Uh Oh, Zetetic, now you’ve done it. Telling people they should claim responsibility for their own actions is a big no-no!
Coupled with your constant refrain of “Just keep doing things until you get a job” is really working against you as well. 
Also, welcome to the board. Hope you get a job!
Excuse me, but aren’t you the man who said he was taking a second job to pay off DEBT?
You say you don’t understand people who can’t find a part time job. I don’t understand why you would get yourself in debt in the first place. I worked a 2nd job and did without a car for several years so that I would not have any debt in the first place.
You may be patting yourself on the back for your pluck and tenacity in going for that 2nd job, but why is it necessary?
4 days is actually quite a while to not have a paycheck when your paycheck comes fro low level jobs like the one you are looking for. Your landlord doesn’t care that it’s only been 4 days, he wants his rent today. Your stomach doesn’t care that it’s only been 4 days, it wants to eat today.
Add to that that the best case scenario is that you will get paid within a week, and a much more likely is that it’ll be over 2 weeks before you see your first paycheck, and you can see why 4 days to get that sort of job, to someone who needs that sort of job, is longer than they can afford to go without pay.
Your 4 days of searching are a luxury to those you criticize, a luxury that they cannot afford.
I wonder why the OP thinks he is such a fount of wisdom, when he keeps spouting off wrongness at every conversational turn.
“Keep looking!” is not advice. It is a trite platitude. The vast majority of people who are unemployed don’t need to hear this. And the tiny minority who have given up typically have very good reasons.
Maybe the OP’s message is needed on a forum targeting lazy neckbeards who live twith their parents. But most Dopers are not in this demographic.
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You are very diplomatic in the way you express yourself and I appreciate that.
I get this. I’m not oblivious to my surroundings. I do not keep my head in the sand.
I pass people holding signs asking for money on a regular basis. I know it’s out there and I know there’s a possibility that I might face those circumstances one day.
That’s why I mentioned that I’m glad there are services aimed at helping these people for a time, government as well as a trove of non-profits. However, you said, "There is no more “welfare”. You might be saying that it isn’t just a free-for-all anymore, but I even find that difficult to believe because of the exorbitant costs and the sheer number of Americans receiving some type of government financial assistance. Add to that the number of people who do not pay into the tax system, but receive refunds and that number is frankly staggering.
Have two interview scheduled. One for this afternoon and one for tonight. Pizza delivery or meat counter at a grocery store.
I can understand how some of the things I’m saying might be taken that way. However, in my mind, what my main gripe continues to be is people who give up or don’t want to try to better themselves. I’m arguing that I believe people have the capacity to think through problems and overcome obstacles regardless of what they are. Racism, sexism, bigotry, age, sexuality, religion, etc. I do believe these still exist and can be obstacles as you’ve said. But you’ve also said there are ways to combat these obstacles. Those who want to blame others don’t care about overcoming anything. For them, it’s easier to blame white people, men, cis-gender people, systemic oppression, laws, police, etc.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to claim that I believe her response was overblown. I did not intend offense. (Not directed at Cats----->)I think going through life trying not to offend people is a little much. I certainly don’t try to offend, but no matter what I say or do, I will inevitably offend someone. I’m okay with that. Also, I certainly don’t claim to be an expert at anything. I’m just a guy with opinions that I believe are mostly based on my experience and observations of the world in which we all live. I also am acutely aware of my fallibility.
Just to reiterate, I’m not going to go out of my way to intentionally offend, but at some point, doesn’t it fall to the offended to take stock of what they’re being offended by and see that maybe feeling slighted or offended by any little thing is a bit dramatic? Sometimes I think people look for something to be offended by and intentionally take things out of context to justify their offense.
Empathy and understanding is not lost on me. I have both, I promise!
I’d like to answer this, but I’d also like to take a little more time to go through this thread and do some additional research like you’ve proposed.
According to DrCube:
There are some qualifiers in there, but there are also stated absolutes. I was elucidating that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
According to Derlith:
Unless I’m reading this wrong, it’s pretty clear Derlith believes my method to be imbecilic and harassing. I was referencing this opinion as well. Sounded pretty absolute to me without much room for other outcomes.
I took some liberties paraphrasing, but I don’t think I was too far off.
Do you disagree with how I interpreted these statements?
Who are “those” I criticize? Anyone looking for a job? I may be wrong, but I don’t think you’ve read what I had to say before that, because I never did what you’re accusing me of doing. If I did, please let me know so I can correct it.
I like to think if I got fired or laid off, I would get a studio apartment and work however many jobs I needed to to make ends meet. But that’s because I live where there are jobs advertised regularly, I am on my own and don’t have family to worry about, I have an open schedule, etc., etc. The reality many places is there are no jobs, or not nearly enough for the people who are looking. People can’t conjure up jobs on the strength of their desire for one. You’re right, when you’re one of 100s of people applying, and you don’t get the job, you keep looking. Along with the 100s minus one of people applying.
You are spot on with this. I am looking to pay off debt. Most of it is student loans and medical bills. The student loans were completely avoidable and I shouldn’t have done it, but I failed to do any research before taking them out and now I’m stuck with them FOREVER!!! Stupid mistake on my part. The medical bills aren’t too high. A few emergency room visits, a stay for our childbirth and a few other small ones I’d like to get cleared up. Other than the student loans, the debt would be manageable. But I would like to pay it off faster than my current pace.
From your thread title, “Can’t find a job? You aren’t looking hard enough!”
Sounds like criticism to me.
:smack:Of course. When I started writing, I wrote that heading down without thinking of how it could be interpreted by someone else. You’re absolutely right and I can see now why a lot of people might jump in here with an automatic bent against what I wanted to say based on the thread title alone. But I would hope that by reading my actual thoughts, that might be partially allay some initial animosity. If not I at least understand where it’s coming from now.
