It’s easy man. When the money runs out. When you go to pay the bills, and realize that you don’t have money in your bank account for those bills, you start looking at how you can reduce some of those bills.
Shit, I know for a fact that an experienced willing to work person can go to her state’s employment office and be repeatedly told to “Go On Welfare.”
Not that I’m bitter about it or anything. But that hardly seems like the government encouraging people to work.
Then maybe it is time for them to move. I grew up in depressed small towns where I could not even get a McJob; I didn’t get my first job until the age of 22 for this reason, because there is very little entry-level desk work and I do poorly at customer service jobs. Which is why I moved to the city. It was not easy for me to move and I don’t even have kids, or own any property, or have a lot of financial ties and debt (actually, any ties or debt). However, I was able to get a job within a month of arrival (not a well-paying one, but more than the zero that I was pulling in) and every job I’ve had since then has been higher-paying and more satisfying than the last. If I would have stayed in the small town, chances are that I would either have not found a job and been forced to move into my parents’ basement or found something really shitty without any upward mobility. Moving is a hard decision to make, but often it’s the right one, and it CAN be swung for most people, even if Junior will have to leave his school and the family has to move into a smaller house or an apartment.
And while it’s true that often entry-level positions pay less than unemployment benefits, quite often they can lead to better-paying positions that you have to work up to. When I started my current job as a temp worker I was only making $20 a month more than I was on unemployment, and I seriously considered not taking it so I could have more time to find a better-paying job. I eventually did take it, and wound up getting hired on as a regular employee, and now I make way way more than I did on unemployment or any of my other jobs. Maybe that’s not true for McDonald’s, but it can be true for other jobs. Unemployment does not last forever, and most jobs have at least some upward mobility that must be strived for.
Oh, believe me, the government doesn’t encourage people to work. My dad is a welfare caseworker and he has had to counsel people out of looking for work because nine times out of ten it means a lower quality of life for them. These are people who want to work, who want to make more money and not just live off the system, but who will lose their Medicare, food stamps, or free bus passes if they do. It’s totally enraging and makes me want to punch the computer screen whenever I think about it. I have my own theories about how the welfare system is being used to enforce the broken American capitalist system, but I’ll save that for another thread.
Maybe most of us could agree on this: if you do decide to hold out for a better job instead of taking something for less money or that’s hard, demeaning or inconvenient, and you rack up 40 grand in credit card bills on anything besides absolutely unavoidable expenses like medical emergencies or the effin’ roof blowing off, you have to pay it back, not declare bankruptcy.
I have paid my credit cards off to the tune of half that, TWICE, working low-wage and service-type jobs. I had to eat a lot of rice and potatoes. I had to do without cable television, stylish clothes, and a lot of other little luxuries. I know it’s a case by case judgment call, but a lot of people don’t seem to be willing to step up to the plate and take responsibility, tighten their belts and make sacrifices, and these are the same damned people who look down their noses at me, assuming I am just too dumb to game the system the way they do. It makes me sick.
No offense even sven, but I seem to recall a thread where you were whining about not being able to pay the bills, or buy groceries, and when someone pointed out that you had twenty grand in the bank, you insisted that you had to “save” it for your dream to make a movie.
And you know what? If that’s what you want to do, that’s fine. I just find your position now to be hypocritical, in that light.
That would be correct if I was bitching about them whining about their lives. But I’m not. Hey, go on and whine. That means, you, too, who hasn’t been exactly mum about her finances. I know life sucks when you work shit jobs. I know life sucks when your broke. If you want to complain, I’m all for it.
It’s when you start spending piles of money you don’t have that I get a little grumpy. I made a promise to myself long ago to live within my means. To not have more money coming out than was coming in. And especially not to get in to debt with day to day living expenses. This has not been an easy promise to keep, and the temptation has been there to start spending more money than I was bringing home. If I’d lived like these guys I’d be out my money and 20k in debt within a year. But I didn’t. And now I am able to do the things that i want to with my life. After I get back from the Peace Corps, I’m going to spend a year travelling around the world with my savings. I think that was worth a couple years working at Denny’s and living in shacks- even if at the time I would have used some colorful language to describe my life.
I’ll second this one. I had a boss once who was interfering for a professional position, and received an application and resume from a qualified applicant who was currently working at Taco Bell.
She (the boss) simply couldn’t get over that. She ultimately refused to even interview the person because “any professional who would take a job at Taco Bell was clearly not someone who would be suitable for the position.”
