Being an out-of-work Business Consultant is better than being unemployed!

The events of the last Wednesday forced me to make some decisions. The post (snail mail that is) came early, and some documents that I was expecting, but not expecting so soon, landed on the door mat. Now that I had them in hand, it would be valuable to bring them directly to the Local Community Welfare Office where I am now enrolled as an unemployed person, and would hopefully received some benefits to which I am entitled that would contribute to my high cost of living – living costs that have not gone down since I was made redundant by Airtricity.
I decided to cycle to the CWO as parking was at a premium, and the manner of some of their “customers” is such that your car would be easily damaged by another patron. So after a short bike ride, I got in just two minutes before the last bell, took my ticket and proceeded to the waiting room. The room was thick with people of every nation, and the stale pungent air was even thicker – swine flu was all I could taste – jeez get me out of here! So despite the very heavy misty humid air I opted for sitting in the car park, and thought I would make some calls following up on employment agents and job leads. I also wanted to solicit some Management Consultants within my contact base, as working the network is essential when looking for potential work in these current climes. It turned out to be a very productive seventy or eighty minutes in the car park – I managed to get three meetings scheduled and put my name out there in the consulting world. Whilst on my final call, which was now running at about 25 minutes long, I cheekily peered in the window of the waiting room to realise that my number had just been called! Bugger it – I had just missed my slot, and now the last “customer” of the day was at the window, and the security were not happy with me as the policy is clearly stated on posters that if you miss your turn you must take another ticket and wait. Ticket issuing had now stopped and would not start again until Monday morning at 10am! Using a bit of diplomacy and the help of the nice security guy, I managed to charm my way into the final slot and got my interview with the community welfare officer.
The interview was less than productive. They drive a hard bargain. For my application to be truly considered I was tasked with going off and finding even more supporting documents and evidence of my status. Some of the documents requested relate to my home purchase of 12 years ago. That was going to take me several hours of effort, phone calls, and archive searching to produce the necessary goods, not to mention whatever time it would take to get replies through the post, and then present myself at the ticket / waiting room / interview window combination, on either a Monday or Wednesday morning between 10 and 11 am. Not that you only spend an hour of your time at the CWO, average cycle time seems to be more like two-and-a-half hours. When I got home (another brisk bike ride in the heavy heavy summer humid mist), it was good to share all of the morning’s tribulations with my wife over a cup of tea. It was her wisdom that pointed out that the time and effort was going to be much better spent looking for work and drumming up business, given the success I had in the hour-and-a-bit in the car park of the CWO, than sifting through old papers and ringing round building societies that we no longer have business with (like they really need me pestering them at the moment!).
It was at that point I decided it was going to be a lot more fun and better to be an out-of-work Business Consultant than an unemployed IT Manager. Roll on Decursio Ltd (www.decursio.ie)! Yep... the view from the top is great!