Humiliating Job Search

Temp Hint

2005-10-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

I get so tired of being jerked around. Just when I get used to having hubby at home he goes off on a temp job that is supposed to last for a ceratin amount of time. Only it never does. They always end it early. He is just that good of a worker and goes through the tasks at super speed. In any case, I just get used to him going off to work and there he is at home again, sooner than expected.

So my hint about temp jobs is never to expect them to start and end when they say they are going to. The first one he went on was as a replacement for some guy who went on a long vacation just as they were transitioning to another system. After all the hard work was done, the guy decided to come back early, bumping hubby out of a job -- until they called at the last minute begging him to come back for a couple more days until vacation guy got up to speed on the new system!

Journaling

2005-10-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

I've been taking a workshop on creativity that requires writing in a journal every day. It turns out I only have so much daily energy to write and that leaves my blog hanging.

Would you believe, one of the things I was ticked off at the job counselor for is that she had the nerve to say "How's your health?" and then mention that I had told her I felt exhausted and she wasn't sure I could "handle" a full time job. I told her this in confidence before my "case" was approved to see her "officially," and yet that has all ended in my "government file"! Not that she has any medical training, but she had the nerve to suggest I go on antidepressants or something. Talk about crossing several lines!

I took a self-assessment workshop at JobLink and she wants to see my workbook. Now I don't trust her -- she might use the results to tell me the job path I am exploring will not be sanctioned by the "powers that be" based on her opinion of my life, as filtered through the relatively few minutes we have ever talked -- when she hasn't been distracted by phone calls, visitors, or whatever is outside her window!

In keeping with the theme or story of my blog, how humiliating is that, to have to submit to that just for the possibility of a little job training assistance? The research and mountains of paperwork that come later seem like typical government hoops to jump through, but the having your life in another person's hands who isn't qualified to judge is altogether a thorn in my side.

She seemed to have a problem with my "attitude" when I made the mistake of showing her my blog a while ago, not realizing that every good blog needs a focus, and "b*tch and moan" is a time-honored internet tradition -- heck, we had that on our message boards before there even was such a thing as an internet and we all had to dial up each other's computers for community access (that's how newsgroups used to move around, in case anyone still remembers those)! I only found out during our last meeting when she read my file and mentioned my "attitude" and then back-pedalled about her attitude in having said it! ("Oh, I didn't mean it like that!" Oh really, then why was that how it came out naturally before you edited yourself?)

Not to mention she seems to prefer "perky go-getters" and seems to have a problem with my style (I'm not into small talk, for instance, although in reading my Myers-Briggs profile last week I realized that is not a flaw but a characteristic.) Just because my personality doesn't light her fire doesn't mean that every potential employer/interviewer would react the some way! It's hard to call people out on their preferences, however, because most people won't cop to their prejudices, usually because they aren't self-aware.

I have my next meeting with her this afternoon, so we'll see how that goes.

Lots of Trauma

2005-10-04T23:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long delay in posting. Some stuff I couldn't bring myself to write about. I gave this link to my JobLink counselor and now hope she doesn't read this, because I am ticked off at the whole system and don't want to jeopardize my chances of help. They have a gov't program that wiill give a small amount of financial assistance to the people they deem are worthy, and I am chafing under the idea that it is up to her to decide if I'm worthy.

As for hubby, he recently got totally jerked around with a job offer. Both of these things will take more than one day to post about, so stay tuned.

My blog exists!

2005-09-17T21:06:00.000-07:00

I can now find my blog via Yahoo's and Google's searches, not to mention their new Google Blog Search!

I'm not in the mood right now to chronicle further humiliation. Now that I seem to be able to get back on the internet after a grueling few days, I'll need a breather before getting back into it. You dear readers need a breather so this blog is not a constant downer.

Snotty Unemployment Gal

2005-09-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

Hubby has gotten his first unemployment check, and that was a real disappointmant. For one thing, their maximum amount is only $450 no matter how much you made before, and we can't live on that! Plus, since he was a doormat as usual and went back to work for that temp job for one more day, the amount he earned was subtracted from his check.

(They had terminated him early when the guy he was replacing came back early from vacation, but then begged for help the next week when they found out the guy couldn't handle to new supply system by himself. And yet they wouldn't offer hubby more $$, and in looking at my bills yesterday I found out he spent almost everything he made paying for gas to get to that job! Suckage!)

When I called EDD (for those who haven't gone through this humiliation, that is the Employment Development Department, i.e., the U.S. unemployment office), after being on hold for what seemed like forever (probably closer to 40 minutes), I talked to a snotty little bee-atch. When I was trying to determine what effect temp work would have on hubby's check, she made sure to tell me that if he "refused work" he wouldn't be eligible at all. She really sounded like she relished saying that, whereas everything else was related in a bored voice and unintelligible diction.

