They’re very nice at Candelisa People recruitment agency in Bradford. Even to obscene phone callers. They’ve got a regular one – they put him on speaker when he calls and crowd round for a giggle. “Are you enjoying yourself?” asks boss Jane Vincent. “Oh yeah,” he pants. She asks what he’s doing, and whether he’s finished yet. It’s over quite quickly, maybe he’s paying for the call himself.
It’s not all about phone paraphilia fun; there are employers to be matched with employees – Candelisa is home to observational doc The Job Centre (Channel 4). I’m a bit worried that former air steward (and Mile High Club member) Phil might soon be swapping one side of the desk for the other. At the moment, he works there but he’s only on probation – and he’s not reaching his targets. A big one comes in, someone needs a property lawyer; if Phil can fill the vacancy, he’ll have reached his monthly target in one go … Too late, it’s gone, and Jane’s not happy. “Jane’s point of view was that we as a team had to have jumped on this quicker,” says Phil coming out of the boss’s office. “She’s not pointing the finger at me.” Really, Phil? True, it’s not always clear what Jane is talking about (I have no idea what she means when she says Phil “sort of buried his head, which then bit him on the backside”) but I don’t see how she could have pointed the finger more at Phil, without jabbing it into his chest.
Phil finally manages to secure an interview for a Lithuanian lady called GT (maybe she was conceived in a car?). It’s a sales job. GT is asked, at interview: “If you could be any kitchen appliance what would you be and why?” A pot, she says, because you can use it to boil water for the tea and make porridge. Maybe in Lithuania, a pot counts as a kitchen appliance.
Anyway, GT gets the job, at Bradford’s No 1 stationery company, where on a Monday morning the sales manager talks a lot of motivational nonsense to his team. “Welcome to the madhouse,” he tells her. It’s bringing back some dark memories for me – I once had a selling job at somewhere similar. Poor GT, how bad must Lithuania have been for this to be a good idea? I’d take Vilnius all day long, with just one pot, for boiling the water and making the porridge.
Back at the agency and Danny’s problem is that he’s smoking the pot. He hasn’t had a job for six years. Candelisa’s Carlos, who handles the more manual jobs, finds him work at a factory, even drives him there in the morning to make sure he makes it. But it’s not long before Danny gets fired, for not showing up to work; one day he decided staying at home and getting stoned sounding like a better plan than going to work. Still, Carlos, who is a bit of a saint, has given him another chance, has got him another job, at another factory, packing chemicals. Don’t even think about smoking them, Danny.
The Job Centre – a misleading title, it’s a recruitment agency – is good for one episode. Time will tell if it’s worth another three. It doesn’t have a proper TV monster like Nev Wilshire of The Call Centre (Swansea’s third largest) or the real-Office humour of The Armstrongs (Coventry’s third biggest double-glazing company), the observational workplace doc against which all others should be judged. On the plus side, because it’s a recruitment agency, we do get to see inside other workplaces, such as Bradford’s No 1 stationery company (not unlike Swansea’s third largest call centre, as it happens). And it may even say something about employment in this country today.
Chris and Xand van Tulleken are those identical twin doctors who are happy to experiment on themselves for the benefit of science, and television. This time, it’s Horizon: Is Binge Drinking Really That Bad (BBC2). So Chris drinks three units every day, while Xand does his 21 units on a Saturday night (if he sees double, that must be confusing).
And the answer? Yes, binge drinking really is that bad. But then Chris’s way, three units a day, within government guidelines, isn’t much better. This is a drinking game with no winners.
Hey, I’ve got an idea for Chris and Xand’s next TV project. They commit serious crimes, and the police have to figure out which one dunnit. Think about it; witness descriptions, Identikit, DNA, all becomes a bit redundant. CSI monozygotic: good one, no?
