THREE TIMES in the last TWO days, I have observed and/or participated in a situation where I and other people had to wait while some manager showed up to open a Minute Clinic at a CVS/open a store/ open this, that, the other/whatever because they “overslept.” I don’t care about having to wait, although I do feel bad for the single mother with the sick kids. What I DO care about is that I have been spending most of my waking hours applying for jobs, doing everything I could think of, willing to work for minimum wage and no benefits 12 hours a day by this point, and people who are lucky enough to HAVE jobs in this economy apparently think they are entitled to “oversleep.” And I am a social worker; I am trying to get the jobs that nobody else wants to do! Here I am with a master’s degree, desperately fighting for $11.00/hour jobs that involve things like working with addicts, the homeless population, the terminally ill, severely and persistently mentally ill clients-- how many of these managers who lie around and “oversleep” and make a whole lot more than $11.00 an hour want to do these jobs?? They would RUN RUN RUN from these people!!! All I want is a chance to serve the populations I went to school to work with, and make SOME kind of salary doing it, and I guarantee, if I got that opportunity, I would NOT “oversleep”!!!
Okay, rant over. I just needed to do that. Back to the job search trenches. I’m going to get my CNA cert next, so I can work in nursing homes, and maybe hospice care. ANOTHER job that the oversleeping managers would NOT want to do!!!
I don’t know where you’re located, but where I am, in the midwest, there are definitely minimum wage to lower wage jobs available. I totally sympathize with the frustration of not be able to find a job in the market you got your degree in- around here those are still really hard to come by, though I imagine it depends a lot what your degree is. But not any jobs at all?
You do know that 11.00 an hour is not minimum wage, right?
In most cases, the manager of a CVS is a pharmacist. If you aren’t, that’s one reason he deserves that particular job and you don’t. The person serving you in the minute clinic is probably a nurse practioner. You didn’t mention being one of those, either.
Regardless of whether this is in fact true, which it’s not, 'cause pharmacists in drug stores work in the pharmacy, and can’t tell you where the eyeglass supplies or the ashtrays are, does your remark, somehow, justify the manager of a store opening up late?
Anise, I wish you good luck in finding a great job. And I just wanted to say thanks for your career choice. There are not a lot of people willing to do your job, but it is so necessary. Thanks for that.
Was it the same manager three times? If so, I can totally get behind this rant. If it was 3 different managers, it’s more likely that you just got unlucky.
Never say never, by the way. Even the most dedicated and responsible workers can screw up and be late, and wishing for the manager who opens late to lose his job will get the Karma gods all angry with you when you oversleep.
Everytime I ask myself this question, the answer is usually, “Because they have to wear stupid uniforms and wake up at 6 Am and are forced to put up with customer’s shit and get ordered around and maybe have to clean toilets! and be supervised constantly and can’t take any good Powder Day off to go skiing and have to come up with good excuses for coming in late when hungover* and are probably schedualed to work on Saturdays when college football is playing”…
And I realize, being “retired” is all its cracked to be!
*I brew my own now, I have the time. Never a hangover again! Nothing but pure ingredients.
Hijack: You can still manage it if you manage to get fusel alcohols in it. I fermented a high-alcohol Belgian wit waaaaay too warm and that stuff was nasty for months until they finally ‘aged out’.
Thanks! And no, the CVS manager WASN’T a pharmacist. The nurse practitioner was on time, but it didn’t do her any good, because she had to wait along with the rest of us (as did the pharmacist, actually). The social work case manager jobs do pay $11.00-14 an hour, but at this point, I don’t think I’d care if they really did pay minimum wage. I had to go to the hospital to get an X-ray this morning, and I thought quite wistfully of working there, but without paid experience in a hospital, I absolutely understand that it’s not going to happen. Some people definitely do expect to get jobs they’re not yet qualified for because they don’t have the paid experience in that particular field to back it up (I’ve also heard “but I just graduated with a master’s in social work! I should be able to make at least $50,000 a year to start”! Um, no.)
Yet I do think there’s a big difference between complaining about the gap between all those years of education, all those student loans, and the kind of money that social workers make-- we KNEW what we were getting into when we chose this field, and that’s something which is a problem no matter what the overall economy is like-- and ranting about how impossible it is to find work around here when I’d be happy to work for minimum wage with no benefits in the absolute lowest-prestige and most dangerous type of social work job. And some of them really can be dangerous. However, I think what’s happening here is that we’re talking about a larger social phenomenon. I think we should all rant… maybe we could get a group rant going about employment problems… Every rant is welcome, every rant is good! Every rant is needed in your neighborhood.
Hey, if these jobs are so much easier and make so much more money, why aren’t you applying for any of them to keep you going until a social work spot opens up for you? Since you’re obviously so much better an employee than these losers, you ought to have no problems at all just walking into such a job right off the bat, right?
Because I’d rather work at nursing homes and assisted living centers,if it comes to that, and as soon as I’'ve got my CNA cert, I will. Those jobs pay less than being a manager at CVS. And the work’s harder, and you have to be more qualified. And fewer people want to do it, because wow, do you ever have to get your hands dirty in geriatric CNA work, but frankly, I’d rather do it, because I like older adults, and I think that the work actually means something. . And I think a LOT of people on this board would be a better employee than the ones I’ve posted about, and a LOT of us could do better-- I’m sure that includes you!
Quick Happy Addendum: I had the X-ray and I don’t need to have surgery. So I can do the CNA training program now! It starts in two weeks! Yay!
I’m going to get my CNA cert next, so I can work in nursing homes, and maybe hospice care. ANOTHER job that the oversleeping managers would NOT want to do!!!
And no, the CVS manager WASN’T a pharmacist. The nurse practitioner was on time, but it didn’t do her any good, because she had to wait along with the rest of us (as did the pharmacist, actually). The social work case manager jobs do pay $11.00-14 an hour, but at this point, I don’t think I’d care if they really did pay minimum wage. I had to go to the hospital to get an X-ray this morning, and I thought quite wistfully of working there, but without paid experience in a hospital, I absolutely understand that it’s not going to happen. Some people definitely do expect to get jobs they’re not yet qualified for because they don’t have the paid experience in that particular field to back it up (I’ve also heard “but I just graduated with a master’s in social work! I should be able to make at least $50,000 a year to start”! Um, no.)