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I have had several jobs over the last few years, each similar to each other in a high stress, call center environment. For the most part, the pay was low, and after fifty to sixty generally irritated callers, all I wanted to do on my personal time was either drink or play video games to unwind. I lost interest in a lot of things that used to interest me because my job was making me miserable.
I feel a large weight off my shoulders now that I'm out of this call center environment and in a professional, better paying position. I will not only have some financial security, but the feeling that I'm progressing in a positive direction. I've seen a couple of friends since the new offer who tell me I seem much happier and less stressed.
Has your job or job negatively or positively impacted your personal life in any way?
Well sure, it's a nice feeling to be able to move on. I'm hoping I can do the same after my last fiasco which was also high stress but it hasn't been working out. So search vs landing, somewhat different. The search is not really fun for most people. But years ago I did the same thing in that environment you were in but back then but it paid the bills anyway. Not anymore from what I can see in the market.
The job search is a soul-killing experience that reminds you every day that no matter how skilled, experienced, and educated you may be, you are still mostly worthless in the eyes of the sociopaths that run this world.
There aren't enough jobs to go around, and yet those out of work are seen as "welfare bums" and "failures" - despite the math guaranteeing that good people will be out of work thanks to the lack of jobs. Every day is a dismal balancing act between trying to keep your shameful unemployed status as hidden as possible from nosy idiots while at the same time applying to as many laughable job postings as you can find.
The job hunt itself is a maddening frustration... companies that hire no one, or ones with jobs that are so narrow that nobody is qualified for them. Then, you have the HR people, the recruiters, and the headhunters who have so little to offer the world that you can't help but wonder why they are currently employed - doing heaven only knows what - while you're out of work, despite having far more experience, skills, and education. Of course, as we've already established, most of that counts for nothing these days since companies focus on hiring "buddies" not employees, and friends and family get first crack at all jobs and will keep them to the bitter end.
So, in short, unemployment and the job hunt these days will crush your spirit, darken your soul, and leave you far less than you once were. And all the while, you'll be reminded every day about how "worthless" you are, how you "deserve" this fate, and how many idiots are fully employed while you're out of work.
I've become very insecure with little self confidence and self esteem, and I'm turning thirty this summer with - so far - no career, no friends, no home, no car and no prospects.
I've had five jobs in the past six years, and although I was good at each of them and a couple of them really meant a lot to me because they were what I wanted to do career-wise, nothing grew from them and I still end up looking for work. I have to be judged every day and feel the way Rambler has described feeling while out of work. I have struggled with major depression since I was sixteen years old, and that hasn't been improved substantially in the thirteen years since, and being criticized and evaluated as useless or a failure by others hasn't helped.
The job search is a soul-killing experience that reminds you every day that no matter how skilled, experienced, and educated you may be, you are still mostly worthless in the eyes of the sociopaths that run this world.
There aren't enough jobs to go around, and yet those out of work are seen as "welfare bums" and "failures" - despite the math guaranteeing that good people will be out of work thanks to the lack of jobs. Every day is a dismal balancing act between trying to keep your shameful unemployed status as hidden as possible from nosy idiots while at the same time applying to as many laughable job postings as you can find.
The job hunt itself is a maddening frustration... companies that hire no one, or ones with jobs that are so narrow that nobody is qualified for them. Then, you have the HR people, the recruiters, and the headhunters who have so little to offer the world that you can't help but wonder why they are currently employed - doing heaven only knows what - while you're out of work, despite having far more experience, skills, and education. Of course, as we've already established, most of that counts for nothing these days since companies focus on hiring "buddies" not employees, and friends and family get first crack at all jobs and will keep them to the bitter end.
So, in short, unemployment and the job hunt these days will crush your spirit, darken your soul, and leave you far less than you once were. And all the while, you'll be reminded every day about how "worthless" you are, how you "deserve" this fate, and how many idiots are fully employed while you're out of work.
I have a hard time comparing jobs -- they all have their pros and cons.