I totally agree and I think it would be better to try and give real tangible advice or assistance. Ex. Keeping your eyes open for jobs. Helping them write their resumes or maybe do practice interviews. Helping financially if needed. Don’t brag about your own job.
So you’re saying that student loans can been a heavy debt and with very few decent-paying jobs, young people might need some help from, oh, maybe from their parents? What a concept.
Not sure what you’re driving at. I don’t disagree with what you are saying. I said, “Parents being a safety net and supporting financially when necessary is one thing, but paying for everything doesn’t help instill responsibility and self-reliance.” I think as you stated, “might need some help,” qualifies as necessary.
I have helped people with all of those things. I’ve helped people get jobs because of the contacts I deal with at my current job. Sometimes people as me if I know anybody who might be interested in a job and have a particular skill set. I’ve helped people rewrite and polish their resumes. Never done any practice interviews. I can’t afford to take care of other people’s families, but I have helped some family members when needed. So I’m there with you.
I see that. Thanks for the good wishes!!!
And, when combined with the first sentence in your original post:
…I can see how it all came across to other thread participants as uninformed, as well as condescending. You’d looked into only five jobs, in a very small geographic area, and seemed to have some good initial luck with them. You based your original post on that very small sample, and it came across as, “finding a job is really easy – if you can’t, you’re doing something wrong”…then you were surprised when others called you to task on it, and were offended by what you’d posted.
I’m not trying to pile on, but you’re new to the SDMB, and it’s sounding like your eyes are being opened a bit (which is a good thing! )
I think you’re right on with all of that. Like I said, I’m always interested in learning and there’s no shortage of that going on. I knew people work disagree with me, but I didn’t realize the way I phrased it and how it could be taken. I should be more careful in how I phrase things and will try to be in the future.
That’s a rather nice short-term plan. Unfortunately it fails to take into account the reality that one person cannot be physically in two places at once – can’t be delivering UPS packages all day while still hunting for a job and attending interviews all day. But you say it’s only part-time? That means it falls just under the threshold for being required to provide benefits. If that threshold is 32 hours a week, employers who have part-time work available will schedule their part-timers for 31.25 hours per week and (as mentioned in another thread) be rigidly strict about people clocking-in and clocking-out exactly on time so their payroll figures don’t cross that ‘gotta provide benefits’ limit. So when you’re at your part-time unskilled labor job for 7.25 hours a day (minus the required 1-hour break you’ll be required to take in the middle of each day) do you really think you’re going to squeeze driving across town, filling out job applications, and sitting for interviews (not to mention showering and changing clothes if your existing part-time job is laborious) into the last 45 minutes of your day?
A big problem, though I don’t mean to derail this thread, is that the ‘known potential cost of being in a country illegally’ also quite frequently falls upon those who are in a country (e.g. the USA) quite legally, but happen (at least appear…) to belong to a disfavored race, ethnicity, etc. It’s a cost not borne by those who are members of the dominant power group.
The (greatly generalized) problem is that the people who suggest this is happening are doing so by looking only at numbers. Unemployment rates stay high and/or fail to fall below a certain threshold, which economists deem to be a healthy rate. Of course, there is argument among different schools of economic thought about what is a healthy versus unhealthy unemployment rate. However, the general argument in a capitalist society is that some rate of unemployment – defined as a portion of employable people in the overall society who are actively looking for jobs – is good because the competition amongst job-seekers makes it possible for employers to keep wages low. So on the one hand they want a constant pool of job-seekers so they can keep from paying (too) much and on the other hand these same people are complaining that there’s always a relatively stable percentage of unemployed people.
But those people aren’t looking past the numbers. We can argue, for instance, that unemployment in the United States of America has never dipped below 4 percent. However, it’s ludicrous to suggest the same people in that 4 percent cluster have just never taken a job even when one was shoved in their faces. Study after study after study has been done, tracking individuals through state unemployment offices with surveys and follow-up calls, etc. Time after time after time these studies have shown that the average applicant for unemployment benefits finds a new job within six months to a year, taking longer during economic depressions and needing less time during economic booms. Now of course that’s an average so that means there will be tales of people getting hired before receiving their first unemployment check as well as tales of people who take an agonizingly long time to find something that fits them. And, yes, there are those who find ways to abuse any system. But the people who complain about ‘those slackers’ either point to the unchanging numbers or highlight the tales of abuse and conflate them with the hard-to-employ cases and they hastily generalize those misrepresentations as arguments for reducing either the amount or the duration of the benefits.
This tends to be a counterproductive policy. Rather than ‘encourage’ job-seekers to get onto someone’s payroll faster (something they can’t control anyway), it kills their meager income so they can’t pay for dwellings or food and their landlords and grocers are getting that much less income and therefore paying less taxes and…well, you can see how the spiral starts downward.
Not that I’m suggesting we just give out unlimited debit cards to everyone who is unemployed; I’m merely suggesting that by looking strictly at the numbers (e.g. unemployment percentages) and not at the actual cases (or at least at more relevant numbers like rates of re-employment) one tends to gain an inaccurate picture of the situation and make policy decisions based on that inaccuracy.
–G!
That’s standard starting pay where I live in Ohio for warehouse and similar positions. Some might start at 12-13 on the low end and 15-17 on the high end. No experience necessary and unskilled labor, though not necessarily easy. Some are temp, temp to hire, or seasonal. Others have benefits from day one. I think that most people who work fast food or grocery store or other jobs that start at $9-10/hr physically can’t handle anything else, can’t pass a drug screen, can’t work the schedules needed, or some other reasons. Not saying these aren’t good reasons in many cases but the availability of entry level labor jobs that pay a little more is wide open. Though, even here 14-15 bucks isn’t much to live on.