From what your OP seems to say, you were offered that before you fucked up. Your fuckup has dented your earning capacity. (Arguably back then, not wanting to move to North Dakota also dented it by $4,500.)
So yes, you are qualified but you have two DUIs. One fact brings you up, the other brings you down.
Did you mean to use this word?
There you go. I don’t know if I meant to use the word “entitled” because I doubt I am entitled to much anymore after all these fuck ups I’ve had, but you rarely ever talk about entitlement when discussing job qualifications, so no, I doubt I meant to use the word.
Beings that I was offered these two jobs, would I not have been entitled to them then?
Meaning they called me up, which they did, and said “the job is yours, the salary is x, you will also get a company vehicle, or a mileage stipend for your vehicle plus a company phone and computer and bennies, when can you start?”
Did that mean I was entitled to the jobs?
We are talking more about whether I should have used the word entitled, which is okay, than the actual op.
I still think I’m QUALIFIED for a better paying job, despite my former shortcomings, where I can stimulate my brain and move faster, but what do you guys think?
Any more advice would be appreciated!
Me thinks that “entitled” doesn’t mean what you believe it means.
Either way I don’t want to derail this thread. Good luck!
(bolding mine)
IMHO no, it sounds like you were most definitely qualified for the jobs that were offered, but I think to say that you were ‘entitled’ isn’t the right term.
Glad to hear that you’ve ‘seen the light’, so to speak, and have successfully remained sober. Keep up the good work! 
IANAL and of course, different states have different rules, but I’m fairly certain that it’s possible to have ones criminal ‘record’ expunged after a period of time. Provided you don’t incur any more ‘criminal’ charges or especially convictions. YMMV 
FWIW, it sounds to me like you’ve got great potential, but as other posters have already said, it’s going to take some time. I wish you luck in rising to the challenge. 
jjimm is right when he says that your mistakes have dented your earning potential. But there’s another factor you need to consider: 2011 is not 2009.
The economy has changed. Unless your industry is particularly recession proof, I’m guessing the ratio of job-seekers to job openings will have tilted against you. I imagine the industry is facing cost pressures as well. So you shouldn’t necessarily expect to be getting the same kind of offers you were 2-3 years ago. Think especially about all the benefits you were offered last go-round - they were obviously incentives for you to take the job. Do companies in your industry need to offer the same level of incentive today? I’d think simply offering someone a job would be incentive enough. If so, they won’t make their offer any better than they need to.
Look around and what salary opening graduate positions are offering now. That should be the maximum you can expect. Then compare yourself to 2009 you - fresh out of college, no experience but no bad history either. Which of you is worth more to an employer? They tend to be risk averse, so it’s probably 2009 you with the clean sheet. So take your maxmimum and adjust downwards to account for your history.
I think your strategy should be to get any relevant job you can. Then set yourself to excel in it. Put in the hours (this is not an easy thing), and make a point of asking for responsibility at every turn. Give yourself a resume that shows genuine achievement - not just time served. If you can justifiably claim credit for some big results, you’ll be in a better position to move on to the kind of role you think you should be getting now.
If you’re bright and ambitious you will always be able to take advantage of opportunities that come up - but I have to agree with PP, the US economy is rough right now and you need to get over the idea that your qualification means you have a right to a certain role or lifestyle. The smartest guy in my uni class ended up in a pretty low paying job because he was ESL and lacked confidence, a degree is not that meaningful once you get out in the real world.
I think your attitude might annoy people who’ve worked really hard for much longer than you have to get into the role’s you’re “entitled” to, it does come across a little obnoxious IMO.
That being said I think you will catch up and excel, you’ve learnt from your mistakes and as a result, instead of having a straight line, you’ve had an opportunity to learn skills outside your stream.
I was a much bigger f*** up than you, homeless at 15, highschool dropout, dole bludger and party girl. I decided that I couldn’t work in nightclubs for the rest of my life so at 24 I went back to uni, working and studying fulltime was really stressful and challenging but I managed to graduate with distinction and went straight into the “typical” accounting stream… Turns out that after all that work I HATED it - I tried a few different firms but just couldn’t find my feet, I left or got fired, it was a disaster! Then I went for a practice interview for a job that I really wasn’t that interested in, but the money was ok and miraculously I got the job and decided to give it a go. The week before I was due to start I turned 30 and had my first episode of Multiple Sclerosis… I thought my life was over, but I worked through all the pain of the MS and this job turned out to be amazing! It was a complete turning point and it led me to my current job which I also love. I’m still probably 3-5 years behind where I might have been if I hadn’t wasted all that time but who cares and really, maybe I would have ended up a drug addict if I’d done everything “right”.
