I've looked so long that I finally quit looking for a job. - edited

[Rosemary2205]

Can anyone explain to me how that works? I keep hearing this around the internets. People with families, who have homes and apartments and cars and utilities, who claim they have not been able to find a job for years. How exactly does one pay for all those things with no job for years?

Surely many of these folks have some sort of job? Perhaps not at the income they are accostomed to, nor in the career field they dream about ??


Edit to add for the perpetually outraged - yes, of course I know it's rough out there.

Second edit - I am not out of work. I was for 4 years due to recovering from a nearly fatal car accident and finding work was pure hell - over 50 black female with no college in a wheelchair. My sister's family moved here from Michigan - for themselves and for me. - I can understand why someone would have NO income for a short period of time after a job loss but I can't understand having NO income for YEARS unless one is too ill or disabled to work.

[chemp]

1. My Wife lost her job for 2 1/2 years

If I wasn't around to support her and her child she would have lost our home.
That was two years ago. Now she has a job making three times as much as I do!

Karma?

[liberal N proud]

2. Back in the Raygun years, I could not find a full time job for 2 years

You do odd jobs anywhere you can find them. A day hear a week there and if you are lucky, you find someone who will give you work that may last 2 or more months.

[raccoon]

3. I've often wondered that myself. I can only conclude that they have other income

--that of a spouse or SO, or else they make money selling stuff on ebay or engage in some other sort of enterpreneurial work.

How long have you looked, if you don't mind my asking? Are you over 50, by any chance?

I'm sorry this has happened to you. I understand how you feel. If I lost my job, I don't know if I could find another one.

[Rosemary2205]

9. Misunderstanding - I work and have updated my message.

It was not easy to find a job and because of the accident and my disability I truly did not have income for the first 7 months - then dear sister was kind enough to fight for SSDI on my behalf and that of my husband, who was also disabled in the accident.

I added to my edited version, that I understand how someone, through illness or injury might be completely without income for quite some time, but for the able bodied, I don't understand how this would happen. I would think by the time unemployment runs out - which I do believe is 6 months - an able bodied person would be able to obtain some form of income and rearrange their lifestyle to improve their prospects.

[Mandate My Ass]

4. Tomorrow I will be 13 months jobless

I do some under-the-table bartending but am basically living off my 401K since unemployment ran out.

Am now registered at two temp agencies but haven't been placed as of yet. :shrug:

Best of luck to you.

[KillCapitalism]

5. Well, there really are very few jobs out there to be found.

Also, not many that pay a living wage.

In my city the unemployment rate is about 18% easily. It was not always like this, but that changed when the corporatists moved most of our jobs to India, China, Mexico, Vietnam, etc., etc. I remember back in the 60's if you showed up to work in the morning and were laid off from a job, you could have another job by the end of the same day. Noawadays some people really do look for years.

[seabeyond]

8. i think we have the jobs here, it is just they are not livable wage jobs. n/t

[fight4my3sons]

11. thank you for saying this, that is exactly it

My husband lost his job last year. He found a new one with in a month. It pays crap. He works at least 20 hours overtime every week. We still qualify for food stamps, medicaid, and WIC. and yes I do stay at home because day care is too damn expensive for my twins and would eat up almost my whole paycheck so we decided that it would just make sense for me to stay at home until they start kindergarten.

[seabeyond]

12. you are right. by the time you add all to you taking job, and not just daycare

you could be losing money. that is an important thing for a parent of children to look at, when they are on limited imcome. if it really is a benefit for both to work. mostly, it isnt, not to mention the babies..... wink

[Rosemary2205]

15. absolutely

More than one person I know is a single parent and if it wasn't for free daycare with grandma, or aunt, or even ex-mother in law, they would have no choice but to stop working and go on public assistance until the kids were all old enough to be in a full day of school.

My sister and her husband were "fortunate". He was able to adjust his work hours so he left home 10 minutes after sister got home from work - if she hit traffic then he would be late. Both of them made about $12 an hour, neither are college material. The kids are now aged 10 and 14, they have since moved to Georgia and are doing much better here.

[fight4my3sons]

17. my husband and I both have college degrees

I have an MS in Education, he has a BA in Psych

I am not yet certified to teach here because we moved here from NY. I am in the process of taking the certification tests. This state pays considerably less than NY for teachers, in fact I think it is ranked 40th in the country. My husband is going back to school to get his Master's when I go back to work.

[Rosemary2205]

20. I really feel for teachers

Obviously the money is enough for it to be economically worthwhile to pay for all that college, but I really wonder how. I know a few teachers who all make anywhere from $42,000 to $57,000 in Georgia. Most have Masters. - I know legal secretaries with no degree that can type like lightening and make $60,000 - $80,000.

Seems like a lot of expectations on teachers for the amount of money they are paid.

[daveskilt]

71. having taken the praxis in GA and thought about being a teachere there...

that is one crazy place to try and be a teacher. most states aren't any better but wow the wages suck in GA for teachers.

[Rosemary2205]

114. The wages AND the conditions suck in Georgia for teachers

I am unsure if other places have these problems too, but schools here are expected to get kids with learning or other cognitive disabilites to test at the same level as "normal" (I hate that word) students. When the child doesn't it's the teacher that gets it in the snoot. So out of self defense a huge amount of resourses are spent on getting kids that used to be put into classes tailored to their abilities to test at a "normal" level that the gifted kids are actually the one's being left behind because the teacher nor the school has the resources to challenge them. I think the teachers have no problem with mainstreaming struggling kids but if teachers aren't given the resources to keep order and/or also challenge the other kids it just spells failure all the way around.

[maryf]

130. NCLB

All of that is true all over the country, its called "no child left behind"...or "no child left unfunded", and if you think there's a lack of skilled labor now, wait til the DOE gets through with this generation of no critical thinking, no problem solving skills kids, but they'll have the ability to fill in circles, and maybe regurgitate some "facts"...

[Yupster]

58. Out here we are screaming for workers -- any workers

Every business in town is begging for workers.

Restaurant owners are telling me they are hiring people they would have thrown out of their offices two years ago. Everyone in town who goes to restaurants have noticed the drop in service but we understand the owners are all short of people and the ones they are able to hire are not who they want to hire.

What I don't get is why people who are unemployed for long periods of time don't move to where employers are screaming for workers.

Our problem is the oilfileds have pulled workers from every other job. Teachers have left for oil jobs so the school district is hurting for teachers. So is the city government, and every retail place in town.

http://www.mywesttexas.com/articles/2008/03/28/news/top_stories/midlandunemployment.txt

[daveskilt]

69. I have been so short of nurses that I had to fly them in from the phillipines

I guess some people think wiping arses for a living is beneath them (pun not intended :) )

If I said damn lazy white people thinking they are soooo superior - would that get deleted for being too racist? :evilgrin:

[Lars39]

70. Long hours and too many patients haven't done much to improve the nursing shortage.

[daveskilt]

72. I have nurses making over 100k - still can't find enough

its crazy. the hours and patient ratios would go down if more of them would come in and work. and I could afford to hire more if I didn't have to fly them in - the whiteys are way too good to dress wounds and wipe geriatric arses so I have to get non US labor to come here.

[Mabel Dodge]

102. Wait just a minute....

I think you're making a quick judgment without knowing all the facts. My nice waited two years before getting into nursing school. The problem seems to be not enough people in the field wanting to teach at such a low rate of pay. She's now a nurse and last time I checked as blonde as they come. ;)

[conflictgirl]

90. Here there's a 2 year waiting list for clinicals in the nursing program

Even though I am definitely NOT cut out for nursing, I was going to go into the field anyway because that's where the jobs were, and I would hope I would learn to be able to handle the stress. But there was a 2-year waiting list for clinicals in the nursing programs at the local schools. That appears to be the problem, at least in some areas - it's not that people don't want to go into the field, it's that schools can't accomodate the people who want to do it. Most working adults cannot be on a 2-year waiting list for part of their career training.

[Rosemary2205]

77. ROFL

I was a nurses assistant from age 17-26 in a nursing home. Funny thing. I never felt like I was "wiping asses" for a living. I always thought of how grateful I would be if it was me in that bed, unable to take care of my most basic needs, and someone would come by and help me have a bath, brush my teeth and hair, put a little cream on my feet, keep my buns clean. To be honest, I hated leaving that job but when I moved to Georgia they wanted me to spend $2000 to take the class and get a certificate for taking the class. There was no option to just take a test, or use 9 years of experience as a replacement. Well we moved here because in Michigan we couldn't hardly save up $2000! I found a job at a warehouse making more than the nurse asst made so I stay there until they moved off.

But why people think grung work is beneath them. One thing about poor people, they will do whatever they have to do to keep food on the table and think nothing of it. When richer more educated people hit hard times they seem to be a little pickier.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

85. I was a classic unemployed Ph. D. during the Reagan recession, and here

are some of the things I did as a temp worker--but only through a temp agency, because everyone considered me "overqualified" if I tried to get those jobs directly:

sorted soiled linens in a hospital laundry
washed steel rods in a chemical bath
peered through a microscope all day looking for flaws in copper plating
made sandwiches for airline lunches
packed chemical-smelling baked goods into boxes while standing on a concrete floor
packed K-Tel Records tapes into boxes, standing at a large table while some twerp kept yelling "faster, faster"
packed computer parts into boxes
shaved the extra bits off typewriter platens in an atmosphere full of floating black rubber particles that settled in my skin and made me look as if I had the world's worst case of blackheads by the end of the day
operated a press in a factory that made mylar balloons
operated a press in a factory that made printed circuit boards
spent two weeks filing for a company that had done no filing at all for three months
did inventory for men's clothing shop that sold $600 sweaters (in 1982!)
stood around acting as a security guard for an arena sale of leather coats
sorted return receipts from a product recall
answered the phone at an office that was being shut down (this was before answering machines were common) and countless others
sold lingerie for a nationally known department store over the holidays

I got called an average of 4 days a week. I was not the only educated person in this situation, either. Don't assume that all educated unemployed people are sitting around on their butts moaning. I kept running into educated unemployed people all the time on my temp jobs. But the pay was low and the insecurity was tremendous, because there were so many of us.

[Rosemary2205]

96. You just posted a perfect example of what I'm saying

You WERE employed. You keep saying you were unemployed. Why college people think being employed by the temp agency equals "unemployed" is a mystery to me.

Yes, the pay is low and the insecurity is tremendous. Welcome to my world. It's incredibly misleading to call the jobs educated people don't really want "unemployed" - there are millions of Americans putting a roof over their kids heads every day in those "unemployed" jobs.

[conflictgirl]

98. If you're registered with a temp agency you aren't considered unemployed

Even if you don't ever get called. The temp agency called me exactly once to go interview for a particular temp assignment, which I didn't get. I don't see how I should consider that being "employed".

[Rosemary2205]

101. Now see

I'm wondering how actually "working a temp job" got changed to "registered with a temp agency". I see no point of completely changing the meaning of what I said. Temp work is WORK. It "IS" employment, and Leftcoast called actually working at a Temp job "unemployed". That makes absolutely no sense to me.

I understand there are a few in this thread highly agitated and outraged that some GED totin' person wonders why after YEARS of "unemployment" a person smart enough to have "multiple advanced degrees" can't figure out some way to re-educated or repackage themselves to somehow gain income of some sort. I find that astonishing and quite frankly hard to believe. Surely if us blue collar factory workin' folks can figure out a way to "put food on our family" after 3/4 of the town goes belly up with the factory closes, then the college folks are smart enough to do the same.

This thing about how degreed folks are a victim of their massive intelligence and privilege is completely beyond my understanding - and I suspect often the mantra "unemployed for years" doesn't always mean they had no job at all. Sometimes maybe - there have been poster in this thread who said they were fortunate enough to be able to live off one income or savings while the other partner looked for a job they though would be appropriate - or went back to school to be marketable in another field - or moved and recertified to work elsewhere. This makes sense to me and those are choices I can relate to. I also think there are likely more like Leftcoast who think some forms of paid work are "unemployed" - which IMHO is misleading.

To be honest, it's very frustrating to me that this post has become so contentious. I shouldn't be frustrated though - I guess after this many years on DU I should expect the perpetually outraged to figure out a way to take what is said, twist it just right, and then get all upset over something the post never said to begin with ........ for instance I never said "registering with a Temp agency" is equal it "employed".

[Lydia Leftcoast]

104. No, I was not "employed"

I was basically a day laborer, in the same position as the person who does occasional odd jobs. The longest job lasted three weeks. Most lasted a day or two. Some weeks I didn't get called at all. It was not enough to live on in any sense, not even on a modest level, and I would not have survived without help from relatives. I would have gladly had a steady job as a waitress or a convenience store clerk, just to have a more predictable income, but nobody would hire me for that.

