Is it possible to move to SF and survive? (Hayward: apartments, how much)

[mkl654321]

Current situation: 53 years old, just got my degree (BA, Univ of Oregon, English). I was born in SF, grew up in Marin, and right now I'm anticipating another rainy Oregon winter and I'm starting to feel really homesick. There's no jobs here, and no reason to stay.

What I want: I'm single, and only need to support myself. I want to find a decent job that will let me live in modest fashion. I want to live IN the City; I never have. I've lived in San Rafael, Vallejo, Hayward, and Berkeley, and doing anything in the City always involved fighting traffic, paying insane bridge tolls, riding BARF, etc. I just want to live near the downtown core (or a decent Muni ride away) and dispense with having a car at all (since CA DMV fees are vampiric and you can't park in SF anyway). Ideally, I would commute via bus (or BARF, or Muni Metro) to my job in a cubicle in one of the downtown skyscrapers, endure nine hours of soul-sucking, mind-numbing tedium, then the rest of my waking hours would be my own. Just being in the City would be worth whatever hassle it takes. I should add that I love the weather there--it seems like "home".

So: can I expect to find a decent job there within, say, six months?
Will I be able to live alone, or will I have to share a three-bedroom house with nine other roommates, who play their Kill All ******* CDs until 3 AM, never clean up after themselves, slam doors at 5:30 in the morning, have loud sex at all hours, and watch American Idol on the communal TV?
What are the practical limitations to living without a car in SF?
Am I out of my mind for even considering moving during the Second Great Depression?
Do I have the slightest prayer of being even considered for an interview before I move there? Or do resumes with out-of-state addresses get immediately consigned to the circular file?

[gone down south]

What job are you qualified for? How much can you expect to earn with your skills?

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by mkl654321

endure nine hours of soul-sucking, mind-numbing tedium

Nothing is worth this. Surely you didn't work to earn your degree to suffer this indignity? Many in the City will remind you of this (some of whom may well be English majors).

[mayorhaggar]

Yeah I dunno what you are qualified for, what have you been doing your whole life. If you just expect to show up and get a random office job, I'd say it would be tough, unemployment in SF is still like 10%. But somehow rents are going up again. You could probably live with roommates for around $650-900 a month, figure out how much you'd want to make if you were paying that. A studio starts probably around $1100-1200. There's a lot of competion for apartments and roommates here because it's summer and college students are going back to school and people are moving here for the mini-tech boom.

[mkl654321]

I was a small business owner for 15 years. That apparently counts for nothing, nothing, nothing (no references). I also worked for various banks, etc. in accounting/finance positions, but I would rather be stripped naked, smeared with honey, and buried in an anthill than ever make another general ledger entry or fill out a tax form. So I'm pretty much a babe in the woods with no usable skills other than my English degree, which also counts for virtually nothing since people don't care about speaking, writing, or reading good English any more. So I figure the best I can hope for is some pencil-pushing job for which one of the requirements is that you have to have a BA in SOMETHING, even if it's Peruvian Invertebrate Biology.

[gone down south]

Not to be too brutal, but with no marketable skills you're going to need to depend on the charity of others. Do you have friends/family/contacts who can set you up with interviews? Networking is going to be your friend.

The job market here is still rough, unless you have specific tech skills, and housing costs are out of control. The tech boom means more kids with $$$ overpaying for apartments just to be in the city, and the continued poor performance of the rest of the economy means fewer home buyers therefore more renters. Just spitballing it, I'd guess you need to make $60k to even consider living without roomates in the city, and that would be a stretch (ie, ramen noodles more than once a month.) $70-80k would give you a comfortable but not extravagant lifestyle.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by mkl654321

So I'm pretty much a babe in the woods with no usable skills other than my English degree, which also counts for virtually nothing since people don't care about speaking, writing, or reading good English any more.

On the other hand, there is a dearth of people with these skills in the tech-heavy employee pool, so there may be hope.

[mayorhaggar]

Well actually there may be a demand for accounting. If you REALLY want to live in SF you'd suck it up and look for accounting work, sign up with Accountemps, whatever. Just showing up with an English degree and expecting to find random office work isn't going to get you anywhere, you'll be looking at jobs making maybe $32,000 and competing with college students looking for their first job. Maybe get one of those CPA license thingies if you don't have one.

[mkl654321]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

Well actually there may be a demand for accounting. If you REALLY want to live in SF you'd suck it up and look for accounting work, sign up with Accountemps, whatever. Just showing up with an English degree and expecting to find random office work isn't going to get you anywhere, you'll be looking at jobs making maybe $32,000 and competing with college students looking for their first job. Maybe get one of those CPA license thingies if you don't have one.

Well, of course, that had occured to me, but I find that work so boring and tedious I would probably go berserk within a month. Besides, I quit doing the accounting/tax thing in 1995; I'm sure the rules/methods/laws are quite a bit different now. And as far as a temp agency goes--I resolved never to work for one of those crooks again after I found out that while I was getting paid $9/hr, my employer was paying the agency $21/hr--for three months. So the agency made over $6000 from the half hour or so of work they expended to hire and place me. Never again.

[SweetMutt]

As far as jobs go, it probably really depends on how picky you are and how lucky you are. There are a lot of qualified people out here, and a lot of recent grads from the collection of bay area universities. So, you won't be alone in your job search. There does seem to be a lot of movement out here in the employment world, so there are jobs, but there are also a lot of people looking. I haven't had much luck applying to jobs from afar, so I can't really say how well that works, but I would think it's worth a shot to send out some feelers and see if you get any calls.

Housing... well, that's a different story. I agree with gone down south that you want to be making at LEAST 60k to live alone. Maybe in the 50s if you're ok with a studio outside of the trendy neighborhoods.

I don't think you're at all crazy for wanting to move, but you might want to consider living outside the city or with roommates at least at first, until you get a steady job and see how far your money's getting you.