Well, that was freaky.

[Dreadbelly]

I somehow hammered out a rather pathetic job application. As I did so, I realised how stagnated my life has become. My last real job was working at a gas station as a store clerk. That place got robbed every single weekend. Didn't get robbed the entire time I was working there. Nobody dared... But that is beside the point. I was sick then, and trying to get better, that was back in, what, 97? My health took a dive and I had to quit completely. Before that, I did a little security work in a video poker casino. (Before those went busted in SC)

So, no job experience in over 10 years. Contacts? What are those? I didn't even know who to list as contacts, references, etc. I have few friends. Well, I have you folks, but I don't know your contact information, and I somehow doubt I could use you as references. It is to late now anyway. Do I know how to drive? Do I have a license? No to both. This somehow feels worse than when you fill out your very first job application for the very first time and you have no clue what you are doing, or are about to get your self in to. Do you have an active social life... Oh hell. What is that? Oh sure, a few kilt nights here and there, but I really don't even know if those really count as a "social life." Family contacts... I didn't dare list any of my family as contacts. That's a bad idea just waiting to happen. Describe your social life... To do that, I'd have to have one first.

You know, if I was an employer, I don't think I'd hire me either. Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go find a nice hole in the ground to crawl in to and die.

Filling out all those pages really took the wind out of my sails. I am sure most of you have been here at one time or another... How did you get out?

[RockyR]

Start your own company making tams or doing "IT work" or giving crochet lessons or being a "Captain Morgan" impersonator or something else you're good at! It's SCARY and Exhausting, but you do get more freedoms (that you find you can't use b/c you're working all the time).

If you DO choose to work for someone else.... While I won't tell you lie on your application (as that's immoral), you CAN get "creative" to a degree. Truth is like a piece of wood... you can bend it a little without breaking it.

i.e. Would I say "I owned my own hat making company selling 300 hats a month"? No. Can you say that you were an entropreneur (sp?) who tried making hats in your spare time for extra cash? Yes. Hey... you have 10 years of "holes" in your resume to fill. You'll need to be a little creative to make it work.

[ccga3359]

Sewing machine not up and running yet? I'm still waiting for my hemp Dreadbelly pirate shirt!

[Dreadbelly]

The hat thing mysteriously dries up come spring... Nobody orders anything. It's good for a few hundred bucks in the winter though.

You're right though. I wish I had thought of that. I'd really rather not have to go to work for somebody else, but right now, well, desperation. Life needs to change but I keep running in to this barrier, I don't even know what it is. I keep beating my fists up against it in an exercise of futility. Most places, I can't even fill out an application because of the whole car / license situation. I want to make a life for my self...

I keep flogging my self and beating my self up... I don't even know how to run a business to be honest. If if I had my sewing machines set up, had a stockpile of supplies, and say, a product to sell, I don't know squat about doing all of this. Taxes. managing the business. All the day to day stuff. I can do the work part easily enough, but I am honest with my self enough to know that I would fail miserably at the day to day details of running a business. The pressure of even trying to think about it is getting to me. Panic. That little voice in the back of my mind saying quit now before it blows up in your face.

I am being overly critical of my self right now.

[ccga3359]

Dread I fail to see how car ownership or even licensing needs to be a stumbling block. As you haven't worked in 10 years and as you have been able to survive on whatever income you do receive dare I suggest that you look at a position considered a starting position of minimum wage. Afterall I hardly thing you are appling to become a rocket scientist. Pehaps consider a small Mom & Pop business. The knowledge gained regarding running a small business could be so invaluable as for you to consider setting up your own business.
Failing that you could consider moving to Alberta where they need to import labour for even the meaningless positions. Businesses there are closing down simply because they can't get labour. Mind you you'd have to get used to winters of 40 below.

[Mr. Kilt]

Dread I fail to see how car ownership or even licensing needs to be a stumbling block. As you haven't worked in 10 years and as you have been able to survive on whatever income you do receive dare I suggest that you look at a position considered a starting position of minimum wage. Afterall I hardly thing you are appling to become a rocket scientist. Pehaps consider a small Mom & Pop business. The knowledge gained regarding running a small business could be so invaluable as for you to consider setting up your own business.
Failing that you could consider moving to Alberta where they need to import labour for even the meaningless positions. Businesses there are closing down simply because they can't get labour. Mind you you'd have to get used to winters of 40 below.