Anyway, that’s a really long way to say:
I know it seems tough right now, so hang in there, it sounds like you’ve got your head screwed on and I have no doubt you’re going places!
Good luck 
Great post BangBang.
And a reminder that I should have wished the OP good luck in his search. Good luck, dude.
Thanks for all the well wishes.
Actually if you look around, job openings within my industry are still pretty hot. Agriculture is kind of like a rock when it comes to economic turmoil. There are still about the same jobs available as when I graduated. Only most of them, I’d have to move. But farmers are always buying seed, fertilizer, insurance, and chemical and selling grain. So those that work with them can usually plan on keeping their jobs.
If I were willing to move, I’d get placed in a $50-60 grand a year job easily. Only I won’t move this time. I gotta be close to momma unfortunately, I don’t do very well too far from home and when I moved away right after college my alcoholism got worse. So I moved back home and my problem followed me.
Right now, I absolutely cannot move. I don’t think I’d start boozing again if I got far away from home, but regardless, I have a small farming operation here to take care of, and I will never leave that.
I think the only thing stopping me currently is my inability to move, I’m waiting for the job to come to me. There are jobs available to me here, same salary I could expect as two years ago. BUT, I have to have a decent, though not perfect, driving record. One DUI is usually okay, but two is usually a disqualifier in jobs like these. I’ve got a lawyer now, one who seems competent (the one I had for my first was an alcoholic himself, you could smell the booze on him, and the second was a personal injury lawyer, yuck) and knowledgeble on jobs within my career. He seems to think the judge who presided over my case might be sympathetic to the fact that I am a bonified alcoholic from a family with a history of alcoholism. My dad died at age 60 of cirrhosis, yellow skin and the whole bit. But, I have curbed my habit, and I’m still just a kid. The judge is retiring soon and the lawyer thinks he might be up for anything, and suspending my 2nd conviction, thereby sealing it on my record, might be a good possibility.
If this happens, a lot more opportunities would open up for me. But, we shall see. Dealing with the law is a long, drawn out process, and lawyers don’t like returning phone calls.
And as for the word ‘entitled’, maybe I should not have used it. I probably didn’t know the difference between it and qualified. I find myself doing that in everyday speech too, using words that are way out of context. My brother, dad, and grandpa do that too. That runs in the family as well.
Any more comments are welcome!
You have a criminal record. Did you fail to realize this? DUI is a felony in many states. Although I don’t know what state you live in, you could have two felonies on your record. You also don’t seem to realize that there is a massive difference between hiring a fresh college grad without any felonies, and taking a chance on you. You’re lucky to have ANY job right now.
DUI is not some walk in the park that any stupid college student can get. You have to be massively reckless and stupid (and yes, unlucky) to get one, much less two. You didn’t learn the first time, which burns up any potential currency you might have had for making people believe they should give you a second chance. So right away, your record shows potential employers that you DON’T learn from your mistakes. There are so many jobless people right now who aren’t felons that HR managers are surely binning your resume immediately upon receipt.
You also utterly fucked up three jobs. Nobody is going to take a chance on you until you prove that you’re not a drunk, unemployable loser. You say you’ve changed? Prove it. Don’t ever fall back into those old habits, don’t get any more felonies, and maybe one day somebody will want to take a chance on you. But right now, it is way too soon.
Is it possible that your tendency to blame the world for your problems is why you started drinking in the first place? Wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Most people with your history would be living with their parents, or on the way to being homeless by now. So suck it up, be grateful you’re not in either of those situations, and work at succeeding with your current farm. And maybe, MAYBE after you have 5-10 years of experience holding down a continuous job, you might be able to find something in spite of your criminal record. But don’t hold your breath.
I’m trying not to sound overly preachy, but you are clueless and entitled. You will **never **get a decent job with your current mindset. I’ve driven drunk on a couple occasions in my life. I was lucky not to get caught. If I HAD gotten caught, I would have accepted the negative consequences, and I sure as fuck would never have done it again. You have to accept the consequences of your past stupidity. Promising everybody that you’ll never do it again is meaningless, compared to your actions. Prove it.
I’ve been looking at a lot of resumes recently, and one thing I don’t want to see is someone changing jobs every one or two years - or less. At this point you wouldn’t even make it to where I’d find out about your problems with the law. You might find out that you are going to have to stay put to prove you won’t walk out my door in six months. The good news is that the last job counts more than the first job.
