Dealing with unemployment - anyone else?

If you can't pay your credit cards, even short term you should call the company's and tell them. Some times they will give you a break with late fees and such.
You really can't claim you are doing all that you can do to find a job if you refuse to change your hair color. There are many places that will not hire people with "unnatural" hair color, even in the bay area and they may never tell you that is the reason they didn't hire you.
Good luck on the job hunt I hope you find something soon.
Jones

wow, zensojourner, great post. I started to reply a few times, but you all are doing great with advice, whether it's wanted or not.
I know from a later post that the OP isn't really needing a job (going to europe), but if I were hiring and there were two applicants- one dressed like she had a chip on her shoulder and one dressed like she wanted a job, I guess I'd hire the person who made an effort to get ready for a job interview.
I've never worn the clothes I interviewed in since, but you better believe I wanted to look just as professional as the other people interviewing, even if it's for a job where we'll wear scrubs most of the time.
I hope you get over the idea that your whole "self" is based on how you look. I won't tell my sister, so proud of her thick auburn hair, that she's somehow not true to herself since the chemo.
vickie

I think the thing that seems to have been lost is this thread is the main problem--there are no jobs. The crummy, low level, unskilled ones that students have always counted on for a paycheck are all filled. I might add, the better paying, skilled, white collar ones are disappearing, too.

Being in the arts, I have many friends who are being hit really hard. I'm thanking my lucky stars to still have work right now. One of my friends, who is a college professor, and has work in museums, is trying to get a job at a grocery store. Her husband's company has laid off 75% of its workers. It's unlikely he'll be employed much longer. They have a baby. They need health insurance, which she doesn't get working part time.

Ivana, I'm glad you see your options. You will get through this.

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I hope some of you all who are being so hard on Ivona take a minute to remember just how confusing it was to learn that everything you knew was wrong. We all go through that, don't we?

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Yeah, and there were 27 older people standing around snickering, shaking their heads, and telling me how stupid I was, too! :D

Karen

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I think the thing that seems to have been lost is this thread is the main problem--there are no jobs. The crummy, low level, unskilled ones that students have always counted on for a paycheck are all filled. I might add, the better paying, skilled, white collar ones are disappearing, too.

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I just checked the San Francisco Chronicle's website and there are 1,489 jobs currently listed. I didn't look at them all, so I can't judge their quality. However, it's just not true that there are NO JOBS.

11% unemployment means 89% of people are employed. (Not really, though, because that number is derived from weekly jobless claims, and some people do end up falling off the rolls because their benefits run out, and they are still unemployed.)

I worked for the Employment Security Division in Arkansas for a few years, and my mother retired from there after 20. The recession of the early '80s had worse unemployment than now, and that's when I was 18-20, and there were still jobs in every category--for the right candidates, and that's what all of this hoopla is about.

Karen

Seriously, no one is laughing here.

When I think of this young woman, or ANY person, becoming homeless, I just cringe.

She still has that belief in her own immortality and that makes me worry even more.

Homeless people are more likely to be the victims of crime, particularly of violent crime. Homeless women are 1250 times more likely to be raped. .0056% incidence of rape among the general population rising to 7% among the homeless. Keep in mind that those are REPORTED rates. Many rapes go unreported among the general population, and report rates are even lower among the homeless.

22% of homeless have been assaulted, compared to less than .5% of the general population for ALL violent crimes, not just assault.

Crimes against the homeless have risen 170% from 2005 to 2008. Violent crimes in particular have increased drastically, most of that increase is due to the increase in violent crime. In bad times, bad people look for scapegoats, and homeless are an obvious target. They're considered throw-away people in general. They're weak, they're vulnerable, they have nowhere to turn when they are victimized. People don't see them if they can help it. When people are invisible, crimes committed against them are invisible too. The more outlandish the appearance or behaviour, the more likely someone is to be targeted. The OP may have managed on the streets in the past, but things are much much more dangerous now.