As a Calgarian I can back this statement up, although claims of 40 below in the winter is a bit of a misconception. The coldest it got this past winter was only -34C. (on the plus side, temps like that only happen once or twice a season, and only last for a few days)

Companies here are getting desperate for help. Even McDonalds restaurants are importing workers from other countries. They just did a news article about them flying down to Mexico to recruit people. They paid for their flights to Alberta, found them places to live, and offered them decent wages.

The toughest thing about living here, though, is finding housing. The market has gone through the roof and house & rental prices have jumped. That said, if you're looking for work, you'll find it here. The only people in Alberta who don't have jobs are the ones who aren't looking.

[The Supreme Canuck]

The only people in Alberta who don't have jobs are the ones who aren't looking.

It'll only get crazier in the next three years. The recent federal budget has made it so that the oil companies will lose quite a few federal grants - as of 2011. So the message is to get shovels into the ground, and quick! There will be NO shortage of employment in the near future.

The economy is simply booming (Alberta comes second to Saudi Arabia in proven reserves, and probably has more oil than the rest of the world combined). Lowest income tax of any province and no provincial sales tax.

[Dreadbelly]

Dread I fail to see how car ownership or even licensing needs to be a stumbling block. As you haven't worked in 10 years and as you have been able to survive on whatever income you do receive dare I suggest that you look at a position considered a starting position of minimum wage. Afterall I hardly thing you are appling to become a rocket scientist. Pehaps consider a small Mom & Pop business. The knowledge gained regarding running a small business could be so invaluable as for you to consider setting up your own business.
Failing that you could consider moving to Alberta where they need to import labour for even the meaningless positions. Businesses there are closing down simply because they can't get labour. Mind you you'd have to get used to winters of 40 below.

I doubt I could do the labour thing with my disability.

The car issue... Unemployment around here is pretty much at an all time high. I've been told that employers use the whole car angle to prescreen all of their incoming applications. The buses here do not run on Sunday because they want people bored out of their skull enough to go to church. Buses also do not run 24 hours a day... Meaning that people that depend on the bus system can only work daylight hours... Meaning that if you don't have a car, you will be looked over for somebody that does. The employment office wont even take general applications unless you have a car and license, unless of course you are a migrant worker. The city has services available to take them back and forth to their jobs. Shuttle services and what not. When I've enquired about some jobs, I was informed that the jobs required me to be able to work at multiple locations, thus, a car was required. I tried getting a job at the local library, which is just a few blocks from me... A 10 minute walk really. No dice. All positions there are filled through the jobs office... And remember, they only accept general applications if you have a license and a car. So I couldn't get the library job I was hoping for. (That had to be, hmm, almost a year ago?) And before anybody says anything, NO, I can not ride a bike. Not any more. So I am limited to pretty much whatever I can walk to, and I have pretty much dried those options up. There are some jobs I probably could have gotten had I asked, but I would be physically incapable of doing those. I can not go back in to the food service industry. My body can not take the stress or strain of that kind of work any more. I'd be popping nitro tabs faster than I could keep up with.

I need something low key, quiet, and with minimum physical strain. Two, count them, TWO heart attacks before the age of 30. I'd really rather not try pressing my luck on number three.

My little bottle of Nitroquick tabs that keep my heart from exploding are running low... I don't even have the healthcare or the means to get more of them.

I can't just go out and take some bottom of the rung job as a labourer or a food service grunt, or some starting position min wage job that makes demands of the body. Sure, I might last a day. Or even a week. Sooner or later the stress would catch up to me and I'd run down. And it would be a matter of time before something gave out, just like last time when I had to work in 97 or so. I'd really like to avoid what happened back then, being in an out of the hospital almost every day for six months, sometimes spending a week at a time or more in there. That was hell. And that was just working as a store clerk in a gas station. A cashier. Over six months of therapy just to try and get my body back in order. Didn't do no good, still went downhill from that and had my second heart attack at about 25.

I wish it was as easy as people seem to think it is. And I am sorry if I sound angry or bitter, but it is because I am angry and bitter. Just not at anybody. Only the situation.

I'd have better odds pointing a gun to my head and pulling the trigger than taking some bottom of the rung type job that would wreck my body. At least then, it would be clean and quick and I wouldn't suffer.

[ccga3359]

Hospital intern? Pushing a mop couldn't be overly stressful, get to know some doctors & nurses.

[Dreadbelly]

I looked in to that actually. Hospital jobs. I was turned down because I require a cane while walking, which doesn't leave two hands free. If I had the schooling and skills in either spanish or sign language, I could have started off as a volunteer translator which may turn in to a paid position after a year.