I just got my first, ever, job in my field. After years of temping (I was shown the door in this position or I would have stayed on, although I hate it) I scored an awesome job for a great organization that it’s a wet dream to work for.
But, it’s part-time and very, very badly paid.
I applied for all kinds of other jobs in my field, and I was caught in the ‘Too much education, not enough experience’ trap so I couldn’t get any full-time work. Nary an interview. I expect that the admin positions I applied for (which I could do with my eyes closed because of my temping experience) didn’t call because of my education, and the ones in my field didn’t call because of my lack of experience.
Oh well. I thought graduating would mean I wouldn’t be a starving student any more. Now I’m a starving grown-up.
Welcome to the party, cowgirl. You realize that the next part of that trap is that the longer you’re out of school without working in your field, the greater the chance that your education will become out-of-date, right? I really think in my next life I’ll be independently wealthy. Yeah, that’s it, that’s the ticket.
Breaking news on my job front - the harassing co-worker who chased me out of my last job has been terminated. They didn’t actually kill her, they just fired her with a very nice severance package. So, what this boils down to is you get treated a lot better if you’re the one being a bitch, rather than the one getting bitched at. Duly noted. This isn’t helping my bitterness problem much.
My sympathies. This happens all the time at my SO’s shop. They even gave severance to a guy they fired for repeated sexual harassment! SO says they’re just trying to avoid lawsuits, but I wonder where’s the logic in that.
Incidently, his company is based in Canada. With no intent to offend our northern neighbors, is this a Canadian thing? That is, giving severance to boat-rockers?
I didn’t mean to insult Starbucks, it’s just that he has been working in a coffee shop for the last eight months and he’d really, really like something un-coffee-related.
My manager just told me that I can’t expect a raise of more that seven to twenty cents an hour when we get our performance reviews.
w00t! That brings me up to $7.22 an hour! And twenty whole hours a week! :rolleyes:
I think it has something to do with Canada. Let’s look at my experience…
Years spent in Canada: 38
Longest consecutive time worked at one job: 3 years
Longest consecutive time spent unemployed: 4 years
Longest consecutive time applying to the same companies: 20 years
Number of responses from any of the companies where I applied: 0
Years spent in the US: 6
Total time after work permit granted spent unemployed: One day.
There seems to be this sick thing in Canada about hiring people and letting them work for 89 days, then kicking them out on the curb so you don’t have to pay their benefits. They won’t have worked long enough for unemployment compensation, so they can’t get it. The only alternative is welfare. If you have quit or get fired, there is a 90-day waiting period before you can apply for welfare. During this time, you lose your lodgings due to nonpayment of rent, and then you can’t apply for welfare because you have no permanent address or phone number.
Anybody want to consider what it’s like to live at the Salvation Army hostel? No, you don’t want to consider it, even for a second. Trust me.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t offended by your comment (not in an angry way, at least ;)). I was going for the lighthearted approach. I can empathize with your husband’s wish to move on. No issues there.
Low wages suck. Really they do. I don’t see how people are expected to live on $7.22/hr. In any case, I wish the two of you the best of luck and hope that any humor you can find in life eases your frustrations.
You know, this does seem to be a Canadian phenomenon. If fired, you get severance to make up for lost wages. This seems to be kind of rewarding people for incompetence/bad behaviour.
If you quit, you get nothing. If you’re forced to quit, you get nothing. I’m actually lucky that I quit due to harassment, because I’m able to get Employment Insurance, which I normally wouldn’t have gotten if I just upped and quit.
Yes, I would like to join the pity party too sigh… Are there any of those worms you mentioned left?
That kind of thing seemed rampant in my former company. I know people who were blatantly breaking the law, who lost the company thousands of dollars, and who even showed up to work drunk and still kept their jobs. Oh yeah…and let’s not forget the guy who was sexually harrassing me, other employees, and customers. He got promoted.
I was laid off over 5 months ago, and have not been able to find anything. I have almost 4 years experience and a license and a certification for what I do (which most people in my field do not have, BTW). Makes me want to hurl when I think that the type of people mentioned above still have their jobs.
I too recently got turned down for a job that I was more than qualified for (at least I think I was…they haven’t had the courtesy to call or even send a rejection letter after three interviews). I am down to my last unemployment check, and don’t know what the hell I’ll do. Maybe change my name to Quasimodo and go find a nice bell tower to live in.
Hope you have better luck that I have had finding something. But in the meantime, I empathize!