A very snobbish attitude, to say the least, but in this case, a short-term fast-food job potentially cost that person a well-paying ($70K) job in their field.
(This was for a government job, BTW, that required an application that specifically directed the applicant to list ALL jobs, so the applicant couldn’t just leave out her recent stint at Taco Bell.)
Isn’t that a violation of the anti-discrimination laws?
I was under the impression that job history is the only valid reason to discriminate against someone. And I mean that neutrally here–like the only way you can legally evaluate someone is on their work history. I could be wrong.
That should have been, "I had a boss once who was interviewing…
No, no, you had it right the first time.
I agree with this in a way. But honestly, if I finish a MBBS, there’d be no way in hell I’d be working at McDees, that’s probably from the shame of not getting a job out of a 99+% employment career. I think I’d rather pretend I didn’t want a job. Of course, if that caused us to go into debt, I don’t know.
I have never understood credit cards, and probably never will. I don’t believe that you should ever live beyond your means. Sometimes, this may be unavoidable (sudden medical costs are one I can think of right now). It’s always good to prepare for anything, and sometimes that requires sacrifice. Speaking of this…
[anecdote]
A: “So I’m getting a visa.”
B: “A credit card? Or a visa debit?”
A: “a credit card.”
B: “Why don’t you just get a visa debit? It works just like a Visa, but the money comes from your debit account.”
A: “No way. That would require spending my own money.”
And they were entirely serious. I also had an old roommate who got a credit card to get herself out of debt. I could’ve sworn spending money that wasn’t yours is what got you into debt in the first place.
[/anecdote]
On the other side of the fence, some people need to learn that minimum wage jobs aren’t the best for them. My partner was recently fired from a minimum wage job, which I had been telling him to leave for a while. He wanted to go get another job at another branch. Thankfully, he decided against it, applied for one pre-grad job and was successful! Now he has an almost guaranteed job after graduation, a better paying job in the mean-time, and some experience (which is an incredible opportunity considering his career is in the I.T. industry).
Funny then how I worked 40+ hours a week delivering pizzas, while concurrently taking classes in Engineering school as a full-time student. Almost all fast food needs people to close, after all, and there are the weekends. I graduated in the top 25% of my class too. I suppose I could have done better if I hadn’t been working so much, but oh well, life is tradeoffs. I have no regrets.
It’s not that hard. One would be amazed at what one can really do if one needs to. I think a lot of people don’t lack the energy, smarts, or multitasking - they lack the confidence in themselves and the self-discipline to push until it hurts, and then some. They never had a good example, or never truly hit rock-bottom and bounced back.
Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and swallow your pride. My father has a PhD in Chemical Engineering; my mother has a BA in Education. When they first moved to the States, my mom worked at the cleaners and at Dunkin’ Donuts. Later, between jobs, my dad sold watches at the local flea market. I never really appreciated until recently how difficult it must have been for them to do this. And yet, they did. It’s a choice between preserving your pride and supporting your family.
Of course, if you don’t have a family, then I really think it’s up to you (generic you), and I’m not going to judge - hell, I don’t even know what I would do in such a situation.
Just curious if you feel as generous about people who raise their kids on welfare because they can’t get a job that pays more than their benefits?
Unemployment benefits are a form of insurance that pays people who lose their job and are unable to find another one. Perhaps not legally, but ethically it is like insurance fraud to game the system like that–find a job and turn it down. With auto insurance, if you don’t drive carefully, your rates go up. They should find some way to do that to UI recipients.
I’m with those who say take the job you can get. Work nights & weekends. Work part-time so you can still interview. Be such a good d— worker that they will hire you even though they suspect you won’t stay. Ask yourself, would I be willing to pay for everyone else to make the choices I’m making?
What about fast food though? I have to agree with the OP somewhat, seems like there ARE a lot of people too good to work some jobs. I have a hard time imagining anyplace without available fast food jobs.
Yes, they suck and no people with a good education and skills shouldn’t “have” to do them, but desparate times and all that…
As I understand it, the unemployment office itself does not require that you take a job way below your qualification level. And has been pointed out, many places are reluctant to hire the grossly overqualified, as they know that such people will be out of there in a heartbeat if they get a real job offer.
Again, a lot of it comes down to how long a person anticipates being unemployed. Granted, this is a judgment call and hard to make. But if I anticipated being out of work for two months, but unlikely to be longer, I would not be terribly inclined to take a pay cut in order to dish out fast food, assuming they would hire me in the first place. And yes, I’d use credit cards if necessary to hold on to my house and car.