My first job (4 years ago) -
Pros: Work from home or remotely (ie, the beach) whenever, show up late leave early, 1min drive from my house, 100% tuition reimbursement, resume builder
Cons: Insulting pay, forgotten about often, 3am calls frequently during on-call
UNEMPLOYMENT - none:
-- Job search was easy this time around, a new opportunity and 65% raise sort of fell in my lap while employed --
Next job (until recently) -
Pros: Money, cool perks (on-site dry cleaning, on-site car car, employee gas station, cool environment), bigger role, training (initially)
Cons: 30+min commute, training and morale went downhill FAST at the end, very little work from home
UNEMPLOYMENT - 1 month
-- And then... unemployment... Laid off for the first time. It was very interesting... A relief because I was looking for a way out of an increasingly toxic and taxing environment, bad because I was not prepared and really didnt have anything set aside for this. Area is terrible for GOOD high-paying jobs, especially in a specialized field. Genuinely scared.
It made it easier that I received a 1-month severance package and vacation cash-out, but that meant I would need to find something immediately. I tired of feeling like a complete bum staying at home while my wife went off to work every day. Really a pretty terrible feeling and something I was reluctant to mention to friends... Fortunately, timing was yet again very good to me. I found a perfect opening matching my background -- two interviews and a few weeks later, I'm now gearing up to start my next job.
Current Job:
Pros - 20% raise, 5min commute, excellent benefits, learning opportunities
Cons - TBD. Every job has them.
I think the job search experience has shown me how competitive our world is now days and will be for the foreseeable future. With so many qualified candidates for every open position employers can pick only the best and the brightest, and will play those silly recruitment games everyone hates, discriminate against everyone over 50 and under 25, fat people, ugly people, strange looking people, ethnic minorities and the eccentric. It's an employers game and up to now few people seem to admit it.
I am other candidates for employment have to play their game or we are lost in the dust. Complaining about it does nothing but cause us sleepless nights.
Searching for a job has me cranky and anxious. I'm not fun to be around, but it doesn't matter since I don't have enough money to go out now anyway (Gotta love NJ's rent!).
I think the job search experience has shown me how competitive our world is now days and will be for the foreseeable future. With so many qualified candidates for every open position employers can pick only the best and the brightest, and will play those silly recruitment games everyone hates, discriminate against everyone over 50 and under 25, fat people, ugly people, strange looking people, ethnic minorities and the eccentric. It's an employers game and up to now few people seem to admit it.
I am other candidates for employment have to play their game or we are lost in the dust. Complaining about it does nothing but cause us sleepless nights.
While I agree with you for the most part, many places are not picking the "best and brightest" but rather the people who happen to have the exact experience they need right now, often right down to idiotic details such as "which CAD tool do you have 3 to 5 years of professional experience with?"
Crud like that ticks me off since there simply is no way to get years of professional experience in a totally different industry if the one you're in happens to dry up since you need the experience to get the experience. Worse, the job demands have become more insanely narrow and limiting as the years have passed - for example: "must have 3 to 5 years experience with Solidworks and TQM" - so if you have even more years experience with a different but comparable CAD tool (Pro/E, NX/Unigraphics, etc.) and a different process and quality management system (6-Sigma, Kaisen, whatever.) you're considered "unqualified" for the position... which is absurd. Many jobs have such narrow requirements these days that they may as well say "internal candidates only" or "we know nobody can fill this position as written, but this will let us get a cheap visa worker instead."
There's no effective way around this since most people don't have any choice in the matter. If you're working full time for a company that designs radar widgets with NX, it's not as if you're also going to gain years of professional experience "in your free time" designing auto parts in Catia or rocket motors in Solidworks or similar so you can hop over to a totally different field and company when the first one hits the wall and crashes.
So, from a professional viewpoint, they've narrowed the requirements down to the point where most people are basically "useless" in their eyes. Top it off with a healthy dose of bigotry, assorted discrimination - not hiring the unemployed being my favorite - and companies looking to hire frat brothers instead of workers and you have a situation where those who get the jobs may very well not be the best qualified, and plenty more people will be stuck out of work through no fault of their own. Sadly, this nation is full of arrogant idiots who support this situation so long as they aren't suffering, so I don't expect anything will improve until those idiots are also out of work.
Final note: some may consider this complaining - such certain spiteful trolls that haunt this forum - but the facts are what they are. No social or economy problem has every been addressed if everyone chooses to ignore it, and the job situation in this nation *could* be fixed, but the people lack the will to ask their corporate masters any hard questions. As long as this goes unaddressed, the situation will not improve, IMHO.
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