Job, the Old Testament guy

If you sign on, I can promise you times when you will identify with Job, the biblical guy big on suffering. My experience of signing on has led me to believe that this may be why the modern-day dole office is called the Jobcentre. Actually, its correct name is Jobcentre Plus. I've come to think of the Plus as arbitrariness. There's an abundance of that, most of it the result of maladministration. But when you're on the receiving end it can feel like random punishments reigned upon you from on high.

There will be times when you will come close to experiencing death in life as yet another manila envelope holding a beige form arrives demanding to be filled in. Can it be the 31st? You will listen to looped Vivaldi on the many phone calls you will make to chase down a benefit or sort out a fact from a factoid. You will do combat with unseen and occasionally seen forces. When things go wrong and often they do, it is you who must pick up the pieces (while trying not to go to pieces).

You will come to know humiliation. Stranded on a sofa at a Jobcentre Plus (JC+), you will appreciate how time can be attenuated as you wait for your name to be called. You will recognise the aroma of poverty; the meaning of drabness (despit the generous use of primary colours). You will look around -- plenty of time for that -- and wonder what you have in common with others signing on.