But you have an alternative. See if you can make informal contact with people who can hire you. Is there a place they hang out (besides bars?) If you can figure out how to talk shop to them, and prove you know your shit, and then talk about your past, they’d be able to see you’ve reformed. It’s worth a shot. Things are very hot in my industry also, but we still get lots of resumes, and yours has red flags all over it. You need the personal touch.
Why don’t you remind us all about your glamorous, successful, high-paying career, eh?
Dude. You are 24. You have one degree. ONE. And while it may seem like you have tons of experience, um, not really.
You might have been qualified for the jobs you got, but you were also lucky. Never, ever forget that. It is way too easy to pat yourself on the back for something that just happened to fall in your lap. Because while you’re doing all that patting, you take shit for granted and fuck up. Sounds like you’re reaping the effects of doing exactly that.
Now is not the time to start thinking in terms of “deserve” and “entitled”. There are people who have slaved much longer and harder than you have–who will never see $30K, let alone $50K. And they are grateful for what they have because they know things could be a lot worse.
Good for you on staying sober and clearing your head. And keep being ambitious and working hard. That you were able to get good jobs right out of school speaks something about your abilities. The fact that you lost them doesn’t mean you’ll never get them back. But it does mean you need to keep looking ahead rather than reminiscing about the good ole days. Those times are gone for a heap of people, not just you.
First off I should tell you that in my state, a 3rd dui is a felony, first two are misdemeanors. Were I a felon, then I sure as shit wouldn’t be looking for much of anything other than a factory job. Even here surprisingly enough, one of my supervisors has FOUR duis, that would be a class 5 felony. He spent over a year in the pen and doesn’t drive anymore. Very weird guy. Swears a lot, smells bad and has the thousand yard stare. Reminds me of my alcoholic Vietnam vet dad, he just stares right through yóu. He still drinks!
I know of plenty of people in the line of work I’m looking into that have at least one and sometimes multiple duis. I also know of many of them that were fired for very harsh reasons and stillk have found good, high paying jobs.
I know of a guy that stole $30 grand from his company and was fired. He was able to find a similar job that pays more with a better company nontheless.
I don’t know if his previous employer is taking him to court or what but you’d think embezzling would be a bigger red flag than drunk driving.
I only utterly fucked up one job as far as I know. I left the first one on good terms and can still get a good reference from there as well, its just that I didn’t last long. The second job I fucked up, yes but I was there for quite awhile. The third that I walked off of, well I can probably start keeping that one off my resume now. I did fine there but I just had a tardiness problem.
And as far as having to be very reckless to get a first and that its not something any college kid can get; while I admit I was being stupid and reckless for getting my first, I will tell you that I got it at college, just outside of college campus by campus police. Where I went to college, there are a lot of bars in a small area and a lot of drunk people. There’s a lot of drunk drivers and four different police forces bird-dogging each other to catch those drunk drivers. Very hard to leave that college without being arrested at least once.
Just go observe court in that town and watch how many defendants for duis, open containers, underages and such are students. Most of them are.
I’ll just say that this particular bit of information is probably not helping your case here on the board. All it tells me is that, despite being very aware of how easy it was to get pulled over for DUI at your college, you did it anyway.
First off I should tell you that in my state, a 3rd dui is a felony, first two are misdemeanors. Were I a felon, then I sure as shit wouldn’t be looking for much of anything other than a factory job. Even here surprisingly enough, one of my supervisors has FOUR duis, that would be a class 5 felony. He spent over a year in the pen and doesn’t drive anymore. Very weird guy. Swears a lot, smells bad and has the thousand yard stare. Reminds me of my alcoholic Vietnam vet dad, he just stares right through yóu. He still drinks!
I know of plenty of people in the line of work I’m looking into that have at least one and sometimes multiple duis. I also know of many of them that were fired for very harsh reasons and stillk have found good, high paying jobs.
I know of a guy that stole $30 grand from his company and was fired. He was able to find a similar job that pays more with a better company nontheless.
I don’t know if his previous employer is taking him to court or what but you’d think embezzling would be a bigger red flag than drunk driving.
I only utterly fucked up one job as far as I know. I left the first one on good terms and can still get a good reference from there as well, its just that I didn’t last long. The second job I fucked up, yes but I was there for quite awhile. The third that I walked off of, well I can probably start keeping that one off my resume now. I did fine there but I just had a tardiness problem.
And as far as having to be very reckless to get a first and that its not something any college kid can get; while I admit I was being stupid and reckless for getting my first, I will tell you that I got it at college, just outside of college campus by campus police. Where I went to college, there are a lot of bars in a small area and a lot of drunk people. There’s a lot of drunk drivers and four different police forces bird-dogging each other to catch those drunk drivers. Very hard to leave that college without being arrested at least once.