Our economy is in the crapper and things are going to look like they're getting worse before they get better. I say "look like they're getting worse" because we've had 8 years of official government policy that downplayed, minimized, and outright hid the state of our economy, coupled with out-of-control spending for war without accountability or oversight. The amount that has been spent on the Iraq war far outstrips anything even the most liberal government would ever have considered spending on health and education. 10 to 20 billion was just LOST, they have no idea where it went. That's right, there's TEN BILLION in slop in that figure, that's how bad the accounting was for the tons of cash that was shipped to Iraq, some of which happy recipients took away by the helicopter load.

It has been official government policy to downplay the jobless rates since the recession of the Reagan years, when they stopped counting people as unemployed once their unemployment benefits ran out. Things are even worse since underemployment has become a major issue. Actual jobless rates are AT LEAST double the rates reported by government agencies.

From http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...=apllk4murp0I#

"The long-term unemployed, those who have been out of a job for more than six months, constitute 24.2 percent of the unemployed, the largest share during a recession since the Labor Department began recording data in 1948."

Unemployment rates in some European countries are topping 40%. Unemployment is up all around the globe, even in developed countries.

Things are bad now. They're only going to be worse in 5 or 6 months - remember that unemployment lags the economy by up to a year.

So running off now is only going to guarantee MORE problems later, not fewer.

As has been pointed out, CA unemployment rates are among the highest in the nation. The cost of living in the Bay area and CA in general is just astronomical. It makes far better sense for the OP to use her "punk network" contacts and the money from her security deposit to relocate. I'm sure her aunt will hold that safari for later, and if she misses her last bit of eligibility for a youth Europass, oh well. If she can manage to land a job and hold it she'll be in a better position to pay for things later.

The point being that NOW rather than later is the time to get a job, save as much as possible (which you don't get by paying $100 more for union-made shoes made in the 3rd world - when you can get union-made shoes made in the US for under $50 - http://www.buyamericanmart.com/wosomo.html).

A stint in the Peace Corp would give you a job, living expenses, relief from student loans, AND the best kind of cultural and travel opportunity - living WITH the people you are working to help.

Moving elsewhere within the US (and making the necessary modifications to your appearance - heck, wear a wig to make yourself more presentable and less extreme in your appearance, then you can keep the pink hair for off hours) is another very viable option.

People have listed LOTS of options here. Of all the suggestions made thus far, your plan - to travel to Europe on a one way ticket, which is frankly unlikely to even be possible with more countries clamping down on immigration, every one I know of requires a ROUND TRIP ticket as evidence that you aren't planning to stay - is the least likely to result in a good outcome for you.

I hope things start looking up for you soon.

BTW, for anyone who is interested:

http://www.peacecorps.gov/

I'm going. I'm not sure when, but I'm going. I had planned to go out of college but my ex was against it. Then I had a kid to raise, then I was in grad school, now I'm caring for an elderly parent and I'm STILL in grad school.

But eventually all that will clear away and I'm going.

The job market does suck right now.
Which makes it all the more important for anyone without a job to network, get their face out there, shake some hands, show their stuff.

Creative self marketing.
If it means a trip to develop the self some more, then go for it. Just make sure you keep a blog and send that blog address out to each and every contact on your potential employer list, so that they can check it out and see what you're up to when you're traveling.

Peace Corps: I'm fairly certain that PC folks require at least a Bachelor degree, often a Master's. Great idea if you meet those requirements, but it's also a rather long process

Farm work is a possibility, especially with the spring season. As someone else mentioned, lots of people are getting their clothes repaired instead of buying new, so you could start taking in that kind of work (I assume you sew well given your field). That would keep you in your field and keep your skills sharp.

As a dual US-EU citizen, I would advise you to get your Polish citizenship question answered definitively before you leave (if you leave). You'll need to gather up some paperwork, and that can take some time. Passports take a long time to get, and if you know anything about the EU system, there can be lots of bureaucratic hurdles to jump over. There might even be a language competency component (there was for me), so you might need to bone up on your Polish if it's rusty.