That's "employment" only by the number-fudging standards of the Department of Labor, which is doing its darndest to conceal the REAL unemployment rate in this country.

What we're trying to get through to you is that even people who are WILLING to work "poor people" jobs will be rejected if they try to get one of those jobs. The potential employer will say to their face, as they said to my face, "Don't even bother. You're over-qualified."

You keep telling us that college-educated people "should" be able to get a job. Several people have tried to tell you that your "should" doesn't mean a damn thing in reality. They have offered their personal experiences. They have explained that they tried to do exactly what you suggested and still no luck.

But you've got your head (not your mind) made up on this issue, so forget it.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

115. That's quite a resume.

I've done retail too for a few months, until my boss got in my face and started screaming at me. On the sales floor. There were no customers around, but it was during store hours.

And then I started crying and she yelled at me to "STOP CRYING!!" and I could NOT stop crying. I left after my shift was over and thought "I'm not gonna put up with this crap anymore. I have no dignity left and I might have a stroke if this nasty broad does this again".

I went home and felt like I had post traumatic stress. I crawled into bed and spent a month in bed, unable to face the world. The boss called my house a few times wondering what happened. I did not return the calls because I was terrified of the woman.

After about a month I went back to the store to formally resign. The boss stood there and berated me while I was filling out a form stating why I was quitting. The reason I put for quitting was that my boss did not understand English.

Let's hear it for dysfunctional management -- the American way.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

84. West Texas? There you have your answer.

I'd join the Peace Corps before I'd live in West Texas.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

139. It costs too much money to move, that's why.

And some of us do not see west texas as a desirable place to live.
No culture at all. Yuck. Nothin but rednecks and cowboys.

[Yupster]

165. Yeah we have no culture at all

Maybe you can move down here and be our cultural savior.

We're more than half Hispanic and those Hispanics -- you know those people. No culture at all. If only they had some snobby - bigoted Yankees to come down and show them some proper culture.

[rubberducky]

6. Hubby has a fairly good job.

I had a pretty good savings (gone down a LOT). It`s been 2 years with NO job. Been selling off my "treasures". Depression has damn near killed me. Rough?? You have NO idea, until you are out of work. Good luck! I wish you well, but,God, it is not easy.

[AlCzervik]

7. my friend Trisha had a really shit 2 years, she got laid off twice and then she worked

2 part time jobs, she also moved back in with her parents. Luckily she finally got full time employment but it literally took her 2 full years.

[dysfunctional press]

10. what do people do, and where do they live?

i'm permanently disabled, but my wife is a graphic/web designer in the chicago suburbs...she'll be 50 in september. she left her previous job when the commute went up to 1.5 hours each way after we moved...she temped for awhile, and starts a new permanent full-time position monday. there seems to be no real shortage of jobs in that field in this area.

[onyourleft]

13. We lived off of our savings...

...for 18 months while looking for work. The problem now is that we have no savings to fall back on should this happen again.

[earth mom]

14. Why do all your posts sound like they come from freeperville?

Boy is it obvious that you really have an ax to grind or you just love to stir the pot.

C'mon now. It doesn't matter one flipping iota to you whether people can still afford their homes or their internet service.

You just want to push the rethuglican meme about personal responsibility don't you?


FYI-people that are out of work for extended periods find ways to bring in money. They work under the table, they sell off crap they don't need-ever heard of ebay or craigslist? They might even stoop so low as to sell their plasma. Oh yeah, they are living high on the hog! NOT!


You don't have a goddamn clue how rough it is out there nor do you give a damn-otherwise you wouldn't post a crap OP like this one. :puke:

[Rosemary2205]

16. YEAH!!

:hi:

Hope you are having a WONDERFUL day!! :)

[earth mom]

19. My day was fine until I read your OP.

:puke:

[Rosemary2205]

21. How joyous

The very idea that I, an anonymous poster on a BBS, someone you know virtually nothing about, am powerful enough to ruin your day - well, let me just say that really warms my heart. I had no idea I was that important in this world.

:)

[earth mom]

23. Don't flatter yourself. nt

[LSK]

18. I have wondered the same thing myself and nobody would call me a freeper

At least nobody who has been on DU over a year.

[earth mom]

22. Anyone who wonders why people can't find a job strike me as people without compassion or empathy.

Since you didn't post the OP, I'm not ready to draw the same conclusion about you.

However, it would seem that beyond compassion and empathy, it's also just common sense that there are as many reasons for why someone hasn't found a job as there are ways that the rethuglicans have stuck it to the middle class, working class and poor for the last 30+ years.

Ever read the book "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich? A must read if you want to understand just how much the American worker has been screwed over by the powers that be.

[Rosemary2205]

25. Your conclusions about me are breath itself to me.

I understand being UNABLE to work. I understand the transportation barriers involved in getting from the place we live to the jobs. I understand it being more cost effective to not work. I understand not being able to find full time employment and the hardships of juggling multiple part time jobs. I understand not being able to find a job that pays what one made previously. I understand the hardships involved in changing where or how one lives to accomodate a new reality. I've been through every one of those things and more.

Though I can't personally relate - because I've never made enough income to be able to have much in the way of savings - I do understand the frustration of trying to maintain a lifestyle based on a previous income on a now much lower income and going through one's savings. I even understand that someone might choose to hold out for the preferred job and live off savings instead.

What I do not understand is how a motivated person wanting to work cannot find ANY job of ANY kind for several years. It leaves me wondering if the people who say they have been looking for work so long that they just gave up and quit looking are actually commenting on PREFERRED employment, not ANY employment.

[conflictgirl]

26. Have you ever lived in Michigan?

My husband was out of work for 10 months. In that time he got ONE job offer, for a temp job at less than half the pay of the job he'd previously lost. That was when he'd only been unemployed for 4 months and he (naively) believed that surely something better would be coming down the line if he was patient. Turned out that he didn't get another offer at all for another six months, and when he did finally get something it paid even less than the temp job and still didn't offer benefits. Once you've been unemployed for several months, your odds of getting hired actually become LOWER because the lengthening gap on your resume looks suspect - nevermind the fact that you've been looking for work that whole time and just need to get a job.

Here in MI there are a lot of people who cannot find a job of any kind for several years. I applied for seasonal retail jobs at more than 40 places last fall and didn't even get an interview for a single one. I have a college degree and finally got a job after nearly 8 months of looking - and it's part time at Starbucks, which I believe I only got because I knew the manager. Right now I have family watching the kids (grudgingly, and on a very limited basis) which means that I can't work more than about 20 hours a week, because if I have to start paying child care I would be working for less than a dollar an hour after paying the daycare.

We've gotten through some very lean times of extended unemployment mostly by living lean, selling stuff on ebay, doing odd jobs and freelance work. There are many very well-qualified, educated, hard-working adults around here who WANT to be working and can't find jobs. Ironically, around here, the more skills you have, the longer it's going to take you to get a job because you'll be viewed as too overqualified for the low-wage 'grunt' jobs but you'll be competing against the other pool of highly qualified applicants for a limited number of relevant jobs. Unless you had the crystal ball and went into nursing or engineering, being someone in your 30s with some professional work experience and a salary history significantly above minimum wage REALLY limits the number of jobs available to you.

[Rosemary2205]

27. My sister's family had to leave Michigan

They are doing fine in Georgia now. The hardships in moving to find employment are substantial. My brother-in-laws brother is still in Michigan. He is in his 50's and realized he would have to go back to school. Since he's really good with cars and Michigan's economy means people just won't be buying new cars, he decided to get certified and start small on the weekends fixing cars. They bought a little one bay garage. He lost his regular job 2 years ago but the car thing has mushroomed and he has 2 other mechanics and a receptionist. The wife does all the paperwork. It is a tough thing for them and the financial and mental transition from worker bee to owner bee was really challenging. I am not sure if he's part of the evil rich yet, but they are making enough to send the oldest to college - which they did not before at their worker bee jobs.

My other sister, still in Michigan worked for an animal hospital for about $12 an hour and they had to cut back on staff. She hot a certification and joined a couple of professional organizations and now runs her own pet sitting service. It's awful hours and she has to work every single holiday, but she says the money is better than what she made before, even with the tax penalties for being self employed.

I was out of work for 4 years. I was in a nearly fatal car accident and am now physically disabled. I had been very active in charity work previously and managed to get my current job through a contact of a contact of a contact so to speak. Once I started looking it took about 10 months to get this job - for which I am extremely grateful. But I am also working on building my own side business of hand made invitations and note cards. At this point I am only averaging about $300 a month profit on that but it's rolling slow but sure.

My husband's mom was widowed at 35 and did not remarry until 50. She worked 2 waitress jobs on the bus line and also took the bus to the rich side of town and cleaned houses - not for a company. She went house to house in the rich part of town looking to get hired.


Anyways - those are a few ideas to get you started. I know Michigan is rough and it takes a lot of creativity and flexibility to make a living there. Like I said, my sister decided to get out.

[conflictgirl]

29. It's not JUST Michigan, though

I'm very open to moving out of state and my husband and I planned to use our tax refund money to do just that this summer. We started looking into other areas, including Dallas/Fort Worth - where we used to live and which is currently (supposedly) one of the top 5 hottest job markets in the country. I sent out over a hundred resumes so far and was encouraged that at least I was getting some responses. We were planning to go based on that. But then I started looking into it more, and the conditional job offers I was getting were STILL for jobs that paid $10 an hour or less, some with no benefits. And I have a bachelors degree! I have a friend in the same line of work as me (writing/editing) with a degree who lives there and she has gotten a few temp jobs on and off - at about $20/hr, granted - but she has been looking for a full-time job in that field for over 2 years and still hasn't found anything. She told me that even though there were tons of jobs there and the unemployment rate was super low, the jobs that are available are still mostly low wage (unless you're in the healthcare field or oil/gas).

There's another thread going on in this forum right now about making it on $10/hour, and it's definitely NOT limited to Michigan only. If you look at threads like that and what the median household income is in this country, I think there are a lot of us in this boat. It takes creativity and flexibility to make it pretty much anywhere, even if some areas may have a few more opportunities. I really don't believe that there are enough living wage jobs to go around and it's just a matter of being in the right place - which we'd quickly see if everyone moved to the places that have more opportunities. I think for the most part the trend for the future of this country is having multiple income streams to cumulatively reach almost the amount you need to survive.

[Rosemary2205]

35. Like I said

I definitely understand how someone might go quite a few years and not be able to find the preferred job at the preferred wage. It IS criminal what have happened to wages and even a minimal quick search of my posts will show post after post screaming about wages - all of which sink like a rock BTW.

BTW - the best paid household of my extended family has a household income of about $47,000 before taxes - which is the brother in law's brother with the car business. This is 2 people working. The rest of us all live off high 20's (in my case) to low 40's. We are all city or suburban people. We all own a modest home and live frugally. I don't, but most have raised kids on that income. We know people who have it much harder than we do. Granted we all live in a part of town most college people don't want to live and No we don't live in split levels with spa bathrooms, or drive a car with bells and whistles. I don't think there's a kid in my extended family that owns their own computer or ipod or Xbox. We teased my parents about being rich and hitting the big time because they bought a "new" floor model TV and a "new" 3 yr old car in the same year (newest car they ever owned).

I have even more extended family that lives on this type of income in more rural areas. Their blessings and hardships are much different but they manage on this income well enough that the kids aren't starving and the roof don't leak.

As I've said, I do understand how a college person might be upset that they are having trouble finding a job in their preferred field at a preferred salary. Wages have been in a race to the bottom since the 80's. All these factory closures and even the "progressives" (aka Big Dog) were telling us "quit yer whinin' and go back to school - them jobs ain't commin back". Well now it's the college people all upset that they have to demean themselves by bagging groceries or asking "do you want fries with that". But they DO have a JOB. Not the preferred job, but it is a job.

[Lars39]

47. A job that doesn't pay enough for them to pay off 30 or 40,000

in student loans.

[Rosemary2205]

50. certainly not

which is why it's so important to make sure all that money one is spending on college produces a skill that is employable in the current market at the wages necessary. I'm all for education for pure joy of learning (as in not putting a price tag/profit motive on it) but if one chooses to do that, then they may end up well educated, in debt and unemployable.

Look, at my station in life, even the $300 Microsoft Office class in the evenings at the local high school that cuts into the hours one can work at the extra part time job is a hardship that must be weighed against increased earning potential. Expecting people going to college to do the same is reasonable, IMHO and if the kid isn't bright enough to do the research ahead of time, and mom and dad can't either, then it's time to call in the pros.

