Dealing with unemployment - anyone else?

[crazycanuck]

IvonaDestroi-I used to walk past a park near a previous work where many pink, blue, etc haired young folks used to hang out. Emos, punks etc. I often wondered how they'd find work & what work they would do if they had to conform.

ANyways, I want to chime in & say if you can't get a job in your area right now after uni, data entry, etc will always be around. Take what you can, pay off your bills then travel. Yep, do networking!!!

(I'm back at uni & am making as many contacts in the Planning sector as possible. If you are willing to buy the contact a coffee, they might have suggestions to get into the field. I don't know how the market works in the US)

Jocelynlf post regarding moving to Aust & working-what about getting a one year work visa(is that avail to americans? I know it is for commonwealth citizens), doing backpacker type jobs(east coast might be better) & at the same time scoping the market for work in your desired area. Get some work experience first though!!!

Lastly, good luck in your job search!

PS-TE ladies will be blunt with you & as a member of the younger generation(i'm youngish too..36), don't think of it as an insult. Think about what they're saying, they've been there.

[Pedal Wench]

My location makes this decision a lot easier, so please don't think that appearance is my main problem. It's really not.

<<>>

Also mental strength is another thing I was asking for advice on... that's the really tough part!

Okay - you asked for it...

You want mental strength? Running away is weak, not strong. Sticking around, caring for the cat you've committed to, using the security deposit to pay back even a portion of what you owe to some other person who probably can't run away from their responsibility - that takes strength.

When I was broke I cleaned the floors at a doggie day care. I did the samples at a grocery store. I stocked grocery shelves - Jelly Belly beans don't stock themselves. I owed people money and it was my responsiblity to pay them back. It took mental strength to spend every free moment working, but that's what had to be done.

[NbyNW]

I think it's rare that anyone has their ideal job just out of school, even when the economy is doing well. However, I may just have a tinted view, seeing as every time I finish a degree there seems to be a recession going on.

Taking a job in the short term to meet your financial obligations and pay for food and the roof over your head does not mean you have to give up your dreams. It may mean putting them on hold for a little while.

You may pick up skills and experience along the way that seemed totally irrelevant, but will help you to succeed at your dreams in the long run.

Waiting tables/working retail may help you hone valuable communication skills; office admin work/data entry could give you the management skills that you could call on to run your own business someday. Working for thoroughly unpleasant people may help you develop your own management philosophy for the day when you are the one calling the shots.

For me, the mental strength has come in small moments: feeling a sense of accomplishment that I was the one paying the bills, and no longer needed to ask my parents for help; getting out of debt and staying out; and for me it was later that I figured out what I wanted to do, so each step in that direction was a moment where I had to dig deep and find the inner strength and the social support to do it.

Like others, I have had short periods where I had to move back in with my parents -- twice due to injury -- and it wasn't my first choice. But you do what you have to do and then you get back out there.

You'll be okay. You've survived the rigors of design school (been there), which means that you know how to work hard. And you know how to work long hours. If you stay healthy and uninjured, really that's all you need.

[jessica47201]

Have you tried getting a job, bartending? The more outgoing and unique the bartender the better, and if you can play the game right you can make some killer tips!!!!

[solobiker]

Have you tried getting a job, bartending? The more outgoing and unique the bartender the better, and if you can play the game right you can make some killer tips!!!!

I would have to agree with the above post.

I work and have worked in the same field for over 15 years and it is not accepted to have pink hair or visable tattoos. Currently where I work they require anyone that has any tattoos on their arms, face, neck, hands..etc that they are covered with clothing and if they can't be covered with clothes then they have to wear a bandaide over them. And their hair can not be an "unatural color" Unfortunately it is just the image it protrays. It has nothing to do with the older generation not understanding, heck several years ago...yes before my time in the work force women were not allowed to wear pants to work..that was huge! My Mom told me how she (she as a PE teacher) had to wear skirts. Now look at how teachers dress. Times have changed. Sorry, I didn't mean to digress.

I wish you the best.

[TxDoc]

Can you go back to school, and like study for an advance degree or maybe a different major? School could be a good place to be - for sure better than venturing into Europe where unemployment is even higher then here. Our hospital laid off many people last year after the hurricane - and I know several that decided to go back to school and use this difficult time to make themselves more qualified and easier to place on the job market.
It could be a temporary solution to the problem - and a good investment for the future. Also, some schools allow you to work part-time in the institution and grant you a small salary - and that would help you with repaying debt or at least make up living expenses.

[shootingstar]

Someone mentioned offering to do some initial work for free..

