The Benefits Agency and How I Found It

The Benefits Agency, formerly the Department of Health and Social Security, is responsible for dealing with people who for whatever reason are not in paid work. Obviously I can't say too much about what goes on there--security, you know--but I can reveal that the people in these offices are neither grey-souled nonentities like Pratchett's Auditors, nor yet gloating sadists who knowingly snatch the crumbs from genuinely deserving cases and shower largesse upon unscrupulous layabouts. Well, they haven't showered any largesse on me yet, anyway.

No, much to my surprise, these civil servant types are very like fans. Which, when you consider how many fans are or have been civil servants, isn't really all that surprising. Hi Mike. Soren. Yo, Paul. And, of course, who can forget the Countess herself? I certainly can't.[g] There is extreme weirdness in the corridors of power, my friends, and if the system doesn't work as well as it might...well, where do you think I got the idea for the homeship computers?

I'm enjoying myself at work, for the first time in gods know how long, and I plan to make it last. Wish me luck.

Update. A year on, I'm confirmed in my grade (i.e. my probation is over) and, while everything is slightly less new and wondrous, it would have to get a whole lot worse not to be better than the last job. What hasn't improved (yet) is the money. Upheavals and reshuffles seem to be the order for this year: I came back from America to a change of job, and as I write someone new is being trained to do the job I changed to, so where I'll be next week I don't know. Ah well.

Buttons and bars and such are courtesy of Jelane's Free Web Graphics, at http://www.erinet.com/jelane/families/.