When Gregory S. wakes up at 7.00 a. m. on a sunny Monday morning, he expects no surprises for this day. He goes straight to the dirty small bathroom in his dirty small flat and brushes his teeth. After finishing that, he returns to his bedroom which contains a TV and a wardrobe. Out of this he takes his best suit (a black old rag of cotton) and black trousers with the same look like the suit. He has no fitting shoes to this outfit; he just wears rubber shoes, which he bought some years ago. “They’ll anyway just remark the upper part of my body”, he thinks and leaves his apartment.

Gregory is 25 years old and unemployed. He lives in a small flat in the suburban of Birmingham. After the United Kingdom accepted the euro as their currency and replaced the pound, nobody has thought that the whole market would collapse like that. Mass-unemployment and anger against the European Union were consequences. So every day, unemployed people shuttle to the city centre to one of the employment bureaus. The inrush is so hard that they can only register few of them. Our protagonist dares one more time an attempt to be one of the lucky ones.

After Gregory arrived at his “favourite EB” (that is how they call the employment bureaus) he recognised at first the long queue in front of the entrance. He already knows this situation, he is a queue-expert. He hardly knows all the people by heart, selling water and seats along the queues. So Gregory sets out of finding the start of the endless queue of hopeful people, praying that they will be registered today. However, Gregory is not praying anymore. He has already lost all his patience and hope. The organisers of the EBs abbreviated the interviews to a minimum of three minutes to select the more capable people from the others. As a result of that, they can interview more people over the day. After four and a half hours, it is Gregory’s turn. He is already trained in interviews, so he knows the order of questions: “Why do you think are you capable of working hard? Do you think you are the right one for, let’s say us, a job as an accounting clerk?…”

Gregory was never sure, which answer would be the best, but in the process of his many interviews over the years, he tried all the arguments he can think of. Meanwhile he just answers like a machine.

“Ok, please take a seat outside. You will be called and informed whether we could find reasons for your registration or not”, is the usual sentence that follows after the three minutes of the interview. And Gregory stands up as usual today, and he goes to the waiting room as usual today and he knows that they will call him in 10 minutes and he is going to be told that there was no chance to find accurate reasons for his registration. But Gregory wants to play this game and takes a seat in front of two young guys of his age. One seems to be angry and nearly shouts the other one. However, that is not interesting for Greg. He just waits for his call.

“I swear”, he hears one the guys,” we’ll all end up like the Eastern Block. This whole idea of being a political union was nonsense. I mean, look at us. 60% youth unemployment in states like the U.K., France and Germany are the result of 80 years of wrong decisions. What’s existent of which we could be pride?”

“Peace.”

“What?”

“Yes, I mean peace. How many times did all powerful politics in Europe come together and discuss a matter that concerns everybody. In Europe, we had no war since the Second World War. We can live in peace for nearly 100 years on the continent, on which the most wars have happened in history. We can live in freedom and democracies. So tell me now, is the EU worth fighting for it?”

During this dialogue, Gregory’s became wider and wider. He only hears his name, called by an assistant. If he had been the first time in an EB, he had rather forgot to stand up. So he does, more in trance than on earth. Too many words are crossing his mind, than he could concentrate. He can hardly understand the words: “So Mr. S. I am happy to inform you that our team now thinks you are capable enough to be shortlisted for the registration. Hello, Sir? Can you hear me?”

Gregory stands up, as he often stood up in the EB. He goes out, as he often went out. But today is not a normal day. It is the day on which Gregory S. was registered for getting a job. This thing, which he had fought for over years and years, has now become reality. But there are only six words crossing his minds: “Yes, it is really worth it.”