre of the
borough, time seems to have left it behind like a burial mound, an
imprint on the landscape of a different set of values, a different view
of the world. Next door is what was the borough hall, now Greenwich
Dance Agency. Part of the same building, it has a slight curve to it,
the rows of doors under a canopy, inset with ageing silver five pointed
stars. In the same building there is also and English language school
and above it Greenwich Job Centre.


For a guide to how it looks think Bauhaus, think delicate
brutalism, think Walter Gropius, but in thin orange brick. Throughout
the building, windows and other details nick the outline, softening its
stark lines. The tower has a row of windows at the top that jut out, a
band of glass that reaches three-quarters across one face and around to
cover a quarter of the next. Carrying on the nautical heritage of
Greenwich, there are three playful round porthole windows on one side
of the tower, last of them about three stories up, and all of the
railings and iron work has a slight wave effect, not so much as to be
cartoony, but enough to bring the river to mind.


It's a wonderful building, but it's slowly being tainted for
me. It and St. Alfege's church were two beacons for me during the grey
autumn of my first breakdown, two points of navigation in my own
personal topography. Now another autumn has rolled around, grey sky
above the white stone of the church and the red brick of the town hall,
streets empty of tourists, the smell of the river and the scuff of
fallen leaves.


There's a dichotomy in Greenwich, home to Royal Parks, Royal
Navel College, final resting place of the Cutty Sark, forever beached
now, her rigging snapping tiredly in the wind for crowds with cameras
and guide books. Grand Imperial opulence is only the public face, walk
for a few minutes and you're on scuzzy high streets, decaying housing
blocks rub up against Georgian squares, inclines covered with dumped
porn and burned mattresses five minutes away from two hundred year old
trees arranged in stately promenades. Even the churchyard is not
exempt. Walking at high speed to make my appointment today I cut
through it, the grass dappled with the oranges and reds of fallen
leaves. Against one of the trees, in between the gravestones, piles of
bouquets were laid, the cellophane wrappers grey with condensation.
They were for one of the members of drinking school who congregate
there, sat on the steps of the public toilets, someone who died. You
should come to rest in a churchyard, not just come to a stop.



The dichotomy continues at the Programme Centre. Going into
the main entrance you skip quickly up some steps and through some
double doors into a foyer, all in warm caramel ice-cream textured
marble. Busy, healthy looking students click across the polished floor,
talking on phones and carrying folders. A central staircase leads up to
a brightly lit and bustling reception, the handrails brass, tarnished
by generations of touching to a comforting gold-ish matt. Every thing
is comforting, almost confectionery-like, like being inside
butterscotch sweet. Going through the door to the right, the Programme
Office meets you. The office is a long galley where the Job Club women
sit, all at one long desk. The window looks into the central well of
the building, where a single light shines, even during the day,
throwing orange light. I signed in, looking at the clock on the wall,
then wrote a time five minutes previous, before making my apologies and
finding out my review has been cancelled.


Still out of breath, I walked into the programme room, where
any sense of grandeur disappears. Posters blue-tacked to the wall hang
with crumpled edges. A table with Styrofoam cups next to the water
dispenser is speckled with instant coffee granules. A chair at a desk
sits with its seat half hanging off where the screws are missing.
Plants that are a mess of browned leaves vainly reach towards the
outside from the high window ledge. People sit hunched over newspapers.
Two telephones sit on a thin shelf, with reminders that all calls are
monitored stuck on the wall above them. A poster that is headed
'Success stories from your Programme Centre' with lines underneath for
those stories to be written in, is left ominously blank.



I'm all fingers and thumbs again, ridiculously aware of my
own body. All of the defences I've built up over the years since I left
university are smashed. It's like being at school again, I'm a clumsy
teenager.


There's some degree of irony placing the Programme Centre
deep in the bowels of a Business School. Down the corridor, towards the
toilets, are classrooms where well scrubbed management students all sit
attentively facing their lecturers, being told about surplus, and
demand, and labour relations, while we sit trying desperately to get
onto the ladder again. It occurred to me that the euphemism 'Programme
Centre' has a double-edged purpose. It is firstly is meant to protect
us, the Jobseekers, from the stigma of appearing to be unemployed. More
importantly perhaps, it protects them, the bosses in training, from
realising that the great unwashed are right there with them, in the
building. It's like each is being held out as a threat to the other.



Sitting flicking through the same newspaper, looking at the
same adverts as I looked at the day before, one of the Job Club women
came into the room. I didn't look up as she walked past, just seeing
her shiny pale legs and her matt black court shoes as they passed by,
like a negative version of Minnie Mouse's legs, white shoes and black
legs inverted. I didn't want to embarrass her.


Waiting to sign on at the Job Centre this morning, she had
come up to me and introduced herself, asking me if I wanted to take up
the offer of a free I.T. course at the Programme Centre. I told her
that I already attended the Programme Centre. She just said 'oh, sorry'
and moved on to the next person.


I listened as she sat down with someone behind me and began
to cajole them into a job they had no interest in. She was Cath.



I knew that she would be, but I rushed to get there anyway.
When you stand threatened with losing your benefits, you tend to do as
you're told.