Just go observe court in that town and watch how many defendants for duis, open containers, underages and such are students. Most of them are.
My best friend has a job similar to the one I’m looking for. He has one dui on his record and drives a company vehicle. When he was in his interview, the big dogs within the company said ‘we like to have fun too’. He’s never been fired from a job but doesn’t have a degree and has less true experience than I do. The last guy that company hired has two duis and was self-employed for the last 15 years.
sdstudent1, just as an FYI, the poster who you are replying to is someone who has to live with strangers that she meets on the internet (until they quickly get tired of her abusive manner and entitled attitude and kick her out) because she apparently has no friends who want anything to do with her, and she works in a minimum wage job, (or just above minimum) barely scraping by in life.
I mention this not because I think that you haven’t made some poor decisions, clearly you have, but they shouldn’t define you for the rest of your professional life, and it was quite amusing to me that someone who has talked openly here on the SDMB about flunking out of community college, dodging her student loans and suing her former landlord for $200 would have the temerity to tell others that they are a screw-up. Pots & Kettles, etc.
Good luck in your sobriety!!!
And I know people who have gone to wonderful schools, have three degrees including a doctorate, have published multiple times in impressive journals, have years of experience, and–wait for it!–have never even been arrested before. And they are currently unemployed and crying themselves to sleep tonight.
Good ole boy network. If you don’t know what it is, look it up.
You seem to be operating under a “Fair World hypothesis”. That is to say, if this guy over here does something bad and still manages to make it good, then you should be able to do something not as bad and still come out good. Or otherwise, something’s unfair. But unfortunately, life doesn’t work out this way. You can be a saint or a sinner and still have shit heaped upon you. And really, there’s no getting out of it except to just wait and endure.
Um, you fucked up all of them. If you hadn’t been drinking, you wouldn’t have had to “get out of there” with the first job, correct? And the same thing with the third job. Your drinking got in the way of you being able to handle the job. Ergo, you fucked up.
Alcoholism is no joke, but at least accept full responsibility for it.
Also, you’re just 24. How long could you have been on that second job? Two or three years, at most? Do you really think that’s “quite awhile”? If you do, you’re wrong. It’s not a long time at all. It’s definitely not enough time to bank off.
And yet you fell into the trap. That you were an easy catch does not mitigate the dumbassery of your decision–it amplifies it. This also sounds like you haven’t accepted full responsibility. “If only the cops hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have gotten that DUI.” No, you got the DUI because you were DUIing.
How the hell has this gone unnoticed? Considering the OP’s sense of “entitlement”, he expects to climb the corporate ladder and get paid to be lazy? I don’t think the OP has “his head screwed on straight” at all. Kid, you need to grow up.
If this is true, they are extremely lucky. They probably have dirt on someone higher up, maybe pictures of the CEO nailing a goat or some shit. Do not assume that you’ll be as lucky.
Regarding job #1, you said, and I quote:
“Had to get out of there” means one of three things. You either quit because you were about to be fired, you were “nicely” asked to resign, or you were actually fired. You also say you weren’t able to perform your job functions. This, on every planet, means you fucked up.
Re: job #2, you’ve been out of college TWO YEARS, yet you say you were at job #2 for “quite awhile.” “Quite awhile” means, oh, at least 5 years. Most skilled jobs require 2-4 years on the job before you actually know what you’re doing.
Job #3: “I did fine there but I just had a tardiness problem.” Um, if you’re not AT WORK, doing, oh, WORK, you’re not doing fine. Part of having a job means showing up when you’re supposed to and, um, working.
This is the biggest bullshit excuse I’ve ever read on these boards. People who get pulled over randomly and are SOBER get to go home, unarrested. People who get pulled over while driving drunk typically get arrested. “Very hard to leave that college without being arrested at least once?” No, it’s not hard, it’s called “don’t get behind the wheel drunk.” Millions of college students do it every day.
Some more gems:
And since you’ve been a good boy, the working world should just roll out the red carpet for you, since you’re obviously the first person to ever get sober.
THIS tells me everything I need to know about your work ethic. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt - and, again, it’s truly awesome that you’re sober and you need to do whatever you gotta do to stay sober - but even sober, you still have a rather large sense of entitlement. Now that you’ve gotten sober, this should be the next thing you work on fixing if you want to have a happy life.
Right. Because the judge has NEVER heard that particular sob story before. :rolleyes:
Your lawyer sucks. Seriously.