Best of luck, Ivona.

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Originally Posted by tulip

Peace Corps: I'm fairly certain that PC folks require at least a Bachelor degree, often a Master's. Great idea if you meet those requirements, but it's also a rather long process

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A bachelors degree or masters degree will help, but isn't necessarily required. A lot depends on what your skills are and what the Peace Corps needs. These days they are looking for a lot of people with experience or skills in engineering, agriculture, construction, health care and other similar fields.

But there are a lot of other "corps" out there looking for volunteers--Americorps, Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Lutheran Volunteer Corps, etc. They all have different requirements, but most are significantly less difficult to get into than the Peace Corps, and all will give volunteers some good skills for almost any career.

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Originally Posted by sfa

But there are a lot of other "corps" out there looking for volunteers--Americorps, Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Lutheran Volunteer Corps, etc. They all have different requirements, but most are significantly less difficult to get into than the Peace Corps, and all will give volunteers some good skills for almost any career.

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Looking for work? New on the job market? Need work experience but also need a break from school? Take a volunteer vacation, just a few examples:

http://www.sierraclub.org/outings/national/service.asp

http://www.charityguide.org/volunteer/vacations.htm

http://www.wta.org/volunteer/vacations

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Originally Posted by jobob

Good grief, you asked for advice. Sometimes advice might not be to your liking.

Many women here made a genuine effort and wrote you very well-thought out posts with lots of excellent advice. Many have been in similar situations and they shared their experiences, and the hard choices they had to make, with you.

Some of that advice had to do with considering relying on parents, if at possible, ever so briefly.

Also, you never made it clear in your OP that you had any intention of paying off those bills. That's the impression I took from your OP, anyhow.

You're right, most of us don't know you, so the advice here was somewhat generic, based on the information you had provided.

Whether you take any of the advice given to you here, or don't, is entirely up to you.

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you're right, and i have gotten some good very advice out of it... however the viciousness is really not helpful to any of us! There's no need to be rude!

Thank you to those of you who spent so much time typing up good advice and inspiring stories (without batting me down like a mosquito), it's so very appreciated. I've actually thought about quite a few of those things a lot lately, and it really does help!

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Originally Posted by indigoiis

The job market does suck right now.
Which makes it all the more important for anyone without a job to network, get their face out there, shake some hands, show their stuff.

Creative self marketing.
If it means a trip to develop the self some more, then go for it. Just make sure you keep a blog and send that blog address out to each and every contact on your potential employer list, so that they can check it out and see what you're up to when you're traveling.

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Wow, you know that's a really great idea. I just might do that... thanks!

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Originally Posted by IvonaDestroi

you're right, and i have gotten some good very advice out of it... however the viciousness is really not helpful to any of us! There's no need to be rude!

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No one has been vicious or rude as far as I can see.
We've been assertive and frank about clarifying in no uncertain terms exactly what we are and who we aren't and how we got here, in an attempt to show you how we dealt with similar hardships in our own lives. Exasperation, assertiveness, maybe, but I have not seen rudeness or viciousness. Everyone has remained civil when making their points, you included. :)

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Originally Posted by ZenSojourner

From your very first posting:


Then later:


in response to the suggestion that you pay some of those bills off with your security deposit instead of kiting off to Europe:


Since you don't have a job I'm curious as to where you're going to save anything up to put towards this stuff. I hope you get a job, I truly, truly do, but in your subsequent postings it seemed that you were making it very clear that you intend to leave to go "on safari" just as soon as ever you may so you can get a Youth Europass before your birthday in a few months.

If you DO intend to buckle down and pay stuff off, that's great. More power to you. Wonderful. But you keep changing what you are saying so it's a little hard to keep track of your actual intentions, especially when coupled with statements about how you may not even come back from Europe.