This is what my brother in law's brother did. They are sending their oldest to college. They considered the kid's talents and interests and starting in the summer after his sophomore year of high school sent him to shadow someone doing what the child thought he might like to do. This they did on their own, not through public school. In the end, this child decided what he would love more than anything is save blighted neighborhoods. He'll end up having a basic business/accounting degree but he is already a certified contractor and has already started rehabbing houses to earn money for school.

The old addage, something to fall back on, is just as important now as it was then.

[Lars39]

51. Shouldn't make the assumption that they chose an unemployable

career.

[Rosemary2205]

52. some do, some don't

some are employable but lack networking skills or choose to limit their prospects or whatever. Some are employable but got a degree in something with 1000 new jobs and 8000 new graduates. But no matter how you slice it, if one goes 2 years or more actively looking for employment, willing to take anything just to pay the rent and can't find any job of any kind whatsoever then there's more going on than just a slow economy. I can appreciate that someone might choose to be picky on what kind of job they will consider for a variety of reasons, and the mantra "there are just not very many jobs in my field paying what I want" may certainly be true. But "there are just no jobs period" - that I don't see. Hell, I know people working 2 or 3 jobs, lose one and within a week have another. I know quite a few people in their 50's who live in those pay by the week efficiency lodges who've never had less than 2 jobs.

We have PLENTY of jobs.

Now, jobs that pay for a $200,000 to 500,000 house with money left over for 401K's, IRA's, 2 SUV payments, early college savings and dermatology appointments for the kids, and vacations to exotic locales - that is another thing.

[conflictgirl]

87. Its NOT about a "preferred" job

Fuck that, I'm getting too angry over this. It took me EIGHT MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!! to get minimum wage 20 hours a week at fucking Starbucks! It's not like I was holding out for a job in my field! I was applying at temp agencies, applying for fast food, applying for Merry Maids, applying for secretarial work (which I actually absolutely hate - I would almost rather be cleaning offices than answering phones for some executive).

There were NO JOB OFFERS, period. It's not about fucking pride or stubborn refusal not to work in my preferred field.

If you were a manager of a cleaning service, who would you rather hire: the person with no cleaning experience, a bachelor's degree and their last job paid $15 an hour, or the person with cleaning experience and a solid history of low-wage jobs who never made more than $7/hr? Don't hand me any bullshit and say you'd rather the hire the person with the degree and the unrelated work experience, because that doesn't even make sense. How many times do I have to say it - it's not about stubbornness!

When I was in high school, I worked at McDonalds. I grew up in Saginaw, one of the towns near Flint that was similarly affected by massive job cuts and plant closures at GM. I had guys in their late 40s who had been making $20/hour at GM for 25 years who were so desperate for work that they were applying at McDonalds. You know how many of them even got interviewed? ZERO. I once asked about why none of these laid-off GM guys were getting hired, since they had families to support, and why they only hired high school kids with no work experience at all instead. My manager actually said that they *preferred* to hire the high school kids because the laid-off GM guys were way overqualified.

When I couldn't even get a single interview after turning in applications at more than 40 places that had signs saying they were hiring seasonal retail help, I asked a friend of mine who worked at one of the stores why I wasn't getting interviews. She said that since my resume/application says that my work experience is freelance writing and my last wage was $15/hr, and with a college degree, I probably looked way overqualified. She recommended that I leave off all of my work experience AND my degree and that I pretend I'd just been staying home with my kids instead. I tried that at a couple more places, but by that point most places were done with their seasonal hiring.

Don't hand me that shit that people just can't find a job 'in their preferred field at their preferred salary'. The truth is that if you look too overqualified it can be hard to get ANY job at ANY salary, and the longer you're out of work, the more reluctant employers are to hire you because they assume there's something wrong with you.

[Rosemary2205]

99. 8 months is quite different than 2 or 3 or 15 years.

I can understand a rough patch when the job market changes and I certainly understand and agree an employer hoping for a burger flipper that will stay around awhile isn't going to grab a PhD first thing. My question has more to do with people who've been out of work for YEARS and haven't been able to figure out how to make some sort of adjustment in their marketability to bring some sort of income home.

like you said, at some point it became obvious to you that you needed to "downsize" your resume for the kind of jobs you were looking for as your "tide me over" while you looked for something more suitable to your skills and education. That is what I would expect someone to do. You were smart enough to make an adjustment long before it got to be YEARS with no income. On the flip side, someone up thread said they worked a lot of temp jobs but considered that to be "unemployed" - which explains why someone would say they were "unemployed" for YEARS.

This is what I want to know. Are these people REALLY unemployed for YEARS - and if so, how on earth do they manage with NO income. Or have they figured out another way to earn a living but consider that to be "unemployed" because it isn't the type of job they were educated for, or had before.

Someone smart enough to get through college that can't figure out some way to earn some sort of income after 2, 3 or 15 years is astonishing to me and I'm finding it rather hard to believe.

[conflictgirl]

100. But I'm going to default on my loans

At the amount I'm making, I can't afford to make my student loan payments and still buy gas to get back and forth to work. Honestly although this income is *something* it won't even keep me from defaulting on my student loans.

And no, it didn't become obvious to me that I had to downsize my resume - I asked someone why I wasn't getting interviews and that was what they suggested. If they hadn't suggested that, I might not have ever thought of it. And I don't think downsizing my skills was responsible for getting a job - I believe, 100%, that the reason I got my current part-time minimum wage job was because I knew the manager and they happened to be opening a new store. (I'd previously applied at the store he worked at and didn't get called because they didn't have openings.)

I'm going to humor you and assume you're genuinely asking a question here, rather than just sitting in judgment over the long-term unemployed. And my answer is this: no one is saying that they're not finding some way to earn sort of income. But occasionally doing some under-the-table work for a friend or a combination of being supported by a spouse/scaling way back on expenses is not what most people consider "employed". I am sure that most find some little ways to earn money here or there at irregular intervals, but it's not the same as having a job. The problem with your basic question is assuming that unemployed = no income.

[Rosemary2205]

103. My point of view is the polar opposite.

At my station in life, part time at minimum wage IS employed. And people in my station in life have no choice but to "find some little ways to earn money here or there at irregular intervals". Down here we DO call that "having a job".

I'm accused of not knowing anything about the "real world". Well duh. Obviously I don't know much about the "real world" of multiple advanced degrees. Seems to me that would be why I asked the question I did in the OP.

From what I see the answer to my question is 2 fold -

1. Some college people really do feel like victims of their own intelligence and privilege. Some don't, adapt and move on.

2. Some college people have a view that the kind of work that put a roof over my head all my life isn't really "a job" and so tell me they are unemployed, when IMHO they are - just not employed in the manner they are accustomed to.

[conflictgirl]

106. $600 a month is indeed employment but it's not enough and that's what I'm arguing

And I made sure I made it clear that it is still worth doing, but it is NOT enough to live on or support a family on. It's not like I want to have a McMansion and a Mercedes in the driveway. Due to my husband's job loss last year and subsequent significantly down-scaled wages, we have a $400 monthly shortfall in meeting our fixed expenses. That's not counting my $500 in monthly student loan payments for my single undergraduate degree (no multiple advanced degrees here), so the total I need to make is $900. If I'm only making $600, thats obviously a shortfall. How is that saying that I'm not employed in the manner to which I'm accustomed or that I'm a victim of my own intelligence or privilege (non existent privilege since I'm a first generation college grad)? I need to make about a measly $12K a year or so and can't find it. I really fail to see how that makes me in any way unreasonable. Yes I am technically employed, but I am so significantly underemployed that I'm facing this choice: should I use my earnings to help my husband pay the mortgage to avoid losing our home, or should I pay my student loans so that I won't hurt my chances to get better jobs? When you default on your student loans it is a very huge deal, especially in this day and age of credit and background checks. Either way the fact remains that there is a shortfall in my family's fixed expenses and I need to contribute what is really a very small amount of income and can't find a job to even pay that amount. I mean, seriously - for someone with a bachelor's degree, being unable to find a job paying just $12K a year IS a very big problem, and I don't get why you can't see that.

[Rosemary2205]

111. Huh?

Where did you get the idea "I can't see that". Geez, Of course I see that. I did even from before the original OP!! Good heavens. Living at that level isn't any fun for ANYONE - not just folks with degrees - but of course people used to a higher stardard are going to be in shock a lot more than someone used to living like that. I have no idea where you got the notion I think it's all roses and sunshine for a college person live at my level. I expect it would be highly stressful even for a short time.

My question was are these people REALLY unemployed for that long and if so how in the world do they manage.

UNDEREMPLOYED was never part of my OP at all except in the sense that some people saying they were "unemployed" for years when they were actually "underemployed". I think your beef might be with them. Not with me. Now what is the point of being all outraged when they obvious did have some sort of work and obviously did make some sort of adjustment to their lifestyle to do what they could for themselves? What is the point of going off about "substance abuse" (huh?) and "you insulted my education because I refuse to acknowledge if/then" blah blah - Why not just simply say "no we misspoke - we meant underemployed not unemployed" Look at the folks in this thread all upset because I asked why a college person can't find some sort of avenue to earn income after being "out of work" for YEARS. - Low and behold every one of them DID work and insist on calling the work me and mine to every day not "real" work.

I'm not real sure, me being so stupid and all, but I'm wondering if maybe it's me that's being insulted?

Anyways, somehow you did misunderstand me. No where did I say low wage work was easy or preferable for anyone, and I really do feel for people who expected it to be easier and ended up in the same boat as me after all.

[raccoon]

158. I don't believe there are anywhere NEAR enough living wage jobs

to go around.

"I think for the most part the trend for the future of this country is having multiple income streams to cumulatively reach almost the amount you need to survive. "

Or else drastically scale back one's lifestyle and expectations. I wonder if boarding houses will come back into vogue.

[Yupster]

59. Lots of former Michiganers down here

too in West Texas.

Lots of companies pleading for workers here. Lots of workers looking for jobs there. Pretty good match.

[Rosemary2205]

81. I feel sorry for native Georgians.

At least here in Atlanta - they've been run over by "carpetbaggers" and "damn yankees". LOL

[pitohui]

65. rosemary you just don't know the real world

i knew people in the greater new orleans area who never held a job until after katrina, so we're talking about basically over 20 years from the reagon "economic miracle" which destroyed louisiana to the storm which wiped out so many homes and businesses that finally everyone who wanted to work could find something to do in the rebuilding

i had a friend who never got his first real job until he was over age 45

that's just the way it is in this economic environment in some areas

you don't chose your class or where you were born or your family background

i'm glad you were able to have the choice of taking "any job," but plenty of bosses won't give just "any job" to just any person, and esp. not an educated articulate person because they figure it means trouble -- over qualified is a word that employers weren't embarrassed to use right to your face around here

you can't take "any job" if you're not offered "any job"

ignorance is bliss, you should get on your knees every day and thank god you have the luxury to be so ignorant as to fantasize that everyone out there will be offered some job

[OnyxCollie]

78. Damn straight.

After being unemployed for nearly a year, I was desperate for any job. I had worked at my previous job for over five years. I had just begun graduate school. I applied everywhere. I even applied to a mink farm. The place looked like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The owner was a scary guy in an electric wheelchair with rope tied around his legs. The application he handed me had cat paw prints on it. He didn't hire me.

[Rosemary2205]

79. We aren't talking about the generationally poor here.

we are talking about college educated people who are out of work for years at a time. I'm simply wanting to know how a person survives in that situation and why it takes so long for them to figure out how to improve their prospects.

I am at a MUCH lower economic level. If I miss a couple weeks of income I lose everything. Not a chance in hell I could go 2 or more years with no income and still have my house and car etc. Everyone I hang around lives the same way. We all live on the edge and are all always looking for the next work opportunity, even if it means creating it ourselves by going door to door. No one, I mean no one I spend a substantial amount of time with feels entitled to a job as if it is some sort of right and if someone does not offer them a job then they are victims.

I know some people will not be "offered" jobs. Some people will have to create their own job because their temperment, or education, or background makes them difficult to employ. Not everyone is cut out to flip hamburgers nor is everyone cut out to be CEO's. Not every job is right for just every person and that is not anything close to what I said or what I meant. But good heavens, if a college educated person can't figure out SOME way to EARN a living in THIS country then that is a problem.

