click go the shears, boys. click! click! click!

The proto-moustache lasted two days. It ended when someone who I liked pointed at the growth under my schnozz with a look of concern and asked "what's that?" I replied "shut up, that's what it is". Then I ran home and shaved it off.

In other news, it's 4am and I just can't sleep. When you're unemployed, concepts like "day", "night" and "weekend" become meaningless. I have heaps to do tomorrow; I was meant to write three articles and haven't written a single one.

I've rescheduled a compulsory Job Network meeting twice, and forgot to go to Work for the Dole one day last week. I'm expecting a "Your Payment Has Been Suspended" letter. This sucks big time. It's my birthday this week, so I want to go out. I also owe lots of money for bills. My electricty bill is over $100 alone.

My star sign is leo.

Rent is due this week. I desperately need to go to the dentist- I haven't been in literally over a decade. Where the fuck am I going to get money from?

I can feel "job panic" beginning to rise in my stomach. I'm nearly twenty-five. I've never had a proper job, not at least since high school. I have no recognisable skills. I'm your typical jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I just need to find about 16 hours of work a week and everything will be fine.

What am I saying!? All this pressure Centrelink are putting on me is working. I was speaking to this guy from Work for the Dole last week, and he was telling me about a particularly humiliating session he had with a Job Network robot. He has promised to write a story about it which will be posted on this blog.

Speaking of guys from Work for the Dole, last week was about the best week I've has there so far. A few of us spoke aloud about how much we thought it sucked, and all

Even though I'm writing about Work for the Dole, I'm still thinking about moustaches.

this was audible to rockin' Ronald, one of supervisors. He came into the cramped room and told as that things would be improving soon (maybe that means adequate ventilation). He also explained that a couple of things that I found amusing.

The first was that, until recently, the Matey Mission and all Work for the Dole providers were forbidden to "impart knowledge", ie teach you how to do the things you're meant to be doing. This is because it would be taking away the job of teachers. Nothing was mentioned about how WftD participants are forced to act as scab labour. It's no wonder the room is full of over-qualified code monkeys when some of the people there are giving the labour away for free.

The second was that, unofficially, we had much more flexibility than I thought. We are allowed to leave the Matey Mission to do things "related to the program" and that this can be interpreted very widely. Ron also made it clear (for the first time) that we were allowed to work on our own projects. This is great for me, as I want to do a couple of websites and there is some stuff I want to design and write. The space at the Matey Mission isn't conducive to work, so I'm thinking I can leave to do it quite legitimately. Given that they don't have an graphics programmes (like photoshop or illustrator) this is a necessity.