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The daily troubles of the people who work in a busy West Midlands Job Centre, and the people who don’t work there, or anywhere else for that matter.
“Work. It's a four letter word.”
Sarah Hadland
Trish Collingwood
Russell Tovey
Karl Lyndhurst
Angela Curran
Janette Hodgkins
Jo Enright
Angela Bromford
Martin Marquez
Paul Franks
Laura Aikman
Natalie Mason
2013
Brownall House Job Centre manager Trish struggles to keep things running smoothly. She has a world-of-work seminar to run, the temp is late, and difficult employee Angela returns, fresh from winning a tribunal. Karl is the only staff Trish can rely on, but now even he's reached the end of his tether.
Trish attempts to boost Brownall Job Centre’s figures by calling in the army. Sergeant Steve Fox finds himself on the receiving end of a very different kind of interest though. George goes undercover to try and trap a man who’s signing on and working as a decorator, but things don’t quite go to plan.
Following the sudden closure of a local factory, the job centre is inundated with newly unemployed jobseekers. With everyone working flat out, Trish is forced to help but she struggles with the computer and reveals a shocking, somewhat disturbing, secret.
The job centre is due to be inspected, and Trish is on the lookout for the mystery shopper - or secret jobseeker - who is going to file a report. Nobody else seems to care, apart from security guard Janette who harbours an irrational hatred of the Great Barr branch and is determined to beat them in the job centre league table. Karl is more interested in working with George - they are going to interrogate a pair of big-time benefit cheats together, but they both want to be the bad cop.
Trish is conducting staff appraisals and Danielle is feeling the pressure, while Angela is in an unusually good mood. When the reason for her cheerfulness comes to light, George suspects that she is not telling the whole truth and seeks revenge. Karl arrives for work with a spring in his step - he has finally got a girlfriend. Then he discovers that she signs on at the job centre - where relationships between staff and jobseekers are against the rules.
Trish gets a life-changing surprise on her birthday - or so she thinks. Needing time to think it through, she promotes Karl to acting manager, but Karl's fears that nobody will listen to him prove correct. With Trish out of the way, Paul takes the chance to expand his carpet-fitting business, while Danielle just stops working altogether. Karl is totally out of his depth and things get a whole lot worse when a jobseeker decides to stage a protest.
2014
It's the morning after Trish's big divorce party, and she's half-clothed in Karl's flat. Unable to remember a thing, Karl is horrified to see that the new deputy manager at work is a beautiful woman his own age, and swiftly plans his departure from the job centre.
The temperature rises at Brownall when a local hot-tub manufacturer wants to recruit a new sales team - and Trish and Karl each tell a lie which spirals out of control.
Trish and her deputy manager Natalie stage a youth unemployment initiative to impress the local MP, but things don't go according to plan.
Under pressure to hit targets, Karl and George are on an ill-fated stakeout, whilst Natalie resorts to teaching Bryony dubious new work skills.
Security guards Janette and Paul make unlikely heroes when Trish loses her mobile phone and Natalie gets in big trouble with a jobseeker.
A Saturday health and wellbeing workshop with a neighbouring branch makes Karl much more relaxed than he wants to be, and presents Natalie with a big decision.
2015
Karl finds a pregnancy test in Natalie's drawer, assumes that she's pregnant and sets about proving what a great father he can be, but his over-the-top efforts have the opposite effect, especially since the test is not Natalie's but is in fact Trish's. Meanwhile, Angela brings her very pregnant cat into work.
Trish decides that she wants to have a baby via sperm donation and needs someone she knows rather than a random donor. Meanwhile, Natalie pretends she is deep in debt in order to avoid moving in with Karl, but her lie looks like it could backfire when Karl considers selling his swimmers to Trish to help her out!
Karl tries to prove to Natalie he can be more dynamic, but his tough-guy experiment backfires when a desperate jobseeker takes Trish hostage.
Relations between management and the workforce break down over health and safety and plans for the Christmas party. Goaded by Angela, Karl becomes ringleader and calls a strike.
Brownall tops the leader board for getting people off benefits at the monthly managers' meeting. Trish is more interested in Greg, a manager from the nearby Nechells Job Centre branch. Angela and Natalie go on tour attending a work conference in London with Angela giving a talk to fellow colleagues.
It is Brownall's 25th birthday and former boss of the centre Maggie Higgins is invited to lead the celebrations. Unfortunately, Maggie comes armed with some devastating information about Angela, who will stop at nothing to keep her quiet. Meanwhile, Trish's holiday romance Raul visits from Spain with marriage on his mind.
