Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Work and Employment > Job Search
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 08-08-2016, 04:51 AM
 
Location: Alexandria, VA, USA
1,110 posts, read 887,637 times
Reputation: 2517

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by Never Quit View Post
Yes, it was worse! I was responsible for a very large part of the company, and there were many forces actively and accidentally looking to see me fail. On any given day, a mishap could end up costing the company thousands of dollars a day. If I failed to act on many things and my entire department closed down, I would have to answer to 60 people why they lost their jobs. This is not the stress you want to have.

What do you mean by "decent" exactly? One of my roommates works in fast food. Incidentally, he has been working at this restaurant for 2 years, which is about as long as I was working at this company. He is now earning about as much as I was earning, has paid vacation, paid sick days, and full benefits.

You can say obamacare all you want, but I was going to get charged about 20% of by bring-home for it. I also spent nearly $3,000 out of pocket for dental care (not included in obamacare). Any company over 50 employees has to supply health insurance. The company I worked for fired 70% of the crew and made them temps. Ironically, they all got raises and benefits. I was kept as a regular employee and didn't have any of that.

Laying on the floor from midnight to 4am, writhing in chest / arm / head pain, while foam is coming out of my mouth, was a massive wake up call. It is no longer about finding something to make ends meet (I can do day labor and make ends meet) or the pride of doing work that is apparently above fast food. I had another heart incident a few months back. I'm only 37 now, and I'm not entirely sure that, without health insurance, that I will make it to 40.

I'm willing to take any risk at this point in my life. Part of the reason I left LA was that, well, living on about $10 / hr in that town isn't living at all, and I had some other opportunity to work, earning good wages, as long as I was willing to relocate. When I was booted from my apartment (no fault of mine), I was faced with the decision to spend over $3,000 moving down or spending $1,000 move to an intermediary city. I took the latter choice.

Sadly, I honestly have no clue how to parlay my work experience into something better.

I quit. In fact, they called me a few times to get my advice on various items that popped up, and even asked if I was willing to move back to LA to return to work for them. I had my good job at that point, and declined, of course.

I mean, there are things that are a bit "off" about me, I suppose, but I'm definitely not mentally ill (long story short, I've had more psychiatric evaluation than pretty much anyone you know). Most people who know me call me kind and it appears people like me. I've had quite a few long-term friends and been acquainted with many thousands of people. I have friends I've known for 15 years or so. I'm sort of an ambivert.

The struggle I have, and unfortunately, I don't have anyone in this living state, is trying to navigate myself in a non-poverty world. I don't understand middle class at all. My "very bad life decision" was thinking I finally made it out of poverty, which ended up costing me. Lesson learned.
Your name is "never quit," so be mindful of that. You did make it out of poverty, at least the poverty mind-set. Unfortunately, the middle class has tanked, so it is not all you.

You do have a few things going for you, the largest one is that your former company still values your work experience. Why not put together a business proposal for them for a spinoff/branch company, under your domain? Another idea is to work for yourself. See https://www.sba.gov/, especially https://www.sba.gov/tools/local-assistance/score, which is a mentorship program.

Still other ideas are to apply to companies that take care of their employees and who have growth potential, such as Trader Joe's and COSTCO? Even more ideas are to connect with charities such as goodwill for job training programs. The local schools have vocational programs that might be of interest. Still another idea is to go to http://nursinglink.monster.com/educa...ve-dropped-out

I escaped from poverty to a comfortable middle class, but that was when there was still opportunity, and I was helped by the government all the way - through national defense student loans (which I paid back), military service, civil service and contract service. I was flexible in terms of career choice and location.

One more idea is government contract work. Sure it is temporary, but it can last for years, and it can sometimes lead to permanent employment.

Last edited by rmm0484; 08-08-2016 at 05:01 AM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 12-19-2018, 04:13 PM
 
9 posts, read 37,964 times
Reputation: 76
My friend i read your thread a few weeks back and i just came back to it today to read it again and i just feel like what you wrote here and the way you articulate yourself through your words and also your story are amazingly and eerily similar to mine in life- i mean you touch on so many similarities when i think of myself and some of my struggles with the employment world the things i've been through in my life and my search for gainful employment. I haven't ever really had a steady or real job in my life and today i'm 42 years old and counting. Well i hope you are well my friend.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-19-2018, 07:43 PM
 
5,317 posts, read 3,185,531 times
Reputation: 8239
Quote:
Originally Posted by Never Quit View Post
I am now 34 years old. I haven't had a “real” job since I was 22 years old when I was a bike messenger in Miami, Florida.
So why did you move to LA from Miami? Maybe that is a hint.


Quote:
working for yourself
This is a fake term.

Nobody works for themselves unless they are independently wealthy. Whether one is an employee or entrepreneur, they all work for someone else. An employee has one boss, entrepreneurs have many (each client/customer is the boss)



Quote:
So, to people who think that all unemployed people are lazy
Most people who actually look for jobs know this is not true. The only ones making this claim are the people who are working 20 years in their current job, independently wealthy, or just out of touch.



Quote:
I spend months on end walking around the city of Los Angeles dropping resumes and filling out applications.
What is stopping you from moving away from LA? It is clear LA's job market is dead.



Quote:
Okay, so that is all hum-drum rejections. You may wonder what I have done to improve my own thinking and life. I am a hard-core autodidact. It wasn't by accident that I was made the marketer at my old job. They knew that I was self-trained in Statistics and Calculus. They knew that I was learning how to program. I have been spending the past year and a half working through the MIT OCW and Coursera, learning how to program, do math, and basically absorb as much information as I could. I built 4 website by hand (no frameworks for me). I haven't read a fiction book for years. If you saw my bookshelf, you'd see about 20 textbooks ranging in subjects from Economics to Biology to Psychology. I may not have went to college, but I surely made it my purpose to educate myself as much as possible.
Employers do not care if you have skills, employers care if you have experience (i.e. someone else hired you)

You are not unemployable. You are just living in the wrong location. Employers are not perfect, sometimes you are in a location where the employers are just ridiculous.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-20-2018, 08:44 PM
 
7,759 posts, read 3,831,656 times
Reputation: 8846
The system is broken. OP's post is another hard example. But our neighborhood pro-employer posters will find some way to discredit him.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-20-2018, 09:20 PM
 
8,085 posts, read 5,198,968 times
Reputation: 22680
Just FYI- 2013.

OP hasn't been here since 2016.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-24-2018, 03:39 AM
 
5,724 posts, read 7,446,464 times
Reputation: 4518
Never! We do what we must! It will not be forever.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 12-27-2018, 08:15 PM
 
777 posts, read 1,331,164 times
Reputation: 720
Try Michael's. The craft store. For stocking. If you can walk fast, lift stuff, and develop good memory on where all their **** goes, it's a pretty simple job. Managers might irritate you... Depends on the store. Busy season just ended, but they tend to hire here n there bc they have a high turnover rate. So many people get the job, do the training then quit within a few weeks. Honesty dont think they really check the applications, but you take this assessment test when u apply online and get a score and if u pass, yay. You just end up as the next qualified applicant on the list that they will call. Could take weeks or months, but chances r u will get the call, especially if you call daily or so to check on your application. As long as u can work their requested hours, they'll likely just hire you. It's not full time.. roughly 15-25 hrs a week, depending how good you become and how needed you are. Chances to become a manager are possible as they prefer to hire from within, but you have to wait for openings. Hope this helps. I worked for the company for 7 years now and was a manager for one year, and I also can't get a job elsewhere for the life of me... and I have a bachelor's.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Work and Employment > Job Search
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top