[FlaGranny]

109. Rosemary, I'm sitting

here practically laughing. Someone actually said you don't understand the real world. You ARE the real world. I've wondered myself why people who can't find a job just don't make their own job. My husband used to work for others, then years ago we moved here and he put an ad in the newspaper, "knocked on doors," etc., and has been self employed ever since. He washes windows, scrubs floors, cleans bathrooms, paints, weeks gardens, whatever he has to do. I have helped him off an on over the years. We still both work full time and are nearing 70. We are both high school graduates, no college. We've worked hard our entire lives, and sent 2 kids to college. One of our boys worked as a window washer for his dad. The other one worked as a stable boy, mucking stalls and grooming horses. Neither one had a "job" but they made their own way. They chose fields of study that put them into excellent jobs and are now well-paid professionals - something their parents didn't manage.

You and I REALLY must find out about the REAL world. :-)

[Rosemary2205]

113. In an alternate universe

I'm executive vice president in charge of paper clips and my job is so massively important that they don't even bother with W-2's, they just kneel before me with thousands of gold bars. Invisible fairies wash my car, clean my toilets, iron my sheets and take out the trash. By some magical way, my shoes polish themselves out in the hall while I relax with an imported beverage inside my palacial penthouse. The beverage, knowing I would want to drink it, found it's own way across the pond and into the correct shelf of the cooler made for such things (cooler also made by fairies).


:)










(me thinks I will regret this post in the morning!)

[LostinVA]

54. I wonder the same thing

Of course, in the last few months, I've been called a Freeper a couple times, a troll, a newbie (WTF?), and once Fred Phelps.

[Rosemary2205]

80. Fred Phelps? LOL

I've been told to go back to "RimJob" (huh??) The worst I've been called is "Zell". I'll have to try harder! LOL

:)

[kineneb]

24. ok, folks, here is my take

1. Hubby just died. We were living on his SSDI. As of right now, I have NO, repeat NO "legit" income. I get a bit of money from my parents, but not enough to live on.

2. Here in rural CA, I qualify for CMSP (medical coverage). Now CMSP has an cutoff of $600!! income (gross), above which one pays a "share of cost" down to that sum. This functionally means, if I want medical coverage, I cannot earn over $600 before taxes, or I pay for any medical expenses out of pocket. Period. This sum was set in 1997, and has not been adjusted since. I am not stable enough to work full time, and part time has no medical benefits.

3. My mental health disability case is still pending in appeal. I take serious psych meds (which I currently get free from the companies), and I am in therap. I will need to take some kind of meds for the rest of my life. If I get SSI disability (I don't qualify for SSDI, 'cause I was so depressed I couldn't work), I will get Medicaid and about $800/month.

This is what some of us cope with, and it is damned gloomy, no matter what happens, from my perspective. I am screwed, no matter what happens.

[daveskilt]

73. really sorry mate

that stinks. and in CA on SSI if you ever have to be in a healthcare facility they set a share of cost there where you get to keep a whopping 49 bucks a month out of your total combined income and they take the rest.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

28. So this is your attitude?

"What I do not understand is how a motivated person wanting to work cannot find ANY job of ANY kind for several years. It leaves me wondering if the people who say they have been looking for work so long that they just gave up and quit looking are actually commenting on PREFERRED employment, not ANY employment."



Well, guess what. Stop blaming the victim.


I am not the first person to tell you, but there are lots of us who are willing and able to work, and cannot find ANY job. I have applied for hundreds of jobs over the course of nearly 15 years. I am not disabled but I am over forty. I have 12 years of college, three college degrees including a doctorate, plus many years of experience and lots of skills. You mentioned legal secretaries. I can type 110 words per minute and have excellent spelling and grammar skills, and cannot find a job even as a legal secretary, which would be at the low end of my skill set, and would definitely not be a challenging job for me. I could do it in my sleep, almost.

I stopped looking for a job, because the stress of looking for a job was as ruinous to my mental health as the stress of my former job was to my physical health.

You can be white, able bodied and highly educated, and unable to find ANY job. There are many hundreds of thousands of highly educated and skilled people out there who cannot find any job at all. The government lies about unemployment statistics. I don't know what the actual unemployment rate is but it is far higher than the government will admit to.

I have those so-called advantages that are not advantages at all. They are disadvantages, as has been pointed out earlier in this thread. The only thing that determines whether a person can get a job or not is WHO THEY KNOW. That's it.

I cannot hold a gun to somebody's head and FORCE them to give me a job.


You're wrong. You just don't know what's going on and you seriously lack compassion or empathy.


When I couldn't find a job when my parents were alive, they told me what a horrible failure I was. They didn't understand the bad economy either. And they were old liberal Democrats. I have no idea what they would have said if they were the typical cruel and heartless "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" Republicans.


Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I decided to stop acting like I was insane. I stopped looking for a paying job. I tried to start a couple of businesses, and they failed too.

[earth mom]

32. Here's something else-The longer you've been without a job, the harder it is to find one.

Employers start thinking there is something wrong with you or that you are a flake or that you're ill.

Been there, done that, never going back. I work for myself and love it!


I'm sorry for what you've gone through and I hope that you find happiness doing whatever it is you love.

That's the key, IMHO. Life is just too damn short to do it any other way. Good luck! :hi:

[maryf]

131. And insults at interviews to boot..

My husband had a decent antique store business and the landlord sold the building with barely any notice to us, we took a humongous loss. We moved out of the area and when he went to find a job at a convenience store, with self-employed for 7 years on his resume, the man wanted to see all the proof of his business and asked him if he'd actually been in jail all that time. My husband actually compiled all the boxes of paper work from the shop and drove back to the interview place and couldn't stomach seeing the man's face again, I couldn't fault him. We lived on my income, plus a little antique dealing on his part for years, now he has to work, as a part time clerk at an antique's store in order for us to keep our house.

[Rosemary2205]

37. Honestly

someone who "has all the advantages" and has not been able to obtain ANY job at all in the last 15 yrs and has 2 failed business has something else going on other than the current struggling job market.

15 years ago the economy was changing for blue collars but was doing pretty dang good for college people. yes, some college people were having to go back for a 2nd degree in a more employable field but they were doing pretty decent. Most of them still are, but a few I know with degrees in abstract type fields are struggling to figure out how to be employable.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

41. "Honestly" if a person is over the age of 50, it's terribly hard to find a

living wage job. I have three friends/relatives who went on interview after interview and could find nothing but part-time work. All of them, in desperation, went on Social Security at 62, even if it meant a lower level of monthly benefits for the whole rest of their life.

I saw the handwriting on the wall with my older friends, which is one reason why I decided to go free-lance.

However, in order to do that, you need a skill that someone will pay for.

[Rosemary2205]

42. I agree

but I might add that "living wage" can be subjective. The highest income I have ever made would never be considered a "living wage" by most people with a college degree. -- but I totally agree, finding the preferred job at the preferred wage to support the preferred lifestyle can be quite a challenge, especially as people get older.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

55. Well, when someone can find only a 20-hour minimum wage job

that's not "living wage" by anyone's imagination.

[Rosemary2205]

75. no it isn't in some places

Certainly if a college educated person can't find anything, anywhere in this whole country, can't figure out any way whatsoever to earn more income than 20 hrs a week at minimum wage, then we have some problems in our colleges when it comes to helping build critical thinking skills.

And we ARE talking about college educated people who say they have gone YEARS with no job of any kind whatsoever. We aren't talking about people born into extreme poverty and live a lifetime in extreme poverty generation after generation and are additionally limited by a poor education.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

82. Please don't insult my friends

I watched their job struggles every step of the way. I saw the hopefulness when a good listing came up, the joy when they got an interview, and the utter despair when they were rejected again. I sat with one friend who counted up 225 rejection letters.

The biggest obstacle was age discrimination or the employer's assumption that they would be "too expensive." They'd say, "I'm willing to work for less," but the employer would reject them anyway. They'd remove all indications of age from their resume, get to the interview stage, have a great phone interview, and then walk into the in-person interview to see obvious distaste on the face of the 30-year-old interviewer at the sight of an older person.

They'd try to get a poor person's job, only to be told that they were "over-qualified."

They'd think about starting a business, but they had no money and no product.

They'd apply for jobs in other states, even fly out to other cities to job hunt and network at their own expense, but nothing.

So they'd take temp jobs, taking orders over the phone for theater tickets or selling clothes in a department store over the holidays or housesitting.

Then when they'd been out of work for a year or two, piling up rejection after rejection, close to suicide on some days, they'd encounter a Rosemary2205-type telling them that there must be something wrong with them if they couldn't find a job in all that time.

The hell with that.

S

[Lars39]

83. ~

:hug:

[conflictgirl]

89. Please tell me where 20 hrs a week at minimum wage IS a living wage

I live in a place that supposedly has one of the lowest costs of living in the entire country. If you made $10/hr here full time and did NOT have children to support, you could make it on that. But even around here, a person without children could not support themselves on part time at minimum wage.

Minimum wage in Michigan is higher than most of the rest of the country right now, $7.15. At 20 hours a week, that works out to $619 a month before taxes (although any taxes taken out would be minimal). The federal minimum wage is $5.85, in which case 20 hours at that rate would only be $502. It's pretty damn hard to make it on $500-600 a month anywhere, but if you know of such a place, please let me know.

[Rosemary2205]

105. I agree with you that $500 a month is "pretty damn hard to make it"

When my husband and I both were disabled in a car accident I had no earned income for more than 4 years. My husband will never earn income again. We had to hire a lawyer to get his SSDI, it took the full 4 years so he had no income at all. After the first year with no income at all, I was approved for SSDI and got $498 a month. I also got medicaid to help with the medical costs. It's pretty inexpensive to live here, but not on that. We had to accept a different living arrangement to make it work, and fortunately for us my sister moved here from Michigan. Sister started with a part time job at Target. Her husband did odd jobs and looked for "real" work and eventually got hired as a shipping manager in Atlanta, on the bus line. We had 8 people in my 2 bedroom house for nearly 5 years. We struggled, we adapted, we moved on. My income was about $500 a month. I had to make enormous changes in my lifestyle to survive on that, but I did. It clearly can be done. If my sister's family had not come here, we would have had to either lose the house or sell it, or arrange to have it rented out - my husband and I split up into different rehab facilities. It would not have been pretty, but we would have survived.



I know more than one person who lives in an efficiency lodge with 2 twin beds in it and got a roommate to share because the best they'll ever do for themselves at this stage in life is a aprt time low wage job. I know a couple others who share an old single wide for the same reason. Still other's rent a room in someone else's house.

You bet your ass $500 a month is hard to live on - But to call part time work "unemployed" is just silly.

[conflictgirl]

107. And the people with kids should do what, exactly?

My family won't babysit, so I either have to pay a sitter or hope the time I need a sitter falls on one of my mother-in-law's two days off each week (which obviously leaves me out of luck the other 5 days of the week). If I pay a sitter, it actually costs more than I earn. I have resorted to leaving my kids home alone with my 10-year-old in charge, which is absolutely terrifying because I don't believe it's safe and am not even sure it's legal, but it's what I sometimes have to do in order to get to work. If I can't even count on people to babysit for me, the odds that any of them would move in with me to share expenses are similarly unlikely.

You can argue all you want about how you were able to live on an extremely low income. My point is that able-bodied, well-educated, willing-to-work adults should never be in a position in which they can only earn $500 a month in the first place!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

61. "Something else going on"????

What the HELL are you implying about me????

Drug abuse? Alcoholism? Life-damaging addictions?

Sorry to disappoint you. I have NONE of those addictions.

I have never done illegal drugs and alcohol makes me ill.
I have never abused legal or illegal drugs.

Come up with some other excuse. You ran out of real excuses long ago.


It must be awfully nice to have ALL the answers :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

You sound like a goddamned sanctimonious Christian, only on the topic of employment, not salvation.

[Rosemary2205]

76. Your leap not mine

The only thing I "implied" is that after a couple of years it is absolutely fair to expect a person smart enough to have advanced degrees to also be smart enough to figure out what the changing employment marketplace is like and hold the critical thinking skills to figure out how to make themselves marketable SOMEPLACE SOMEHOW in this country. If a person with advanced degrees says they have been unable to figure out how to earn an income for over 15 years then yes, I do see a problem there.

Where the "substance abuse" thing came from, I can't tell you. It certainly was not anywhere in my post and how you managed to make that leap is totally beyond comprehension.

No, I don't have all the answers. The one thing I do know is that if a person smart enough to get through college can't figure out how to make a living in this country then our colleges must be in deep shit.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

91. Oh Jeebus. Blame it on the colleges and graduate schools.

So the "one thing you do know" is that our colleges are in "deep shit"? I didn't know you were an expert on the American college system. You got credentials?

Thanks a lot for your "insight". :sarcasm:


You just insulted my twelve years of ass busting in four different schools for three totally different degrees.