As for the issue of who is and isn't a sellout, don't be disingenuous. You didn't use the exact term, but every time you talk about changing your appearance in order to get a job, you make it clear that you think it that if you were to give up your pink hair, it would impinge on your integrity, and that those of us who have made such compromises have compromised more than a little surface appearance. That's the definition of being a sellout. I'm not the only one who has used the term in response to your statements, so let's drop that bit of high dudgeon right now.

As for my alleged "prejudice", LOL! Do you HAVE a "kind of people"? I have never made any statement that wasn't DIRECTLY based on what you have said on this forum, which, I might add, has changed with whichever way the wind seems to be blowing. It doesn't apply to anyone else. Only you and the words coming directly out of your mouth (or keyboard I guess I should say, LOL!)

As for not wanting to get embroiled in a "political discussion of hypocrisy", you're the one who started in with the holier-than-thou posting about the evils of society, not drinking Starbuck's coffee because they support slavery, etc. etc. etc. I have no idea where that came from but it was obviously important to you since you went on about it at some length.

However, when I'm talking about hypocrisy, it has not a thing to do with politics and everything to do with your continued insistence that appearance IS integrity (and no wonder then that you are going into the very shallow and self-focused fashion industry). You give us a long posting about how wonderful the opportunity is to go traveling, and I would agree with that - if it weren't for your previous statements about not paying your bills, not having any money to pay your bills, and using what cash in hand you're about to receive to go to Europe rather than paying your bills with it.

Throwing up strawmen and making ad hominem attacks (about us being too conservative; making condescending remarks about how we remind you of your fuddy-duddy mother who thinks you're going through a phase; calling me a bigot; etc etc etc) isn't going to change anything that's gone on here.

For example:



Can't help it, I think it's REALLY funny that you're telling some of US what happens when time goes on, LOL! On top of that there are a lot of people involved in this discussion who, if they weren't exactly instrumental in developing the punk movement, at least grew up with it. The fact is that it IS an extreme of appearance, just as Amish dress and comportment is an extreme at the opposite end of the spectrum. One's not better than the other, nor worse either; but being extremes, there are consequences to adopting either one.

You posted looking for sympathy, and believe it or not, you got it, in spades. But you need to take at least some of the advice you've been given about how to dig yourself out of the mess you're in. You asked for it, after all. But then you blew it all off. And these women don't deserve to be blown off.

Again, if you ACTUALLY have a workable plan to pay those bills before you go, that's great. You didn't communicate that to us, quite the opposite in fact. If you've got $100 a month in credit card payments to make, and you're 3 months behind; if you're going to be gone for 5 or 6 months; we're talking on the order of $1000 for credit card payments alone. In the absence of a job, I'm wondering where that's going to come from.

I hope things work out for you, I truly do. All I can say is that they're more likely to work out if you WORK at MAKING them work out. Maybe you're doing that, but that's not what you've communicated. What you've communicated is that you're behind on your bills, you have no income, you have no job prospects, you have no interest in doing anything to increase the chance of getting a job, you're going to use the only cash in sight to run off to Europe, you don't want to wait to go because you want to get out there before your birthday so you'll still qualify for a cheap train ticket, you only need a one way ticket because you're assuming you can get deported home, but that doesn't matter that much because who knows, maybe you won't even come back to the US at all.

It's not prejudice or judgmentalism that is behind the comments you've been getting. It's your own words.

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Ok, I see the confusion here. The bill thing - I couldn't pay them because I needed food at that time initially. That does not mean that I do not intend to pay them when I can. Guess what? If you're in another country, theres a thing called a bank account that makes it possible to pay off bills even if you're not there!

The point of looking for work is saving up for this trip, part of saving up includes an amount set aside for at least 4-5 months of bills. When I get a job, I will put money into a "saving up for europoe" account, and part of that will pay the bills while I'm gone. Right now my first paycheck will be enough to get me all caught up on those, and since I won't have rent to pay, that is exactly where the entire thing will go. Then I can use the next check for saving up more for bills, and that check will probably cover the next few months of bills, my payments shouldn't bee too high after I'm caught up.

