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Location: North of Birmingham, South of Huntsville
12 posts, read 28,686 times
Reputation: 36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brightdoglover
What good news!
And I echo those who say the OP is an excellent writer (and shows it in clear thinking)- do you know how rare that is? I've worked as a copyeditor/proofreader.
There are places online to bid on copy/proof jobs, small and larger. That has enabled people to cause a rush to lower pay ($12/hr?) but it's from home and the work exists, in case the OP wants another job.
Congratulations on a good hustle and results.
I'm definitely interested in learning about these opportunities. I've set my limit at 12, when I have a dozen jobs I'll stop taking on new ones.
P.S. My own work as a copyeditor/proofreader was for a specific institution. I worked there for years in my younger years (got the job by taking a test) and later worked on a specific program for seven years from home. From home, I got $25/hour, roughly the going rate at the time (then they hired someone in-house for faster turnaround). I miss it.
My suggestion is that first off you get *any* kind of job on the short term to start socking money away. Do jobs that nobody wants to do, if you must to get a job and start making money. In fact, if you can get two jobs, even better. One job that seems to always be in demand is delivering pizzas. There are many others.
Once you have saved up enough money (and have spent a lot of time thinking about what you want to do for the rest of your life (read 48 days to the work you love by Dan Miller). Then you must put every thing you have towards reaching that goal.
I grew up under similar circumstances. No emphasis was ever placed on achieving anything. Being intelligent myself, I could have achieved much in life if I had been exposed to a different kind of thought. But that is no excuse for me to not be successful NOW. Everything we do in life is a choice. If you make the choice to be successful, then you will succeed.
You must have a plan. Written down. You cannot shoot if you do not have a target. Be persistent as hell. Never give up and never surrender.
It's hard! You do have two things going for you. One, you have the drive to better yourself. Two, you have no children which eliminates a huge financial burden. Your location is not helping you any. I lived in neighboring Mississippi for two years and the southern economy is horrendous. Move to a better economic area, and a more populated area. The more population the more options you have. Forbes has a list of the best places to live.
I feel guilty now because I'm lazy and am dumb as a rock, but I'm doing decently simply because of external circumstances. If I were in you're position, there would be no hope for me.
I feel guilty now because I'm lazy and am dumb as a rock, but I'm doing decently simply because of external circumstances. If I were in you're position, there would be no hope for me.
Location: North of Birmingham, South of Huntsville
12 posts, read 28,686 times
Reputation: 36
UPDATE:
After just under two months it would seem that I've been permanently laid off from the first actual full time job that I've been able to find in nearly a year. They dropped around a dozen people after their April numbers hit the table. And I even had my own office...
I've still got a small part time gig and a couple of freelance projects, but all of these combined aren't equal to a third of what I was bringing home with the advertising job. That pay check was our "ticket out of here" and now it's gone. It seems that as soon as I let myself relax and accept the possibility that everything really was going to be OK, the rug got snatched out again and I'm left here sitting on my ass trying to figure out how I'm going to pay the rent this month.
We had an itemized, line item budget that ran to the end of the year and detailed where every dollar would be going, the dates we would pay certain things off for good, increasing percentages moving into a savings account, etc. It was based on my salary from the advertising company, so that plan is out the window.
I have to say that at this point I am certainly losing faith in the system. I've tried and tried to do things the right way. I've worked my ass off for months and months, hitting the pavement, making phone calls, knocking on doors, applying to every single position I could find, going through training for jobs that never happen, filling out literally hundreds of applications, steadily losing weight from stress (there's not much left to lose at this point, I'm the thinnest I've been in over a decade), becoming a nervous f#@&!ng wreck over the constant rotating cycle of deciding which bills I'm going to pay late this month and whether I need electricity or food more.
And just when you think it's all coming to an end, just when you sit down and breathe a sigh of relief, they bend you right back over and you find yourself in the same position as before.
I can certainly understand why people turn to crime. At some point, the fear of going to prison is overshadowed by the need to feed your family. When you spend years and years working "within the system" and making no progress, it really gets to you. When you look back and the last couple years of your life are one long, miserable, sickening, stressful blur of doing nothing but looking for a job and worrying about your bills, you start to feel like you're reaching a kind of breaking point.
I've decided to take a more drastic approach. The economy in central Alabama is obviously not strong enough to support its populace. Or, perhaps, it's just not the kind of economy that's right for me. In any event, I've done my best to be a part of this system and to make it work for me, and I've seen nothing but resistance on every front. I've reached the point where my only impetus is to get out of the state of Alabama, and the South entirely, by any means necessary (short of joining the military).
If I'm going to be sad, sick, miserable and broke, then I might as well do it in a place where there's at least a small chance I could find a job that would afford me and my girlfriend some modicum of happiness or a shot at the kind of life that we want. You know, the kind of life where you don't sit up all night staring out the window, trying to figure out what you're doing wrong. The type of life where the idea of going on a vacation doesn't make you sick inside because you can't remember the last time you actually had one, and you know good and damn well that you're at least a couple of years away from even being able to begin to save for one. The type of life where images of happy people enjoying themselves don't fill you with disgust and envy.
So where do we go? We'll live in our car on a beach.
Anything is better than this.
Where are the jobs?
Last edited by Area_Man7; 04-27-2010 at 11:39 AM..
Reason: I misspelled something
An excellent question. I don't know. Does anyone else have a suggestion? Isn't there someone who is always recommending Huntsville, AL? If there are lots of high-end jobs, then there are likely more support jobs there.
I wish the OP the best. He will succeed. Really.
I'd like nothing more than to move to another part of the country, preferably in or near a large metro area, but I don't feel like I have any options.
I think you do. In fact, I think you would have so many more opportunities if you lived in a bigger city. Given the type of person you have revealed to us so far, it sounds like you would flourish in a larger city. In addition to that, you want to be in that kind of environment anyway. The common theme here so far seems to be to just move out. Do you have a friend residing near a bigger city? Maybe by some outside chance they would be willing to accommodate you and your girlfriend for a while? I feel like you would have done so by now if you did have such a friend though. Just thought I would throw that out there though.
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