Even the community college I went to was difficult. The vocational field I got my degree in is difficult. I was told that out of 200 people who enrolled in court reporting school, 3 would pass the state exam to be licensed and one would actually become a practicing court reporter. I was that 1 out of 200.


You just insulted the private university I got my bachelor's degree from, which is rated #1 in liberal arts colleges west of the Mississippi by US News and World Report. Which may not mean anything at all. :shrug:


And you insulted the law school I went to. The private law school I went to produces outstanding debaters who win nationwide mock trial and moot court competitions. In fact, several of these nationwide legal competitions have been SHUT DOWN permanently because my school's teams won first place for several years in a row, so there was no reason to have the competition.


I worked hard in college, studied hard, thought hard, and sure as hell would have flunked out if I hadn't studied. I placed out of 20 hours of college due to the excellent high school I went to and the college prep courses I took.


My undergraduate major was difficult and so was law school. I made very high scores on IQ tests when I was four and five years old. My scores were that of 1 person out of 1,000 population. That's three standard deviations above normal. I know IQ doesn't measure all forms of intelligence, but it is sometimes helpful in predicting learning ability.



I am just sitting here with my mouth agape. I'm stunned.


Since you have all the answers, why don't you start that employment agency?

[Rosemary2205]

108. I don't believe you.

I just don't. Oh, I believe you have all those degrees from all those prestigious places. I DON'T believe you are incapable of figuring out any way to keep a roof over your head. This claim being made about being "unemployed" for decades is just silly. Obviously you had to earn some sort of income somehow.

The truth is that you are saying the very jobs that raised me and put a roof over my head all my life aren't "real" jobs. THAT is what is utter bullshit.

And for all your education, you were incapable of reading the word "if" in my post. As in "if that is really true" as in "I highly doubt that".

Even a GED totin 'moran' like me understands if/then.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

110. I did not say your jobs are not real jobs.

Any job that pays anything is a job. I was not discriminating on skill level required or wage. That does not mean it's enough to pay the bills.

I've applied for jobs using ALL the skills I have. I have started businesses that failed. I had a successful business where the market dried up after a number of years.

So you don't believe me, go right ahead. I've had lots of recta tell me they didn't believe me when I was telling the honest truth.

That's your problem. I'm telling the truth.

At least my parents finally stopped telling me I was a worthless lazy piece of shit who wasn't looking hard enough for a job. That verbal torture finally stopped.

They died.

They were clueless.

However, all those other people who say that a job is out there for anyone who wants one are still breathing.

People are going to have to live together in communes or move to Venezuela (Chavez has said he may offer sanctuary for economic refugees from the U.S.).

[Rosemary2205]

112. "unemployed"

Your word was "unemployed". My mother kept a roof over my head and obviously you've done the same with what you called "unemployed".

It's insulting to me and to your own self and you should stop it.

No, I don't believe you have been "unemployed" for 15 years. That has to be a lie and it's exactly WHY I posted this thread. Why you choose to tell yourself that - well - you should just stop it. You've had a variety of jobs, of some sort, some of your own creation. Stop calling that "unemployed". You deserve better and so do I and those I love.

Good god, my family has gone door to door in the rich part of town with a lawnmower or ladders and paint brushes or anything else they could think of in the back of a barely running pickup truck to keep the family clothed and fed. We have a running joke amongst the men about the musical magnetic stickers on the doors of the pickup. Today was a roofing job, tomorrow the lawncare, the next day handyman, then next on site car washing, you name it.

Dammit, that is not "one failed business after another". That is WORK. IT IS EMPLOYED. And dammit, I'm going to fight with you all fucking night if I have to until you admit to yourself that you read my post and reacted not to what I actually said but because of this unreasonable definition of "employment" slapped on you unfairly (sounds like from your parents). Dammit, I want you to admit everything you have done for the last 15 years to support yourself IS work. It's "employment" and absolutely no less valuable than PhD of whatever in the penthouse corner office for whatever multizillion dollar corp.

Come on man, you know you want to agree with me! :) LOL

[Manifestor_of_Light]

116. no I do not want to agree with you.

The last time I had a job where I was on a payroll, was in 2000. That is the last time I earned any money. I had a temporary office job for nine days. I was fired because I violated some rule they didn't tell me about.


Before that (around 1998-99) I had three or four jobs ranging from three days to six months in length. All of them drove me nuts and all of them had unreasonable bosses.
Is that good enough for you???


That's all I have had between 1996 and today. I have had to sell a lot of possessions for money.


I can't go outside and do yardwork in the heat, or paint outside, for eight hours a day. Does that make you feel superior??? I can't, but I sure don't qualify as disabled because I have to work inside in air conditioning, due to my allergies and heat intolerance.

I can't do retail because I have edema and can't stand on my feet eight hours a day.

And if you think that makes me a sissy, too bad. I have allergies and I have high blood pressure and allergic asthma. I really don't give a shit what you think at this point.

[Rosemary2205]

117. ROFL

Dude.

Where did I call you a sissy?

LOL

[Manifestor_of_Light]

118. Because you mentioned doing yardwork and such outside.

That's why. Implying that "ya gotta be TOUGH!!!".

<<<<<<<YAWNNNNN>>>>>>>>>>

[Rosemary2205]

119. Unbelievable

simply unbelievable.


Multiple advanced degrees........wow.

Unbelievable.

[daveskilt]

120. you know everyone online has multiple advanced degrees though right?

[Rosemary2205]

124. LOL

there's a country song like that - cracks me up every time I hear it.

"So much cooler online" about a guy living in his mom's basement who's online persona is a jet setting high dollar dude that drives a Mazeratti (sp) and had dozens of girlfriends over at the same time.

In this case, I am not quite sure what to make of it. Do all multiple degreed PhD's think in such unique terms and converse in what to me are odd tangents?

[conflictgirl]

95. You're talking about entrepreneurial skills, not critical thinking skills

Not everyone is an entrepreneur, and schools definitely don't teach those skills. Luckily my particular skill is writing, so I've been able to do some freelance writing - but not everyone knows how to write an article. A lot of people try to go into business for themselves, but as you know the stats for number of businesses that are actually successful is a very small percentage.

I definitely don't remember seeing "Entrepreneurship 101" or "How to Make a Living When Nobody Will Hire You" courses in the four years I spent at my college, but apparently they had them at yours, eh? My college was apparently the rare exception that didn't know it was really supposed to be a vocational school instead, so it taught me things like statistics and how to write logical essays. :rolleyes: They actually DID teach me critical thinking skills, but so far I haven't seen any job postings that are requesting critical essays.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

97. I DID go to vocational school. And I DID run my own business.

And I DID run my own business when I was a court reporter. However, the profession dried up to a great extent and I was suffering from inhuman amounts of stress, which could have killed me eventually, so I closed it down.


I've drafted a business plan and presented it to several parties, including the Small Business Administration. However I had no collateral for a loan.
Fat lot of good those entrepreneurial skills did me.


If there is no money circulating in the economy for non-essentials, in the formerly middle class, no business based on discretionary income will survive, no matter how well run it is.

[pitohui]

66. thanks perragrande, nice post, and much appreciated

i just know too many people in this situation over the years

[Yupster]

122. Are you saying you've been unable to find any job in 15 years?

Are you aware that in some parts of the country there is a huge shortage of labor and employers are screaming for any workers they can get?

Enployers are holding their noses and hiring people they wouldn't have allowed in their businesses two years ago?

Please. Consider moving to where the jobs are. Fifteen years is way too long to wait. Don't make it sixteen.

[Rosemary2205]

125. He's had jobs - said so in another post of this thread

he said every time he got a job his bosses were so abusive it traumatized him to the point he couldn't get out of bed for more than a month. He also can't do anything requiring standing for awhile, nor can he do anything that might set off severe allergies. And he has some sort of problem with regulation of his body temperature because if he does any exercise at all if it's over 70 degrees then he risks getting heat stroke. So I think his physical limitations require him to work indoors and his temperment makes it difficult for him to work for anyone other than himself - and even then he says he tried and didn't make it long term twice. In all sincerity, if a boss yelling at him caused him to take to his bed for month, I can't even imagine what a bankrupt business did to him. I get the sense there's a lot more going on in this case than just being overqualfied for the marketplace.

[raccoon]

159. That's definitely been my experience and my observation too, in the vast

majority of cases:


"The only thing that determines whether a person can get a job or not is WHO THEY KNOW. That's it. "

[Manifestor_of_Light]

160. Shoots down that Horatio Alger myth, doesn't it???

The only reason the Bush family has two nickels to rub together is because of who they know. They certainly didn't earn their college degrees, or have any real skills other than knowing people in high places, like Hitler.

[Yupster]

166. I guess I'm an exception

After college I headed across the country on my own. That was over 30 years ago. Starting in NYC, I ended up in West Texas and I've been here ever since.

I've had many jobs, switched careers three times and have put together a very profitable business.

Never got a job once from anyone I knew.

Ooops. That's not true. I got my first job in NYC at age 15 at Burger King because my mom knew the owner. It paid $ 2.15 an hour. I worked there for a few months after school 2-3 days a week until I got my lifeguard license. Then the world got a lot nicer.

[Juche]

30. You live with family or on savings

Either you live with family, a spouse with a good job or on savings. that seems to be the jist of it.

I'd be happy to work if I could find something. I have sent out over 200 resumes, and I have contacts with around 10 employment placement agencies.

And as someone else said, the unemployment rate is not 5%. If you exclude everyone who gave up, was too intimidated to even try or is underemployed it is going to be alot higher than 5%.

[Rosemary2205]

38. Oh there's probably a huge level of "underemployment".

I have no doubt a lot of highly educated Americans are working well below their potential income or skill level. In some fields and for some with advanced degrees, finding the preferred high paying job likely does take considerable time, substantial networking, some creativity and hard work.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

93. Hugs.

:hug: :grouphug:

[daveskilt]

31. I lost my job last week on friday - I start my new one on Monday and I never even looked

I know that I am very very lucky - in fact my new job pays a lot better.

I have in the past been out of work for a while and always worked while looking at some crap job in the interim. There are always jobs -

I have been a night janitor, youth counselor, dishwasher, seminary teacher, wheelchair van driver, construction worker, customer support monkey, computer tech, coder, insurance clerk, stockroom runner, stadium cleaner, security guard, hotel manager, webmaster, graduate assistant, CEO of a hospital, showhome salesman, full time missionary, taco bell/subway/baskin robbins/generic burger place grease monkey, and was even once reduced to selling those shitty online degrees from DeVry (didn't sell one in my 5 weeks there).

I have been literally up to my neck in feces (20 minutes stuck in a 6 foot deep hole with very slippery sides - don't ask I'm just glad to be 6'3" or I might have drowned in human crap) and have worked more than 24 hours in a row. I have been homeless while in college for a year. I have eaten food from garbage cans because I had to.

I currently am on my churches welfare comittee (volunteer thing) and am amazed at how many people want 'help finding work' only toward the end of the month to show they are trying when they ask the church to pay their rent again for the 20th month in a row.

For the able bodied - there is always work.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

34. "For the able bodied there is always work"

:wtf:

You did not read and comprehend my post immediately above yours, did you???

What planet are you on?

I know of NO guaranteed jobs for the able bodied in the United States.


The only place I know of a guaranteed job is if I left this country and got a job teaching English in another country. There is a demand in many other countries for English teachers. Which might be a lot of fun.

[daveskilt]

68. no no I read your post and completely got your point - I just thought it was bollocks

and I thought I had made that fairly clear, but apparently not bluntly enough.

My own experience is that I have always found work - not very nice work sometimes, but work and a paycheck. As part of my role with my church I help people find jobs - and the ones who want jobs get them. The ones who want handouts get those too, but they don't seem to find work as quickly - they usually think that some jobs are beneath them.

If you are out of work - I sympathize I really do. I just lost my job suddenly last week and it sucks and is demoralizing. but suck it up, get out hustle and you will have a job (even if a crap one while you keep looking) in no time.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

92. I never asked for a handout.

I went to churches and asked them to help me find a job, NOT a handout.

I was helping with their ministry with creative audio-visual packaging of sermons, but they didn't want to pay me to help them spread their message. I decided they weren't serious about spreading their message if they weren't going to pay me something to do it. They were busy asking for donations from the congregation but none of that money would go back out to the congregation for helping THEM.

They refused to help me find a job, so I stopped going to church and stopped attempting to be a Christian.

I did not want to be associated with such cold-hearted people.

Guess they forgot the part about "As you did it to the least of them, so also you did it unto me".

