Queueing at the broad front desk
of Welfare’s downtown office,
I brace myself for
the bureaucrats’ strip search.
I am unemployed – again !
These front desk people read my forms
bring my name up on their screen.
They mutter “No, no, this one will
have to go to the supervisor.
She’s been to us before.”
Social Welfare still speak
sternly after twenty years.
Their elderly code number
follows me to show
a marked recidivist.
Over sixty
unemployed
irrelevant
out of date
like mouldy cheese.
A disrespectable old age !
Previously posted February 2016.
Here in France we appreciate an aged mouldy frommage… there is value in it and it deserves our attentions and respect.
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Not so much here, sadly ….
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I do understand and perhaps you understand there is a long list of why I choose to be where I am…
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I hope it is working out well for you there…..
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It surpasses all dreams.
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Wonderful !!
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Absolutely. Thank you.
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Naughty naughty!!
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It certainly felt like that. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was an ordinary law abiding citizen, they just looked at me sideways. In fact I was not eligible for the unemployment benefit. Work made a lot of us redundant and we were advised to apply for it to start getting ourselves into the system, which turned out to be useful thing to do for other reasons.
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Social security systems often appear hostile or forbidding, although they were set up with the best intentions.
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…but 3 times as capable and diligent as the 1-day old start-up cheese.
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Of course !
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