I go for unemployment insurance (Day 4)
It was night and it was morning and it was a week later before I was relaxed enough to give it another go.
Signed in on the photocopies at the three security guards. Only, this time, one was scanning us with an electronic stick which I suspect is programmed to tell him whether your cell phone is switched on. But when it was my turn to be scanned, he promptly disappeared out the door and down the street. I was obviously not a security risk nor did it matter whether my cell phone was switched on, he had better things to do.
No, not straight to Hidden Bosom. I listened well the last time and knew I had to go to one fo the other pigeon holes. I just wasn’t sure which one.
To complicate things further, there were two groups of people on two different sets of chairs. I was completely baffled.
But this time, Hidden Bosom came from behind the counter at her pigeon hole and straight in our direction ….. and straight past us. The lady in front of me asked her in which group we were suppose to wait, but she just rolled her eyes heavenwards and continued past us and out the door.
So I joined the group nearest to the pigeon holes where I was told to go. Waited for forty minutes before anybody gave any attention to us. Only then did I and the guy next to me figured out that I was actually in the wrong group. The group where I was, had to go to the pigeon hole on the opposite side of the hall and the group on that side, had to come to the pigeon holes on our side! So I moved.
Waited another 30 minutes when, suddenly, a lady in one of the pigeon holes looked directly at me and nodded her head when she saw the question mark on my face. She was a serious person, one could see that from the fact that she did not smile when I greeted her in my friendliest voice.
She took my forms, went through them at a leisurely pace, gave them back to me, looked over my shoulder to the light in the roof behind me and said: “Why did they dismiss you?” “I made the big boss very angry, so they gave me money and told me to please leave” I said. “Then they did not complete that form correctly” and she pointed to the pile of forms. “You must go back and tell them to change it or you must take them to court if they don’t want to change it. What they wrote there means you must take them to court before we will pay you”, she mumbled.
So there I went.