Same thing with my friend. He had the same problem -- three college degrees and lots of skills and talents and they didn't want to pay him either for our joint projects. So we left.

I refuse to associate with Christians as the result of several churches refusing to pay either of us.

[Rosemary2205]

36. I have to tell you.

Not every college person can mentally accept doing grung work after a lifetime of college work. I personally know a couple of people with advanced degrees each in some field that has little hope of them ever getting a job in that field who are really flopping around on what to do with themselves. I don't know what college taught them, but it does not seem to be anything useful for earning a living in the current world. A friend who owns a boarding stable tried to hire one to work around the stable - she was willing to train them from scratch and the pay what what "I" would consider half decent. Certainly not advanced degree pay of course. Instead of the guy being gung ho about finally having some way to earn money, he just pissed and moaned about the bad job market (hello! you HAVE A JOB!!) and about having to lower himself to cleaning up after horses, that she finally had to let him go. I'm definitely not saying every college person has this mindset, certainly not, but a few do. Yes, there is some sort of work for able bodied people, but some able bodied people lack the mindset for "able bodied" work.

[Codeine]

44. I think everyone should do "grunge work" for a while.

Nobody is too good to sweat and toil. Too many people seem to feel like jobs that require a little strenuous physical effort are beneath them because they went to school for a while.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

57. Strenuous physical effort, huh?

You think you're morally superior to office workers?

Well, if I go outside and mow the lawn or pull weeds, for example, if it's 70 degrees or above, I will start getting hot in about ten minutes. I will start throwing up and I have to run inside the house and drink ice water and cool off so I don't throw up from heat exhaustion. I have exercise-induced and allergic asthma.

I went to grade school for 12 years. I went to college for 12 years and earned three degrees. I can't find ANY job, and I can type over 100 words a minute, for that matter.

So what would you do with those of us who can't be professional yard workers? You think everybody should be a farmhand, huh? To hell with you.

[WillowTree]

33. I was out of the job market for six years.

The first few I couldn't work outside the home due to family circumstances and I subsequently looked for work for almost three years. Throughout the six years I was living and paying my bills on my savings, though as soon as I was able to, I did take a part-time retail job just to get back into the workforce but it was nowhere near enough to live on.

For most of those three years of looking I was applying for anything and everything that I was qualified for on any level and rarely, VERY rarely, even got a response of any kind. Nothing. I can only presume that those who were hiring for the higher-level jobs were disinterested by 1) my age (over 50) and 2) the length of time I'd been out of the workforce and those hiring at lower levels figured that I would only hang around until something better came along (and they were right about that). But I mean to tell you that out of literally thousands of resumes and applications, I was lucky to even get so much as one interview every two to three months.

After looking for 2 1/2 years, I was finally offered a really crappy, low-level position. It was way below my skill set which made it boring as Hell, the pay was a joke (so much so that I still needed to keep my part-time job in addition just to barely scrape-by) and the working conditions could charitably be referred to as sub-par, but it was full-time, close to home and the people I worked with were for the most part really nice folks.

Four months after starting there, I was called back at a place that I'd interviewed for a different position over six months before and, thankfully, was hired. This is an employer that has no reservations about hiring older workers (virtually all of out IT staff is over 40, most of us are over 50), pay levels are in line with the rest of the industry locally, the benefits are outstanding, ethics are a #1 priority (everyone, including corporate officers, have to take ethics and diversity training every year as a condition of employment and any violation of ethics or diversity guidelines are grounds for immediate termination), working conditions are excellent (and will get even better when we move into our new office space in a few months), and employees are treated with respect. In my 37 years in the workplace, I've never been happier with my job.

Oh, and this is a company which, if I named it here, would be positively demonized by the general DU populace. I'm just saying.

But, though I can't speak to other circumstances, I can tell you that for those over 50 who are experienced and have worked in well-paying positions, even getting an interview for a full-time job that pays a living wage can be next to impossible. It takes an awful lot of perseverance and continual "bucking-up" of one's morale and I can well understand how some people can get so demoralized that they just quit looking altogether.

[AP]

39. EBay economy? Putting it on credit cards? Jobless benefits? disability pay? spouse works?

And my guess is that in 90% of the cases, this means a two-income family is going down to a one-income family (which is what I most often observe among friends and acquaintances).

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. Friends of mine who were out of work for years:

1. Tapped out their savings

2. Sold their houses and lived off the proceeds

3. Tapped out their 401(k)s

4. Applied for Social Security at the earliest possible age and/or lived off part-time temporary jobs and handouts from relatives

in that order

[noamnety]

43. Well, you know, they are probably all lazy and stupid

and you are much superior to them in a multitude of ways.

(that's the response we're supposed to give, right?)

[The Gunslinger]

74. and dont forget........

"The world needs ditch diggers too.."

[Manifestor_of_Light]

94. Yeah.

Looks like Rosemary isn't lazy or stupid and she has all the answers.

:sarcasm:

Scuse me while I go off in the corner and laugh myself silly. :rofl:

[proud2BlibKansan]

45. My friend's story

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3146123

[Rosemary2205]

48. I saw that and posted in that thread - I see a lot of holes in the story

I've been disbled in a car accident and can't do physical work anymore so I do understand the struggle to find something new to do to keep a roof over my head. I was fortunate enough to have a sister who needed to move here to GA from Michigan right about the same time I was fighting for my life. God bless kindhearted people. And thank goodness the Pukes have not totally destroyed the SSDI and medicare/medicaid programs.

So yes, I can see how the guy would be too disabled for physical work and would need "sit down" work. And yes, I know IT is having problems. But as a disabled veteran there are just so many options for him. Clearly he DID have access to medical care through the VA all along, why he chose to go without medical care rather than apply at the VA is a head scratcher. And why if he was too disabled to do grunge work to at least earn enough to pay for his rent with your friend he didn't apply for either VA or SSDI is another head scratcher. (or maybe he did??)

Whatever the case, he obviously needed help. Your kindhearted friend gave him a place to live for free. More than many mentally disabled vets have, but it would have been nice if someone would have pushed to get him into an assistance program.

[proud2BlibKansan]

49. Sorry I don't know the answers to most of your questions

I do know that when he got cancer he had health insurance and that his cancer doctor has continued to treat him at no charge. So he really had no need to go to the VA for health care until this week when he got sick.

[European Socialist]

46. Looking for work is emotionally damaging when...

the odds are against you--After awhile living with less seems like the better option.

[Balbus]

53. If you don't have a job, you don't want a job.

It's really just that simple, despite all the bitching and moaning going on this thread. All jobs aren't supposed to be fun and high paying, people. Sometimes they're just... jobs.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

56. Bullshit.

You're not on the same planet most people are that look for a job.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

86. You're assuming that everyone is demanding a fun, high-paying job?

Where did you get THAT stereotype from?

[AngryOldDem]

123. And those jobs...

...have to be such that pay a living wage so that bills are met, and a certain level of sustinence is met in daily life. I don't think anyone here is saying they want to run a multinational or be the cool CEO of a booming business. A basic job that pays enough to meet the monthly expenses would be good enough for most here, I'm sure.

[varelse]

60. I was out of work for 18 months in the mid-90's

and lived off my savings - unemployment wasn't an option because I refused to lie and I wasn't looking to work at yet another sweatshop which would be closed down like the last two I'd been laid off from. My sister paid the rent on the 1 br apt we shared. I finally took a retail job at 7-11 and that sucked every bit as bad as it sounds... then moved and kept looking in this area till I found the company I am at now. Looking back, it seems likely that I suffered from "clinical" depression and would have benefitted from treatment, but of course that wasn't available at the time, even with insurance (which I didn't have after losing the second job to a factory closing).

Not all illness has been diagnosed - I'd be willing to bet that many long-term unemployed people are suffering from depression, which makes it increasingly difficult to keep facing the rejection that comes with looking for work. Also, some areas are hit much harder by the loss of manufacturing and IT jobs than others are, so location may be a factor.

In my case, family was my saving grace - being one of four sisters in a very close-knit relationship is what saved me... just as I am sure it has helped them in their worst times. Without them, I very likely would not exist now.

[backscatter712]

62. A couple years ago, I was out of work for two years.

I lived off of savings and 401k for a few months, but that eventually ran out (I didn't have a big 401k) and I had to move in with my parents.

That sucked.

It took a while before I could get back on my feet.

I think in answer to the OP's question, the reason why people can manage long bouts of unemployment, and why more people aren't homeless, is because people do have support networks - families, friends, etc.

Most people, when faced with losing their homes, will move in with relatives, or couch-surf with friends & such. People can sustain themselves for quite some time this way. They don't instantly end up in a cardboard box in front of city hall.

And yeah, a fundamental principle of human behavior is that they can do incredibly unpleasant things, for a short period of time. Job hunting in a bad job market is something that can be done for a few months, but after a while, if you don't get something - an interview here, an offer of some sort, or even a phone call, people will eventually give up.

Some call it freeloading, and they're right. But when you're unemployed, the job market is so shitty that you can't even get a phone call despite all the phone calls, letters, emails, job applications, feet on the payment; you do what you have to do to survive, and that frequently involves relying on the kindness of others.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

63. Thank you.

I've let people couch surf at my house too.

[pitohui]

64. you become "self employed" and work for less than minimum wage

at least that's how i managed the last 20-something years since becoming unemployable because i was victimized by a male boss in a day when sexual harassment was not yet illegal (in other words, the 1980s)

i agree, you have to get money somehow, and you do, you just never again get any job benefits or health care unless you marry someone else who can share their benefits

you need to get out more, i know lots of people who have gone decades without being hired for any job

no one of my class has the career or income they dreamed of as a little kid, that just doesn't happen unless you hit lucky in the influence/family sweepstakes

[readmoreoften]

67. My partner's mother stopped looking for work. They scrape off her husband's job.

They owned a business together and she was the bookkeeper and co-manager for 20 years. When she couldn't get a job as a waitress anywhere, she stopped looking.

[Lorien]

88. I had a friend in Hollywood who was out of work for about 3 years

He had been laid off from one of the studios. He had a tiny home on the hill behind the Hollywood sign, four restored 1950s cars and some artwork that was of some value. He had to sell everything-and finally even ended up selling his Mac, which killed what little freelance he had been getting. He moved in with his elderly father and took on odd jobs for another year. He did find employment in the end, but at that point it was as if he were starting his life over from scratch.

[annabanana]

121. Please reply to post #82. Until you can do that, you are full of crap.

[Rosemary2205]

126. This??

Lydia Leftcoast (1000+ posts) Sat Apr-12-08 11:28 PM
Response to Reply #75
82. Please don't insult my friends
I watched their job struggles every step of the way. I saw the hopefulness when a good listing came up, the joy when they got an interview, and the utter despair when they were rejected again. I sat with one friend who counted up 225 rejection letters.

The biggest obstacle was age discrimination or the employer's assumption that they would be "too expensive." They'd say, "I'm willing to work for less," but the employer would reject them anyway. They'd remove all indications of age from their resume, get to the interview stage, have a great phone interview, and then walk into the in-person interview to see obvious distaste on the face of the 30-year-old interviewer at the sight of an older person.

They'd try to get a poor person's job, only to be told that they were "over-qualified."

They'd think about starting a business, but they had no money and no product.

They'd apply for jobs in other states, even fly out to other cities to job hunt and network at their own expense, but nothing.

So they'd take temp jobs, taking orders over the phone for theater tickets or selling clothes in a department store over the holidays or housesitting.

Then when they'd been out of work for a year or two, piling up rejection after rejection, close to suicide on some days, they'd encounter a Rosemary2205-type telling them that there must be something wrong with them if they couldn't find a job in all that time.

The hell with that.


*****************


Read my OP and notice I've already said about 19 times in this thread that THIS - already answered the question I asked in the OP.

"So they'd take temp jobs, taking orders over the phone for theater tickets or selling clothes in a department store over the holidays or housesitting"

Clearly they are not "UNEMPLOYED" they are "UNDEREMPLOYED" -- it's absolutely assinine to claim people with a job selling clothes in a department store or part time at Starbucks or dog washing or house cleaning or yard cutting or whatever else don't have a job. Those ARE jobs. Duh. No it's not the job you want, and yes it's hard as hell for a person used to more in life to settle for that even for a short time. But it IS a JOB. It's totally assinine to get all offended because someone like me hears "unemployed" and equates that with "no job of any kind". AND it's totally assinine to get all offended because someone like me wonders how a smart person who says they spent 2 or 3 or 15 years with NO JOB WHATSOEVER manages to put food on the table - and why in the world if some GED carryin' person can constantly be thinking of 600 different ways to get someone to pay them to do SOMETHING, even if it's a one shot deal to fix a leaky roof, or hand make 50 wedding invitations, or SOMETHING - well if we stupid little peons who apparantly never had a "real" job can figure out how to bring in income then why can't a college educated person?? If that expectation on my part hurts your feelings then so be it.