Only after that does saving up ticket funding/spending money come into play. I'm getting super cheap tickets thanks to my aunt, so I don't need more then a couple months to save up enough. 5 months is plenty of time, if I can get work soon. Make sense now?


Politics and hypocrasy again- i'm keeping this short because I'm really tired of talking about it and it's sort of irrelevant. I explained the starbucks thing because I was trying to explain how this is all one, big, giant lifestyle that I've had since I was a kid. I was trying to give you a background on why my hair was important - because it's part of that giant lifestyle. That was the only reason I put it in there, because it's hard to explain without you guys knowing what goes on behind all of that.

you can use the term sell out all you want, that is your perception of how you think things like this work. I don't use that word and never did.

I know you think the fashion industry is shallow. Believe me, you should have seen some of my classmates!!! I'm not going for the Gucci side. I'm going for things along the lines of Blackspot shoes, No Sweat apparel, and Global Exchange.

At what point did I use the term "bigot"? I did not. Please stop quoting things that I never said.

You can quote my exact words, and you will notice that many things you are saying are conclusions you drew from what I said, not the original statements. I also never called my mother fuddy duddy... Are you kidding?! My mother rocks so let's stop with bringing her into this and calling her names.

ok, enough with the negative... can we stop this now it's getting ridiculous. I didn't come on her to argue. Just because I don't agree with everything you say does not mean I'm not listening or thinking about it.

You have made a few really good points that are probably right, but it's hard to talk with you when you keep putting words in my mouth and using your conclusions as if they were my statements. Take a deep breath, all you are doing right now is putting me on the defense. Does that make you feel better? I certainly don't feel better when I walk away from this thread now, do you?

people read what you say and think that is what I said to you. It's not, and they are getting a completely wrong impression. You are using your conclusions from my statements as fact, when really that's never what I said at all.

If you would please stop doing that I would appreciate it. I do want to talk to you and I do respect your experience. But not if you're going to act like this then that makes it impossible.

Whew! ok enough of that, alright? Now then, I agree with you on the following points:


I should have been more specific on the bills thing.

you do have to MAKE things happen. Which is exactly what I am trying to do here.

Amish and Punk are both extreme and niether is better then the other. In fact, if you think about it, Amish people are almost like anarchists. Minus the religion, that is. I think we could learn a lot from them and how they live their lives. Because both are at extremes, they do have consequences. As I've said before, I'm willing to accept those consequences.

What I am dealing with here is a result of those consequences at a minumum, because the look is really not what bothers employers out here. Like I said, the customer base for many places I've applied includes people with wierd hair and tattoos (extremely common here), so it can actually be an asset to identify with that customer base as an employee.

I don't think it's hindering me quite as much as you think it is. And even though there is a small minority of places that wouldn't hire me based on that, I am willing to accept that as a resulting consequence of my lifestyle.

So the problem here, in a way, includes a minute portion of my lifestyle and a very large portion of places not hiring or having tons of applicants for what few positions are available. Changing my hair won't make a huge difference, I'm applying at coffee shops, tattoo parlors, bike shops, etc... where many employees look a lot like me.

OMG theres a mouse on my floor... Where are those cats when you need them!

Anyways. So let me re-communicate the many misunderstandings here:

I am losing my place next month. That's ok, because I am looking for a job in order to save up some money for Europe (this savings includes bills I'm behind on and future payments on them), and I can save much faster without paying rent. I have quite a few resources here in terms of places to stay in the mean time (Lots of squats, punk houses, etc... ). I'm doing my best to rehome the second cat, and won't let him go to a shelter. And, most importantly, I am aggressively looking for a job to get the ball rolling on all of this.

Alrighty then, I hope this resolved some of the many issues we're having here. I hope that from here on in we can be a little less aggressive and judgemental on both of our parts, ok? ;)