I sympathize - my bitchy former co-worker is still working at the place I quit. In fact, she was promoted from admin. assistant to a similar position they made up for her two days after I turned in my notice, even though she’d been written up on numerous occaisions for her attitude, rudeness and violent temper as well as her lack of attention to detail and poor working habits. Just goes to show ya who gets rewarded in the corporate culture. I’m pretty sure she’s still there because she’s cute and for some reason, most of the male attorneys there seem to think it’s adorable when she’s a huge bitch to them. She lets them grab her ass at work and work functions, too, which I find absolutely disgusting.
I had a thread once in the Pit related to not getting hired and interviewing with idiots.
Having come out of a huge huge depression related to not working in my original field and in my next chosen field, I just assumed I am unhireable. I am now too old (50) to get many jobs so I’ll just make my own the best I can. Thank the gods, my wife has a great job with bennies and bonuses etc. I do what I can when I can. Went back to being an antique dealer again, full time (talk about counter culture lifestyles) and doing small catering. It keeps me fairly sane and undepressed.
My view is that a lot of us will never find work in our chosen fields ever again. We may even retrain at a lower pay scale and work in something we don’t like. Somewhere CEO’s are making Millions just playing golf with other CEO’s making Millions talking about how to off shore more jobs to make more money to make a better bonus. We will be the ones offering Mr. CEO a cold beer in the clubhouse with a smile and a nametag.
What can we do about it? Nothing, because we won’t win. I just hope my kids will get good enough jobs in work that is fun for them and make enough to have a pretty good life. I’m not fatalistic, I’m being pragmatic.
And God Save the Bank where my wife works and smote all the others (please)
Welcome to the party, cherry and overlyverbose. I think we have some nice, juicy worms left.
It really seems like a lifelong, uphill battle. I don’t get too down about it too often, but sometimes it just overwhelms me, how difficult it can be to make a living to get your basic food, clothing, and shelter.
When I think about it, I think that the next generation (kids in school now) are going to have it even tougher. They’re facing jobs that require a four-year degree as a bare minimum, and getting that degree usually costs them $50 000 worth of student loan debt. And the wages aren’t keeping pace with this kind of debt load at all - my wage now is the same as when I started in the secretarial field eight years ago.
Before I was, I lived down in Austin. There were so few jobs down there that The Cody and I had to move 1,200m to MI and move in with my dad so we wouldn’t be homeless. Happily, he found a good manufacturing job (he glues paper together for $14/hr, working 48+ hours a week with sweet benifits), and can transfer within the company back down to TX (sadly, making only $9/hr, no likely overtime, but who cares - I’ll be back in Austin!).
Anyway.
I had a friend in TX who worked on government computer for something like 5 years. He got a transfer from Houston to Austin to work for Dell, only to be laid off in the Great Dell Layoffs a few months later. Nowhere he was qualified to work at was hiring, and every place that WAS hiring, he was “too experienced” for. Couldn’t even get hired at McDonald’s. So, I loathe the “you’re too experienced for this job” bullshit.
I also hate the “you need experience” “where do I get experience?” “not here” bullshit. Gah.
Jobs suck. This is why I’m gonna breed reptiles. Starting next year.
I’m pretty sure no one hates work more than me. You know whats more depressing than being unemployed? Being employed.
My company flies me to freakin Europe for months at a time to sort through millions of rows of data of crap in some language I don’t understand. Yeah…that’s what I got a degree in engineering and an MBA for. To sort shit. I work with a bunch of MIT geeks who pat themselves on the back over how smart they are. If you bitches are so fucking smart why aren’t you designing robots and Mars landers and shit?
Whooo that must be so exciting working in Europe people say. Yeah…European office parks and airports are so much more interesting than the ones you find in New Jersey. I love putting in a 12 hour day and coming home to hotel room cable and restaurant.
Now you’ll excuse me but my former CEO is throwing a little party to celebrate his selling out to another company. I have to go and pretend like I don’t want to bash him across the face with another coworker.
Not quite as bad as the previous story, but last Saturday I had a customer lecture me and my manager about how all the evils in the world are caused by those damn religious people. Particularly Catholics. They’re always offensive. And the the Native Americans were really peaceful and nature-loving and never hurt anyone until those damn Catholics got close. And how it’s great that she’s not judgemental and angry because she’s not one of those damn religious people, who should all burn in hell.
I’m becoming Catholic.
My manager stood beside me and agreed with her every word. I was too shocked to say anything. What I should have done was say, “Oh, I’m sorry for offending you. I’ll try not to accidentally spill religion on you next time you come in.”
I wanted to correct all of her historical innacuracies, too.
I know it wasn’t that bad, but I was really shaken. She was so incredibly angry and misinformed at the same time. I don’t argue with customers, or proselytize them, and it would be really nice if they’d return the favour.