I have no doubt someone who went to college and expected someone to pay them for their brilliance gets a hell of a shock when they realize there's not as much job security that they expected and they have to get awfully damn creative to keep the house and cars and pay back all those loans. It probably is easier in that respect for us peons who clean toilets and change diapers for a living because we KNOW from the time we are born to the time we die that every day we have a roof over our head or food in our belly is going to take constant adaptability, creativity and effort.

There's an awful lot of people in this country, ME INCLUDED, that have spent our whole life doing the very kind of work being called "unemployed". Anyone who wants to call that "unemployed" because it just doesn't measure up to their standard of a "real job" can quite frankly go fuck their elite selves. I'm not in any way personally offended by it. I do realize folks like you and Leftcoast obviously live in a whole other world than I do. You may not be able to understand why I think day labor is "employed" any more I can understand why you all think it's "unemployed".

And BTW - I'm supposed to feel especially bad for college people who face age discrimination as if that isn't a universal problem??? HELLO.

We do a lot of talking on DU about caring about the poor and then in the next breath we completely demean what the poor do everyday to earn a living as not being a real job?

And YOU are offended?

:eyes:

[Lars39]

127. Your bias against anyone with a college education really shines thru in this post.

People who have gone into debt past their eyeballs for an education and subsequent career should be able to find work for which they graduated, and at a salary that at least allows them to pay off their higher than hell student loans.
That you put the blame on people who cannot find jobs in their chosen field instead of on the shitty state of the worst economy since the Great Depression speaks volumes about your ability to act more like a Republican than a Democrat.

[Rosemary2205]

133. How am I biased against college graduates?

I expect EXACTLY the same thing from them that I expect from my own piers! How is that biased? We can't "get a job" then we create our own job! All without benefit of a college degree. Are you telling me college graduates CAN'T do the same??

And yes the economy is pretty damn shitty - and it ain't just for college graduates either. So again, why should I feel MORE sorry for college graduates than I feel for my own piers?? There's absolutely nothing biased about expecting the same thing from every American regardless of their station in life.

[TwixVoy]

134. I do not agree

The fact that a person got in to debt to get a degree in NO WAY entitles them to a job.

I have worked with plenty of people with a degree - a great many of them grossly incompotent for the job. I am talking so inept most people would think they cheated/got drunk off their ass all their way through school. If you have a degree, but are otherwise UNQUALIFIED for the job - either because you managed to get the degree while learning nothing, have no work ethic once you get in to your job, or anything else you in no way are guranteed that job.

I think you need to step back and realize just because someone has a degree does not mean they are automatically qualified for the job. If they have a degree but can't get the rest of their shit together I would not expect any employer to hire/retain them.

[ipaint]

128. Indentured servitude

I have been working class and now working poor all my life. What you refer to as a low wage "job" I see as a form of indentured servitude. Paying people just enough to barely keep a roof over their heads and food on the table will keep them desperate, needy and broke or in debt.
A job, to me, is a fair exchange of my labor for a return of both a wage and capital. Economic democracy. The virtue some people like to assign low paid hard work is phoney and a lie. As a poor person I find nothing admirable about my working life, all 36 years, spent helping others to amass capital while I lose ground every year.
And I don't blame people who previously were fortunate enough to have real jobs when they consider demeaning, abusive, poverty wage jobs as being unemployed, they are right.
If there is such a thing as dignity in spending a lifetime toiling away to maybe just scrape by, I can't find it.

[maryf]

129. A "living" wage

Thank you, not only is dignity lost when working just to barely stay alive, but the joy that should be a given to all humanity and a part of truly living.

[Rosemary2205]

136. Odd

I find it odd to assume folks near the economic bottom in America don't have joy of life or aren't "truly living". Why would "truly living" be related to wealth?

[ipaint]

142. I find it odd

that anyone can claim joy, dignity and good health is a result of being a lifelong wage slave. That ridiculous claim is a good indicator of just how deep and complete the capitalist propaganda is when it comes to convincing people low paying, demeaning, health destructive hard work somehow leads to a fullfilling life. I may be poor but I'm not stupid and being one rung up from chattel is nothing to brag about. Spending a lifetime on the low end of the economic ladder just means you've been screwed. I admire those who refuse to participate whatever class they come from when they end up in the growing class of paycheck to paycheck wage slaves.
I don't admire those who from experience should know better but continue to belittle and degrade their fellow wage slaves in order to feed some perverted superiority fantasy.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

143. Very well said.

Hard work is just that, hard work. The dignity part, is just capitalist bullshit propaganda. There is no dignity in "low paying, demeaning, health destructive hard work", as you say.

Propaganda, indeed.

[Rosemary2205]

150. Thank you Dr. Frist.

Your "down with jobs" post is noted. :)

[ipaint]

151. Your lack of compassion is duly noted

You've been smacked down several times for you utter lack of empathy most recently in a thread on health care. Calling me something assinine like dr. frist for pointing out the obvious is juvenile at best but expected.
Even the working poor have their gatekeepers and your doing a bang up job.

[Rosemary2205]

153. smacked down?

by words on blinking across my computer monitor that have no practical impact on my life whatsoever? LOL - get over yourself already. Seriously.

[ipaint]

154. No, by the truth

which not only can be easily found on DU but unfortunately, as a result of your class bigotry, you can't recognize. That happens when your view of the world is filtered only through ones own narrow life experiences and decisions. You don't want to enlighten yourself, learn about long term unemployment much less develop compassion for those who experience it. Several people upthread have tried but you discount every experience with a form of "I doubt it" based on your intentionaly narrow view of the world.

This thread exists solely to stroke your ego and prove to yourself once again you are superior. Get over myself? That's funny coming from someone who thinks their insignificant life and decisions alone prove long term unemployment is voluntary.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

155. The bedrock issue: My life has meaning because I SAY that it does.

My life is important because I say it is important. Not in an egotistical way. I have no temporal power over others to make them do anything.

What I do is important to fulfill myself and fulfill my purpose in the world.


If I cook a meal, sew a garment, weed a flowerbed, fertilize a plant so that

it flowers and adds beauty to the world, thank the mockingbirds as they chase

each other and I watch them, paint a picture, play music, sing,

pick out the colors to paint my house, make a pot of tea, wash the dishes,

make a piece of jewelry, light a candle to commemorate a person I miss who

loved me, research my ancestors to find out what sort of people I came from,

clean the clothes, mow the lawn, read to a child, comfort a friend who is

depressed.......

all those actions are meaningful in and of themselves.


Their meaning is not dependent on whether someone pays me for them or not.



My worth as a person with something to give to the world is not dependent on whether I have a paying job or not.


My worth is part of who I am, and my talents and skills. My worth comes from the fact that I exist. It comes from the fact that there are people who love me for being "the very one that I am" to quote John Bradshaw.


There are people who love me for being the unique, never to be here again ME. There are people who I love back for being the unique, never to be here again THEM.


This is what's important underneath all the squabbling from Rosemary about "Do you have a job or not? You're lazy, then. Your worth is dependent on a paycheck." Ironically, by her standards she would not meet that standard.


Her values seem to be the superficial one of "are you getting a paycheck from SOMEBODY ELSE?". Her values are dependent on other peoples' opinions & actions. Are you employed? If not, you're worthless. I say it means you're exploited. That is no way to live. Just because I can't make somebody else hire me, and the businesses I have started have either not gotten off the ground, or have failed due to lack of sales, doesn't make me worthless.


Basing your self image on what other people think of you is a horrible way to live. It's a good way to drive yourself crazy. We are all taught to internalize other peoples' opinions of us so we will be good conformist sheep, driven by unearned guilt and shame. Since most people like to judge and blame other people, to get their minds off their own problems, taking others' opinions seriously is a straight ticket to horrible, hopeless depression. (Read John Bradshaw, Ph.D.)

Most people are more worried about what you think of them than they are about developing their own opinions about anything in life.



What's important in life? Time for looking back at some ancient history.

Will people remember all the hundreds of trials I took down in shorthand, and the transcripts I typed for the appeals?

Nope. I got paid for that. I worked incredibly hard, and made many thousands of dollars from that years ago. I got to where I hated it, I was stressed out and I cried every day after I got home from work, even when everybody at work was nice to me. I was one out of two hundred people who started court reporting school and finished and made a living at it. That's one half of one percent. Yet it didn't give me any satisfaction that I was doing anything meaningful.


Will people remember the hundreds of choir concerts & orchestra concerts I performed in and the good feelings they got from beautiful classical music?

Yes. I did those for free. Because I loved doing it.


Will they remember the joy they got from hearing me play the piano, play violin solos, and direct the choir in my local church on Sundays and special occasions?

Yes. I did those for free. Because I loved doing it.


Will people remember the joy they got from seeing the pictures and scarves and pillows I painted, and wearing the jewelry I made?

Yes. I sold those, and made a tiny amount of money. Because I loved doing it.


Will people remember the emotions they felt, the laughter they enjoyed, as I acted in plays and sang beautiful music written 170 years ago, in an opera, before them?

Yes. I did those for free, because I loved doing it.



If I was going to die in a week, and you asked me "Who am I?" what would I say?

Would I say I was a court reporter? No.
Would I say I was a musician? Yes.
Would I say I was an actress? Yes.
Would I say I was a creative artist? Yes.


The things I do that I identify myself with are the things that I have not been paid for, because our society does not value artists and musicians. If we valued culture the way Europe does, I would have had no problem being paid. But I would do it anyway. That's unfortunate. It does not change the meaningfulness of what I have done for decades.


Because I loved doing those things. For the glory of being alive.

:woohoo: :grouphug: :toast:

[Rosemary2205]

161. A small challenge

On post anywhere on DU where I said anything close to "long term unemployment is voluntary"

The fact is, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. My OP and this entire thread is a question - how do these people survive with no income and what is stopping them from making the adjustments necessary to creat some sort of income of some kind?

The questions have been answered along with dozens of interesting side discussions when 2 or 3 respondants had difficulty comprehending the simple words of my OP.

Your tangent, is interesting only in the sense that it's amusing. :)

Welcome to DU - hope you enjoy whatever it is you plan to do here - hopefully more than "smacking down" people via the internet tubes. 101st Fighting Keyboarders Unite!! LOL

Peace.

[ipaint]

162. Your words

"I am not out of work. I was for 4 years due to recovering from a nearly fatal car accident and finding work was pure hell - over 50 black female with no college in a wheelchair. My sister's family moved here from Michigan - for themselves and for me. - I can understand why someone would have NO income for a short period of time after a job loss but I can't understand having NO income for YEARS unless one is too ill or disabled to work."


Your words not mine. I don't see anywhere where you say "sometimes it is sometimes it isn't" except in your two examples of illness and disabled, both non voluntary.

Glad your getting your daily jollies.

Thanks for the welcome, 4 years after the fact but better late than never.

[Rosemary2205]

163. What part of "I do not understand" confused you?

I am clearly asking for more information on the subject. - There is absolutely nothing in that clip that makes any sort of judgement one way or another. The problem you have is with your ability to read what is written without putting your own personal twist on it.

[ipaint]

167. Oh good

since in re-reading this thread I see several people who have explained why- so now you understand, right?
or is your mind still made up based on your own tiny world and annecdotal experience on the "internets".

[maryf]

170. Let me clarify

Forgive me for taking so long to respond, I am new, sporadic, and a little lost as to navigating here.

How you got ""truly living" being related to wealth" out of "not only is dignity lost when working just to barely stay alive, but the joy that should be a given to all humanity and a part of truly living." is beyond me.

How many people can really feel joy if they are working 12, 15 plus hours a day of two or three jobs to try to make enough to feed themselves and their family and keep a roof over their head; especially today with skyrocketing rent and utility bills? When do they have the time? Many people who have been out of work for a long time end up without a home,(maybe thats the answer to your question, how do people live without working for so long, they don't), and literally spend their time figuring out which shelter, food bank, or whatever to go to on a given day. Where do you think they have time for true joy?? Maybe playing cards in the shelter?? Oh, finding a half eaten sub in the restaurant dumpster, Yippee!!! what joy!!!??

Have you a real clue what its like for someone to have to decide whether the kids get to eat or get to stay warm, how unjoyful that feels? Where can they find the Human Right to joy when all looks bleak? It's not wealth, or even poverty, that I'm talking about, its abject poverty that forces a person to work like the slave they are to a pitiless system, and leaves little/no time for real joy.

