I'm working in a supermarket on an unemployment scheme. I'm having quite a happy time until the shop is taken over by this manager who clearly doesn't know what he's doing. Soon all the procedures that work so well have been replaced by ones that don't. Experienced shop workers try to tell him but he won't listen; and the supermarket falls into chaos. When the people from the Job Centre are visiting I go to them and ask to be transferred back to my old placement. But they tell me that the regulations make this impossible. Pissed off, I walk back out into the shop and see about twenty staff standing around disgruntled near the bread rack; and an idea comes to me. This place is in such disorder now they won't know whether I'm here or not!
I go to the toilet, and when I've done the business, I hang my bag up on a nail by the urinals -- its presence will show I must be around somewhere -- before leaving the supermarket through a side door. I walk for a while through an old, run-down estate full of narrow streets and terraced houses. At first I see a few fellow workers; but they start drifting back to the supermarket. I am alone and free. It's cold but not too cold; and there's only a light rain coming down out of the blanket of grey clouds over my head. I can quite easily do this every day for the remainder of my six months on the scheme.
I enter an open door I know and find myself in a tiny living room where John Barnes, the former England footballer, lies relaxing on the couch. I show him a football annual from the Italia 90 World Cup tournament which I realise I've been carrying; and he sits up, opens its pages eagerly, no doubt looking for pictures of himself. I enjoy his pleasure immensely, but my enjoyment doesn't last. I hear voices in the hall and from something in their tone I know that they are dole snoopers who have followed me from the supermarket. I see an open window. Since it is the only way out, I duck through it and walk along a roof to safety. See you round John Barnes.
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