Kafka is alive, well & keeping you on hold

666 isn't the number of the beast. It's 0845 600 1651.

My heart goes out to anybody who has to deal with the Kafkaesque torture system of the UK's Benefit Enquiry Line. 

First of all it's on 0854 number, not 0800, so it costs you, especially if you're on a mobile or don't have a landline as many of the users will.

You have to wait at least half an hour for a human to answer your call while a condescending robot woman tells you that you could call between 8am and 9am as they are less busy then (inferring that most jobseekers aren't up by then). I should also add that your claims cannot be dealt with at any job center or online so you HAVE to use this number if you have any enquiries, questions or god forbid, need their help. 

If you are lucky enough to win the loser's lottery and get your call answered then you face a byzantine security system that Indiana Jones would swerve as being too secure for his time. I appreciate the need for security but this is what happens when you take the human element out of system design. It has trouble dealing with the possibility that you might have moved within the past 18 months. 

I failed the first time, despite it being on my specialist subject of myself, and the poor guy at the end couldn't even access his own security database to tell me what I had got wrong - it had locked him out. After another half an hour, on my second call, I got around this because they were running a pilot scheme that luckily gave him access to the questions so he could see what the answers were and give me more opportunities. 

I should add that I consider myself fairly literate and numerate and if I have this amount of trouble with this system, how the hell do some of the other jobseekers, with language, comprehension and stress issues begin to manage?

If you pay UK taxes then this matters. I guess I have high expectations. Spending four years in a country with mainly efficient, pleasant customer service operations that aim to solve the customers problems will do that. 

How Refreshing...

So back home with contacts to make, work to find and also new friends to make - preferably who 'get' what I do, especially with Social Media, and unlike the guys in the Job Center, don't think it's something to do with computers. 

Refresh Teesside is a group that I began following when I was in Atlanta, and is a young, hip, group of creative gunslingers dedicated to improving the lot of their business on Teesside, helping each other out and generally having a good time in the process. So completely unsuitable for me.

With that in mind, what else is there to do on a rainy Thursday in Middlesbrough when the Speedway isn't on?  They meet at Sassari's Italian Restaurant on dear old Linthorpe Road and at first I wasn't sure I had found the right place - Linthorpe Road having undergone a facelift since my last visit some four years previously.  I did spot a large crowd of young people wearing expensive glasses, smoking outside so correctly realised this was the place. 

I'd spoken to James and Chris, the brains behind the operation, who were charming, friendly and intrigued to hear from me, even more so when I volunteered to give a five-minute quick-fire talk on my social media time in the ATL at the meeting.   It served a useful purpose for me too - as well as keeping my presenting and networking skills sharp, it is more efficient to stand in front of a room of 100 plus fellow professionals and let them know that you know what you're talking about, rather than walk round the room, meeting everyone individually!

It went really well, despite totally overrunning and the laptop not playing my first Vine video (see above) - I made a lot of new friends, got a lot of Twitter love and more importantly, will be allowed to come again. 

Despite being a solo-operator, actually meeting people, talking to them, swapping war stories and passing on any hard-won experience you may have is an undervalued and essential part of being a Social Media professional. The clue is in the job title. We had a Social Media Club at Kennesaw State, our own little haven from the outside world where we could meet and bleat about the demands and misunderstandings and assumptions of our trade and that's what Refresh Teesside feels like - a welcoming, new media clubhouse. 

I usually veer away from organisations and societies that will have me as a member but like Teesside and my career/life trajectory - I've changed. And it's welcome.