Don't forget the charity fundraisers where your creation if you know your audience in advance, could be auctioned off. And people with money attend some of these fundraisers..great for business networking.

After having only $13.00 in my bank acount, I moved out to big city upon graduation. After nearly 3 wks., out of desperation I volunteered my services. The manager looked at my resume, we chatted..and offered me my first paid job in my profession. Granted, it was part-time, small role...while I held down part-time jobs at...3 different bookstore locations (yea, I was blitzed on some days)...but it was the first step.

And this mentor (20 years older than I), remains a good friend to me to this day, offering me advice at different times of my career. We still are in touch and chat up. I credit the start of my paid career ..to her.

_________________________________
Off topic: I dragged out my sewing machine tonight to mend some tiny rips in a pair of dress black pants..for yet another interview in a few days. Pretty pathetic that I cannot think of any place in any shopping mall in downtown Vancouver to get a fat spool of black thread..sewing suppliers have become scarce these last few decades. So bright blue thread it was-- thankfully on the pants inside and also for a pair of cycling shorts. Must have done the serging tension wrong on the weakened lycra material..it looks bubbly. But who cares for 1 more season, if I'm just riding for fitness.

Was watching a reality fashion design competition. It was the finale. That is a HUGE amount of time and energy for each young designer to create each piece for just a collection modelled down that runway. I can appreciate your 80 hr. wk. long homework design assignment and class time. Just cutting and sewing 1 bottom or top tailored piece with some fine French finishes, would take me at least 2-3 days and its evenings solid. Your time would also have to include fabric selection, design, pattern drafting, etc.

[Running Mommy]

Reading through all these replies and something came to mind...
There is nothing we can do or say to help Ivona.
This whole thread gave me a headache. So much good advice, but giving it to someone that is not "open" to it. Because of course we are all "old" and from a "different generation".... As if!!!
I'm walking away from this thread shaking my head.

[papaver]

And I have a big meeting with some important Antwerp fashion designers today. I wonder if they will be dressed down.

[Selkie]

Kind of obvious and someone might have already mentioned it.

Why not do alterations/seamstress work? See if you can get work with a tailor or at a big Dept Store.

[lph]

Reading through all these replies and something came to mind...
There is nothing we can do or say to help Ivona.
This whole thread gave me a headache. So much good advice, but giving it to someone that is not "open" to it. Because of course we are all "old" and from a "different generation".... As if!!!
I'm walking away from this thread shaking my head.

With all due respect, I don't agree, Running Mommy. There's plenty of good general advice here, as far as I can tell, but not being in her shoes it's hard for me to tell how applicable it is to her situation. She's entitled to her own opinion no matter her age, too.

And she never did say anything about "us all being old". I'm finding this a really good thread, full of interesting stories. I can't really add anything but keep reading it all. I wish I'd known enough to go ask people for input when I was at that point in life.

[papaver]

A friend of mine has worked a couple of years in a costume shop. They make costumes for big opera, musical and theatre productions. The first two months she worked for free, after that she got paid a normal salary. Now she works at the design department of Levi's.

[ZenSojourner]

I, too, get the distinct impression that the original poster has some unrealistic ideas about us elderly types.

The current generation always seems to labor under the misapprehension that they're the ones who invented revolution.

I have to laugh when I see things like interviews of youngsters on TV regarding, say, internet access or the AMAZING idea that there are people over 30 on FACEBOOK! These kids say things like, "Oh, I think it's WONDERFUL that older people are figuring out how to use computers!"

LOL! Who do you think INVENTED them?

And talk about restrictive dress codes! I was in junior high school before girls were allowed to wear slacks to school, because it was considered "immodest". Yes, much more "modest" to walk up the stairs in a skirt while boys stood at the bottom yelling, "I see London, I see France, I see whosis' UNDERPANTS". Teachers weren't allowed to wear slacks to school until I was in High School.

I have my own "unusual" dress choices, but I don't dress that way (stretch pants, hippy tops, Salwar Kameez, sandals) when I NEED a job. Now when I have job CHOICES, it's a different matter. I once turned down a job that would have doubled my salary because they required women to wear 2" heels and dresses. You had to have a (male) supervisor's WRITTEN PERMISSION to wear slacks to work - as a PROGRAMMER.

But I already HAD a job. I didn't have $100,000 in debt and a cat to take care of with no income in sight.

