It's all my fault.

Last week the government released the unemployment rate. In March, 4.3 percent of Americans were unemployed AND looking for work. It's important to note that the government doesn't count people who have given up on work. In any case, the March figure was one-tenth of a percent higher than February's. This change caused the stock market to spit up about half of Thursday's massive gains. So, see, it was my fault that your AOL/Time Warner stock took a dive. I filed my papers with the North Carolina Employment Security Commission on March 16. I was one of those folks in that additional one-tenth of one percent.

Now I'm getting a weekly check from the state, and as long as I don't score a job in the next six months (and do all the little things the state requires), I'll continue to receive this not-insubstantial check.

All things considered, I'd rather have the job.

And that's not because I fall into the rabid pro-work camp. My parents' impressive adherence to the Protestant work ethic notwithstanding, I'm perfectly happy to goof off and sit idle. Give me some books, a couple June of 44 CDs and some fine beer and I'm set for a few hours. I do like to occupy my mind, but I don't need to get paid or anything. Still, I want a job. The small print behind getting that state check is a real pain in the butt. Actually, most of the stuff isn't so bad. But Job Club sucks big donkey... ahem. Let's just say that Job Club is providing one hell of an incentive for me to find a job.

Job Club has been around for about a year, or so say the folks down at the unemployment line. The idea is that between 10 and 45 people come together once a week to receive some training and to swap job tips. That is, each of us is required to bring in one job lead for someone else in Job Club. In theory, not a bad idea. In fact, if I'm a state legislator, I'd think this sounded dandy. I'd vote for it in a second. As with any government program, however, the execution is another story entirely.

The leaders of Job Club are "Steve" and "Louise." As you might guess from the quotation marks, these are not their real names. Their real names are Bob Richards and Sue Smith, but see, I'm keeping their identities secret. So Steve and Louise it is.

Steve is in his fifties, an ex-military guy whose politics are most likely somewhere to the right of the Birchers. He still thinks he's in the Navy or Marines or whatever, and so he barks out his "suggestions" as commands. He has a tendency toward the overbearing and makes interesting comments like "Thousands of studies have proven that Head Start is an utterly useless program." He'd probably gotten pissed if I mentioned that even Jesse Helms votes for Head Start more often than not, so I stayed mute. Still, Steve is the easier to take of the pair. Louise is 40 (she let us in on that secret once) and a hugger. She's overweight and has the general demeanor of the dread aunt whose entire life is devoted to squeezing the life out of little children. If she's not squeezing, she's exurberating. I know "to exuberate" not a verb, but work with me. Once she starts talking, we know that Job Club has miles to go before we can escape.

And that's a problem, because even if our handlers aren't feeling voluble, Job Club can last more than three hours. My first week included the usual rote material (introducing the new members, the announcement of obscure ESC mumbo jumbo and the like). Then we got stuck with "interview class."

Steve kicked off this exhilarating discussion by informing all "the gentlemen who aren't manual laborers" that there is only one thing we should wear to an interview. This involves a suit, tie and wing tips. Blue or black wing tips. Brown is unacceptable. Calvin Trillin tells a story about his days at Yale (in the 1950s) and the notion of "shoe." Scholarship and other unworthy types wore brown shoes, while the Brahmins wore blue and black. Trillin wasn't shoe, and the point of his reminiscence was that the whole idea of shoe had (thankfully) faded. Except in Steve's case.

That's about where I tuned out. I've never worn a suit to an interview. I think the last time I wore a suit at all was back in 1981 when my grandma died. I was 10. Well, I did wear a tux at my wedding and at a couple other weddings, but a tux isn't a suit, as any tailor will tell you. As for wing tips, I've never owned them. I never will. On that you can depend. Did I say anything? Hell no. If I'd said anything, then we might get into some sort of heated discussion and Job Club would have lasted four hours instead of three. Screw that.

Louise provided general fashion advice for women (including a bizarre admonition to "Never wear pants. Men hate that.") and then we all took turns answering an interview question and analyzing every one else's answers. In theory, this isn't a bad idea. But we had 44 people in Job Club that day. Each Q&A lasted a couple of minutes, and the analysis took up at least as much time. You do the math. It was a long morning and afternoon.

The last two weeks we've gone over the general economic situation (a lecture given by Steve) and Louise has presented resume tips. Again, not bad in theory. But there's just this one problem.

About half the folks in job club are competent job seekers. We (I do put myself in this category) know how to put together our resumes, we know how to write cover letters and we know how to act during interviews. In fact, we've been to so many interviews that the prospect of facing a potential employer doesn't even cause any stress.

The other half of the group is on the other side of the coin. They don't have resumes, they don't necessarily know how to apply for a job and the mere mention of an interview sets them off in hives. These are the folks who could use some help, but because there are so many people in Job Club and so few facilitators, those in greatest need get little help. The rest of us just sit there annoyed that our Tuesdays are wrecked by this three hours or more of nonsense.

I know, there's no perfect solution. It would be elitist to treat white collar workers different than others. And, in fact, I got to skip the resume-writing and cover letter seminars because I had a resume and, as my previous job had been editing and writing, it was apparent that I could craft a competent personal introduction. I couldn't get out of Job Club. As much as I would like to give up my Tuesday morning purgatory, I still have to listen to some military reject tell me there is one way, and one way only to get a job. Yawn.

Unemployment doesn't suck nearly as much as dealing with the bureaucracy.

Jon Worley spends his unemployment cash on beer.