You think I’m kidding.
That’s two of the minimum wage jobs I’ll have to get–not two I have been working. (Missed the edit window.)
May I add that if you do have a job, they have you by the balls now.
My SO’s job has cut hours - from the old days with 5-6 days a week and insurance as a full-time employee, to currently “underemploying” everyone so NOBODY has full time, thus no insurance. Plus, they have cut hours so he, and everybody else at his job, is lucky if they get two days a week now.
I had to sign a contract, cutting my pay by 35%! Plus, now I am working MORE than before, and the insinuation was “if you don’t like it, take a hike - there are lots of people who will take your job…”
So yeah, we have work - but are barely existing and the employers know you are stuck. I suppose this is indeed better than nothing, but it sure does feel like we’re getting fucked over nonetheless.
Maybe you could try writing to them and pointing out that they seem to have missed a big chunk of the North American populace. I’m reasonably sure that, whatever it is they are trying to sell, they want to be able to sell it to Canadian English. It wouldn’t be the first time that I see a list of cake ingredients where the flour wasn’t listed because it was so obvious that the writer forgot to put it down.
If you’re serious, there are entry-level service jobs that will pay much more than minimum wage! Bar tending, serving, and pizza delivery are great ways to make quick cash (more money at busy places, of course) and there are usually the most job openings in the fall because students are leaving. My boyfriend makes more delivering pizza 4 nights per week than my father did teaching college and working 60 hour weeks… and while it’s not exactly an easy job, you only have to think about when you’re there.
They’re not selling anything. At least not to you and me. They like to keep what they do low-key but screw it, I don’t work for them anymore and I’m relatively anonymous on here anyway.
What happens is they give you a bunch of search tasks where you fill out forms evaluating the results given by various search engines. Based on what you think the query is looking for, you evaluate how relevant the results are. Sometimes you rate a bunch of results from most helpful to least helpful, sometimes you rate image or video search results, etc.
As far as I can tell they must be contracted by the various big search engines to do this and then those search engine companies use the results to refine their algorithms.
So literacy, internet fluency, and cultural knowledge are important factors. I’m not sure why they would consider English speaking Canadians as undesirable compared to English speaking Americans.
It is contract work. There are no benefits and you have to pay taxes yourself. Maybe there is something in Canadian employment law which complicates things for them. French speaking Canadians, being a unique demographic, may be worth the extra cost while English speaking Canadians aren’t since Americans will suffice for that demographic. Of course, that’s purely speculation on my part.
Kyla I got a temp to perm job this month. With my luck, I’ll be sitting right next to you sipping unemployment martinis next month. It gets to the point where you get a lot of saisfaction in those monthly government reports that say yup, unemployment is still horribly high. Then when unemployment goes down and jobs are created, there is the blinding rage…
That’s a good point; I could certainly try that.
One of my coworkers (another temp worker) makes more as a waitress than she does as a lab tech. And we make a living hourly wage.
Okay, I sent them an email wondering about English Canadian recruiting; this is the response I got back -
I guess that clears that up? 
Might I suggest gov’t work?
I got a BA in Political Science which is one of those “useless” majors. It took awhile (and several civil service tests), but I finally landed an interview as a Clerk Typist 2 for the PA state gov’t.
It’s $13.14/hr. starting, full HMO, life insurance, paid sick/annual/personal, etc. All you’d expect from being a government employee. It’s not where I WANT to be, but it DAMN sure beats any number of low-skill jobs out there. A/C building, friendly co-workers, fair supervisors. Mileage may vary.
The best part: it’ll always be there. Agencies DO occasionally lay-off, but this is almost disgustingly uncommon compared to the private sector.
Your degree sounds like something that could be applied practically in a bureaucratic setting.
I’ve been trying to make the ‘leap’ to the SSA, but no dice, yet. The competition from veterans is even higher than that of state gov’ts. The fact that you are hired partially because of an examination is a plus since it is somewhat based on merit. You still have to do well at an interview, have a decent work history, and show up sober. All of those are things I believe you are capable of doing.
Maybe they have their quota of English Canadians right now. At least you’re on their list now.
It sounds like fascinating work, but I actually grew sick of it pretty quickly. I didn’t quit of course. I persevered until I found real work, but I was happy to give it up.
If it’s just boring, that wouldn’t be a problem for me - I’ve done tons of data entry in my life. Brain off, fingers on. 
Oh, brain is definitely on. What was a pain for me, for example, was when I had to rank results from 1 to 10 (best to worst) and had to write a justification of the position of every item. You’re given typical times for the tasks and if you take to long you may only get paid for the maximum allowed time for that task. Keep in mind that you have to maintain a certain quality level to keep the job. So at times it’s like timed essay questions that may determine whether or not you keep your paying job. :mad: Don’t get me wrong, turning in one poor quality task won’t get you canned, but they do maintain a running quality rating so enough poor tasks and you’re out.
What about people with shitty jobs?
Only jealous of the money they’re making.
Where are you? I just got to DC, also to spend a bazillion dollars on an International Development degree, and I’m surprised to see that this place is crawling in jobs for people like us. You might consider moving out here, it’s the place to be.
Well yeah. It’s easy to be jealous of the paycheck. But personally I think it’s far worse to be in a sucky job you hate, working for a rotation of shitty or abusive boss while the company is going through massive layoffs.
I probably will, eventually. I just submitted two resumes for jobs in DC, so yeah. I actually have to finish up one final class (it’s almost over). I have like, ZERO money right now - I’m seriously not exaggerating at all - so I’m going to have to go to CA to crash with my parents because I can’t even afford to go to DC and hang until I find a job. My plan is:
a. crash with parents in CA.
b. get a temp job.
c. save up a little bit of money.
d. hopefully have a job by this point.
e. move to DC where the jobs (and a good portion of my friends, at this point) are.
There’s also an RPCV job fair in DC in October that I hope I can get to. Lots of federal agencies will be there and I still have my non-competitive hiring eligibility.
Wish me luck.
Well, you’re perfectly welcome to take my job if you want it. You’ll need to be there between 7:45 and 7:50 (any earlier, and they’ll edit your time card for clocking in too early, any later and they’ll bitch about you being late), and ready to hit the ground running because there are three surgeries and a couple of drop-offs for the morning, as well as the morning cleaning, feeding, treatments, etc. You’ll get an hour for lunch, beginning somewhere between 11:30 and 1:00, and what time you go home will vary wildly depending on how badly overbooked the afternoon is, how many walk-ins/emergencies there are, and how effective you are at getting your boss to stop repeating himself and get his ass into the next room. You’ll work a half-day 3 Saturdays a month, and on one of those weekends you’ll have to come back in 3 more times to do kennels. Oh, and you’ll be on emergency call that weekend, so you can’t go more than half an hour from the clinic. Your coworkers will range from relatively sensible but not particularly motivated and prone to long, pointless, boring stories to stupid, lazy, snotty, and sure they already know everything.
You can even stay with us for a while till you find a place. When shall I expect you?