Speaking of which, it's women like us who opened up engineering professions for other women. The school I attended ran their computer sciences department from the College of Engineering. That meant it was heavily math/engineering/electronics oriented. In nearly all of my classes I was the only girl, or one of only 2 or 3 (the others generally being foreign grad students). The attitude of the instructors ranged from full on chauvinism and unfair grading, to treating me like some kind of cute mascot, with the odd sexual predator thrown in. But every one of us dowdy, conservative women who forged ahead in a program like that made it easier for younger ones coming behind us to follow in our wake.

For years I was considered a bra-burning, ball-busting, man-hating Femi-Nazi for doing things like:

1) refusing to act as a typist when I had been hired as a software engineer
2) insisting that my boss call me by my name instead of "honey" or "dear"
3) informing my boss that it was unprofessional for him to touch me and stroke my hair and that I expected him to treat me professionally at all times
4) offering to sue the company for refusing to send me to a professional society convention (important to professional development and considered when granting promotions and raises) that ALL the men in the office were going to because, according to management, it "might make their wives jealous"
5) refusing to divulge my then-husband's salary to a potential employer during a job interview

And on and on ad infinitum

You may think the color of your hair and all those tattoos don't matter, but I guarantee you, they do. Especially in an employer's market, they are going to choose the LEAST controversial looking potential employees. Businesses are in business to make money. That means they cater to CUSTOMERS, not employees. And they are highly unlikely to hire someone that gives even the least hint that some customers might find them off-putting. I doubt that you would refuse to buy coffee at Starbucks because you were faced with an employee conventionally attired and coifed; but I guarantee you, however "judgmental" it may be, there are a whole lot of people who won't frequent an establishment where the employees are tattooed, pierced, and dyed in extremely unconventional ways. That means employers catering to those customers are not going to hire you, even if they have no personal qualms about your appearance and even if there's nothing formal in their hiring rules about it.

You're 25 years old. If you think you are never going to change, your taste in music, your preferences in attire, your taste in food and entertainment, the type of men you date, what kind of friends you make and keep, well, all I can say is you've got a lot of surprises waiting in store for you. We ALL have "phases" we are going through. It's called LIFE. Growth brings change. If you continue to grow, I guarantee you will change your mind about LOTS of things. Personally I'm looking forward to growing into and out of a whole LOT of phases yet as I progress through life. The ones I've already outgrown are strung behind me like pearls; I'll be making new pearls and leaving them behind my entire life. I hope you do, too, whatever you feel about the pearl you're making right now. Not growing, changing, and learning would be such dreary tedium.

I'm on my fourth or fifth career change. I started out in biology and medical research, then software engineering, retired to homestead for awhile, then medical again, more homesteading, now I'm attending a doctoral program in clinical psych. Lots of pretty pearls, but I outgrew them and moved on.

From what you've written so far here, all I can say is you seem very inflexible and rigid in your thinking. You expect the world to conform to you and accept you as you are without remark or hesitation.

It just doesn't work that way.

Obviously your choice of attire and appearance is just that, YOUR choice. But do not fool yourself into thinking that when you are on the far extreme of appearance that it will not have a negative effect on your chances of finding a job in such a bad economy. And those of us who are telling you so are not fools blinded by conformism. We're women, many of us revolutionaries in our day, and some of us revolutionaries still, who have twice or three times the experience of the real world as you do, and who are trying to share some of that hard-won knowledge with an up and coming member of the sisterhood.

Nobody is telling you you can't dress and look however you want in your free time; but work time isn't free time, it's time you're getting paid, and that gives the employer a say in what is and isn't acceptable during work hours. If the job requiring dresses and 2" heels had been my only option, I'd have taken it, worn the heels and dresses - and kept looking for something else. But I'd have taken it in the meantime and CONFORMED, externally only, because that would have ultimately served MY ends.

In a GOOD economy, you've got a lot more leeway to be revolutionary in your appearance. But in a BAD economy, you'll only be hurting yourself by presenting yourself to an employer with a "Here I am, take it or leave it" attitude. As you are finding out, they're leaving it.

[jobob]

Wow, many fascinating and thoughtful posts here! Thankyee kindly!

- Jo (an old fart)

[Tuckervill]

Someone may have already said this, but we're just saying that hair color is "emblematic" of the whole appearance issue. It's just shorthand for the self-expression that Flybye described so eloquently.

You have the advantage of choice in this situation. If freedom of expression is that important to you that you would not consider changing your hair color - then be happy with that but know that there are consequences to the choice. One of those might be unemployment. Is that unemployment worth leaving the country and your family? Consider too, whether leaving will be to your advantage or to your disadvantage. I would think, and this is just an assumption, that you would be at an even greater disadvantage to finding work in another country.

And I just want to say one more thing.

"YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!"

Karen