[AutumnMist]

132. Second edit - I am not out of work.

Obviously. You have overcome many obstacles to get where you are in life. The path you have chosen is your own. You dont like to be judged by the "perpetually outraged"? Then please don't post commentary such as "I can understand why someone would have NO income for a short period of time after a job loss but I can't understand having NO income for YEARS unless one is too ill or disabled to work."

Its a very naive and somewhat slanted view that many are out of work because they aren't sick or disabled and just simply not applying themselves? It happens daily. And in your case it would be even better if you offered a helping hand to those out of work instead of making blanket statements about why they are there in the first place.

[Rosemary2205]

135. Wow

"I don't understand" (explain this to me) isn't the same as making a judgement "what lazy people they are"

that whole meaning was slapped on there by others, not by me. Most posters in thread obviously clearly understood my OP and offered their own experiences, for instance "I worked temp jobs, moved in with mom, moved to Texas, lived off my 401K, changed career fields, adjusted my resume to get a part time job, etc etc." They told me they adapted and regrouped, as I would expect anyone to do of any economic status.

And then we have a few in this thread who read what I posted and went straight to total outrage because I'm supposed to understand what victims they are and that there is no hope whatsoever for them and how that is all someone else's fault. And then after they get all hot and bothered, call me a freeper and whatever else, THEN they tell me - well yeah, I WAS working just not at what they hoped for. Well, DUH. If they were working then my OP wasn't even asking about them!! WTF is all the outrage about.

This place definite has all kinds of people.

[AutumnMist]

137. Your world is obviously black and white

You are either a victim or not. How easy and yes, how naive. We are a nation of different people and different needs. Much deeper then money and at one time we were all defined (hello 1945?) by the employment that we kept or didnt keep. Its 2008 and our world has changed. If you dont like it you are entitled to that. But none of us have to agree or disagree with you and obviously its important that YOU are seen in this thread or you would not have spent as much time posting to all of us over and over about how you feel to justify your opinion. You don't pay anyone else's mortgage and you aren't paying for their kids or cars. You are either part of the solution or your are part of the problem and ironically you are one of the few that see yourself as solving anything. All along making sure that you add the somewhat immature flourish of well DUH. :eyes: DUH indeed.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

138. Thank you AutumnMist.

Rosemary must have just looked up from her Ayn Rand books to post, so she could instruct us what to do with our lives, with her superior libertarian pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality. Libertarian means "I got mine, screw you, you should be able to make as much money as I do".


Lack of bootstraps is spelled "laziness" and "stupidity" and "lack of initiative to figure out what kind of job to get" in her world. She even blames that on the universities many of us went to, accuses us of being incompetent and stupid, like all college educations are a joke. I bet she couldn't pass some of my high school courses I took when I was 16 -- the ones I used to place out of freshman college courses.

According to her: Anybody with any problems getting a job, or medical conditions that interfere, or being overqualified because they worked hard in school, has a bad case of "that's just tough shit".

:rolleyes:

AutumnMist, I hope she doesn't claim to be a Christian. You are right that she's not paying anybody else's bills. Christians often forget that line allegedly spoken by Yeshua ben Yusuf: "As you did it to the least of them, so also you did it unto me.".

She's an example of the rampant anti-intellectualism and hatred of science and education, hatred of achievement and excellence, in this country. Lots of people have no concept that a university is a place for free expression of ideas and debate. The idea of free speech and debate scares the hell out of them.


My parents raised me to value education, read books, enjoy museums and concerts, learn skills, and be curious about what is going on in the world.

Because the economy is going down the toilet, people are going to have to work together, live together and grow their own food locally. Communes will have to be more common so people can pool their resources to survive.

[AutumnMist]

140. Thank you!

:hug:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

141. I refuse to endanger my health by trying to conform to somebody else's expectations.

I have high blood pressure and several other medical problems that require medication. All the jobs I've had have been stressful. Rosemary seems to think that nobody ever has a boss that yells at them, tells them they are stupid, implies that they are incompetent, or does anything to stress them out.

And if I have a problem with a boss yelling at me, well then, I'm just a weak person. Rosemary must have nerves of steel, or be superhuman in her endurance. However she says she's disabled. Sounds like "Do as I say not as I do". Why does she get a pass to be on disability, but the rest of us are lazy, if we're not in bad enough shape to qualify for disability?

She certainly doesn't cut the rest of us any slack.

I have high blood pressure and I am NOT going to go on a futile search for a job just because somebody else thinks I am a failure in their eyes. Putting up with a stressful job is a good way to worry yourself into an early grave. Bosses don't realize that if they were not so angry and punitive, the workers would be happier and more productive.

The bosses are into the authoritarian punishment model. And they don't care if the worker just drops dead on the job. In fact, if they have a dead peasant policy, that sudden death would put money in their pockets (see Mall-Wart lawsuits).

I refuse to put myself at risk for a stroke or heart attack by putting up with domineering humorless recta, even if I could get a shit job in the first place.

I have enough medications to pay for without insurance, and a stroke or a heart attack would be more expensive than I could afford.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. I looked for a job for years with no results, and decided to stop the insanity and stop looking.



:yourock: <---AutumnMist---> :hug: :grouphug:

[Lorentz]

144. Are you for real?

She's an example of the rampant anti-intellectualism and hatred of science and education, hatred of achievement and excellence, in this country. Lots of people have no concept that a university is a place for free expression of ideas and debate. The idea of free speech and debate scares the hell out of them.


What the hell is that supposed to mean? You're completely out in left field. How is her behavior in any way promoting anti-intellectualism and hatred of science?! As for academic freedom: her question is the very essence of that. If anyone wants to stifle the free discussion here, it's the "perpetually enraged" types who don't interject any rationale into their posts, because they don't understand the subtleties of free speech and debate: "keep it on track, and keep it sensible". Your posts do neither.

Judging from the social skills you've displayed in your discourse, I think the answer to another of her questions has been given, loud and clear.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

145. She's blaming inability to get a job on the colleges I went to.

Which is not the answer to why I cannot get a job. It has nothing to do with the colleges I went to. I'm not saying everybody who went to college is bright or competent. I know I and my friends studied hard and learned a lot of skills.

[Rosemary2205]

152. There's no reason to lie.

ROFL

[Manifestor_of_Light]

146. Social skills?

I will state FACTS. I think Rosemary doesn't know what's going on in the world, and several other people have backed me up with their experience, but I'm certainly not calling her a Nazi.

I think she's speculating and her speculations are wrong. That's not being rude.

[Lorentz]

147. You state FACTS, huh?

Is this a fact?

I bet she couldn't pass some of my high school courses I took when I was 16 -- the ones I used to place out of freshman college courses.

How about this one:

I think Rosemary doesn't know what's going on in the world,

Other people backed you up on that fact?

You speak in personal opinions, not facts. And you do so in a very immature fashion, then tell people to go to hell. Your attacks on Rosemary are ad hominem. That IS being rude.

As to her comment about college: she didn't say that your college was bad. She suggested that perhaps you didn't learn the right tools out of your college (critical thinking and problem solving skills). But that's not necessarily a fault of the college.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

148. My experiences are facts. Other people DID back me up.

AutumnMist, ipaint, Lydia Leftcoast, and others confirmed my experiences. Rosemary, although she is not working and is disabled, seems to think, along with several others, that anybody who wants a job can get one. Quite a few people in this thread have stated the despair and complete lack of success at finding any job, and the fact that you can't pay the bills on many jobs.

And someone else pointed out that she is not paying anybody else's car payment, rent or babysitting expenses. She thinks she knows what is best for everybody else who is out of work, and that if we only tried a bit harder we could get jobs. That sounds like right wing repuke horseshit to me.

She did not say that my college was bad. She said "It was the fault of the colleges", using a sweeping term as if ALL colleges do not teach critical thinking skills. I challenged her on that.

I certainly learned critical thinking skills, such as the need to beware of anyone who makes statements starting with "All" or "No" or "None". Those are generalizing and are a known tool of propaganda.

[Rosemary2205]

149. Enjoying a conversation is now "justifying my opinion"?

LOL

Ah DU. :)

[Firespirit]

156. You DON'T pay for them. You lose everything.

I am going to be moving back with my mother because I can no longer afford my own apartment (yes, apartment, I don't have a house) and I'm several thousand dollars in debt from living off a credit card, now maxed, just to pay for food. No vacations, no amenities, no designer clothes. None of the crap that freepers imagine Americans waste money on. Food and public transit. Oh yes, and medicine for glaucoma so that I don't go BLIND in 25 years.

I have an engineering degree. I cannot even get an interview anymore. When I could still get one, I would have to listen to sexist questions and condescension.

I've been turned down by "working class" employers in retail because they apparently know I don't intend to be a long-term peon. All I can get are occasional contracts for proofreading. I don't make enough to get health insurance.

Suicide has been a near-daily thought in the back of my mind, and I've tried it twice. No more; as much as it sucks to give up on independence for however long, I am grateful I have a person I can go to, because if I were utterly alone, I would not be alive.

THAT'S what happens to the long-term unemployed, so you can take your snarky condescension and shove it where the sun doesn't shine.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

157. Thank you for that contribution.

:hug: :grouphug:

Dear Firespirit: I'm glad you've decided to live, and not let the bastards grind you down completely. I understand what you mean about sexist questions in a technical field. Back in 1973, I went to see an architect and interviewed them about majoring in architecture. The first thing the guy said was, "Well you're gonna have a lot of trouble because you're a girl". I was 18 years old and a sophomore in college. That was discouraging. Between that discouragement and a shitty math teacher in high school, who was not a math major, I was doomed as far as majoring in architecture.


I'm sorry things are so rough. I understand what it's like to be smart enough to comprehend the great big "fuck you" that society is throwing at you. It's unbelievably painful. I think the only answer is to ignore their opinion of you, and/or move to Europe or Latin America, where they value education and creativity.

My partner has two degrees in math and physics and a degree in video production. He used to be in engineering and got sick of the roller coaster. His last job shooting video of boring medical lectures was the lowest of the low, and it was killing him. They refused to comply with the weight limits his doctor gave him about lifting equipment -- and this was at a MEDICAL SCHOOL!! They ignored it. They were killing him and turning him into a horrible hateful person, because of the shit they gave him. They were into mediocrity and he was into excellence. That was a cardinal sin.
They fired him and it was a blessing.


When my parents had plenty of money, and refused to help me out, when I could not find a job, and couldn't pay the bills, I asked them if they wanted me to go ahead and kill myself so they wouldn't have to listen to me begging with them for help. They couldn't understand why they paid all that money for my college, and I paid thousands of dollars myself for my graduate degree, and couldn't find a job of any kind. They said no, they didn't want me to kill myself, but wouldn't do anything about the situation.

I couldn't have moved in with them, because staying at their house made me sick because of all the dust and dirt and crap piled up four or five feet high. I went to see them one weekend and had to go to the emergency room 20 miles away because I was throwing up my toenails from allergies. They just looked at me like I was nuts. They would not let me throw any of their crap out, either.


And if anybody who reads this thinks it would have been better had I killed myself, you can go hang out at Free Republic, fuck off, eat shit, and die in a fire.


Rosemary and others can take their snarky condescension and stick it where the sun don't shine. I agree wholeheartedly.


I think the bright people who can't find jobs will have to move to Venezuela or Latin America -- Chavez says he will take economic refugees in the future.

[Rosemary2205]

164. In all sincerety, you have my sympathy.

You put a lot of work in to get that degree and obviously the job security you expected didn't turn out to be there. Although my situation is different, I too had to rely on my family when my life circumstances made it an incredible challenge for me to stand on my own two feet financially or emotionally. When I realized the extent of my physical injuries and the fact my husband will never be the man I loved again, I too wondered why they bothered to save me and wished I could die. The money or the job or my home, I could have cared less about those things. It was the medical and relationship challenges that got to me.

I really mean this. I do. I geniunely hope the opportunity to move in with your mom gives you the relief you need to be able to take one step at a time back to wholeness. I hope you find that being mentally whole and feeling the joy of life is not about economic status, but about having love in our lives regardless of where we live or what we do to keep get a roof over our heads. Granted money can make life a little easier no matter what emotional state we are in, but it can't bring us love and joy.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

168. My family would not help me.

Sometimes families can be cruel.

Some people think this is a horrible thing to say, but I'm glad they're not nagging me anymore.

[leftofthedial]

169. no "real" job since May of 2005.

odd jobs, part-time temporary jobs, two consulting projects, music gigs, teaching a little . . .

no real paychecks, exhausted savings.