So here is a warning to anyone who may be in the same boat. Do not look for temp work, so that you do not have to "refuse" it. Otherwise you could be stuck slaving away at unlivable wages and have no time to conduct a search for a real job.

Here is what I found out later, no thanks to her:
The formula is that you get to "keep" 25% of what you earn, and the rest is deducted from your check. If you make over $600 for the week, you would not get a check but you could get it in a week you didn't earn anything. If it is less, however, you get the reduced check and lose one of your weeks. It is so disgusting I don't even feel like describing how much that sucks.

Another item for the Tip Jar:
I had to fill up just over half a tank the other day, and it cost $30. Obviouslyu we don't have that kind of money. But I have to tell you, I have always been so responsible with our budget that even when hubby had a job, I would never spend $30 at one time unless it was a really special occasion. We would only eat out when I had two-for-one coupons, never went to movies, etc. How sad we had to take the birthday check hubby's dad sent him and put it in the gas tank.

So it is infuriating to be put in this no-win position of contributing to the billions of dollars of weekly profits for evil oil execs when we are gradually dwindling away to potential homelessness. Again, I am too disgusted to continue.

"O-F-F"

2005-09-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

I have to digress from my main story to publish this exerpt from an email exchange with a cousin, who wrote this a couple of days ago:

> Yes, it is a shame Bush doesn't have time (gag) for the hurricane victims.
> Heaven forbid that it cut into his vacation time. I don't know one person
> who has said anything good about him. More relief should have been taken
> down to those people by now. The children are starting to dehydrate. I was
> watching the news with my neighbors and we just sat there with tears in our
> eyes and shaking our heads. Then Bush came on and it just came out of my
> mouth before I could stop it, "O, great, now we have to listen to old F[ ]ck >Face!"
> I went to put my hands over my mouth, but my neighbors stood, clapped
> their hands and laughed. They said they were going to remember that line.

I had to laugh out loud reading that!
"O-F-F" always makes me want to barf. I'm glad my cousin was able to find some humor in it.

> On a brighter note where did you and Hubby go for his birthday dinner?

I took him to Red Lobster, which he enjoyed. When he was telling me what he had heard on the radio about this very issue and what the mayor of New Orleans had said about lack of preparedness and support, however, I almost burst into tears right in the restaurant and then Geoff almost did too. I wonder what the waitress thought. The Bahama Mama I ordered was vile, but not enough to make me sob!

(This was a couple of days before monkey-boy ever showed up in Nola. There was a puff piece in the paper yesterday saying how he was out there with the victims and kissed two sobbing women on the cheek. I would feel poisoned. I would say, I'd rather have a check for housing, since you personally have billions. A kiss on the cheek is like a slap on the face when you think of what he is not actually doing for those people!)

Other than that, it was a good meal. They serve cheddar herb biscuits, which is something we had made ourselves, coincidentally, the week before when I had some fresh chives (theirs, on the other hand, seems to be made by sprinkling a garlic herb salt on top -- of course ours was way better!) I had a coupon, and we still had some $ left on a gift card from Christmas :-)

Comrades in Humiliation

2005-09-05T00:05:00.000-07:00

Another blog found mine! It has people making posts about their job searches. When one gal said she just got two "no" answers to jobs she had forgotten she'd even applied for, I had to reply.

We went to a bunch of job search workshops, and one of the presenters said you have to go through 50 "No"s to get to a "Yes." So I found a document where Hubby had typed the word "No" 50 times and then some "Yes"s. Every time he gets a "No" or a "Yes" he goes into the document and strikes through one of the words. I wonder what he'll do when he gets a job, go back and tell the guy it didn't take exactly 50? Lol :-)

Tip Jar

2005-09-02T16:49:00.000-07:00

This could be considered humiliating, putting up a tip jar up on my site. But I figure if I make my monthly goal of $40 for internet access, it will be worth it. Or maybe someone wants to sponsor me for a $25 annual Flickr Pro account, or the $15 BlogShares premium membership (I'm doubting that will make their server move any faster, however -- I'd rather have Flickr!)

Or maybe someone wants to see us have a little stress relief and do something we'd never pay for ourselves, like go to a movie (oh, how I longed to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when it was on IMAX!)

Or something healthy like organic veggies instead of cheap processed crap that makes us fat and then kills us, but hey, it's "affordable." :P

I would be begging for a health plan, but hubby's parents have offered to pay for some minimal, catastrophic coverage (although I don't know where the money for high deductibles and co-pays is supposed to come from).

I'm still wondering how that chick who was so irresponsible in getting herself deep in debt got people to donate to get her out of the jam she got herself into. How could I market a "help me pay my mortgage" campaign?

Job Offer #2

2005-08-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

So the other assistant store manager offer came in today. At least this one had details (about a 30% decrease in pay from what he did before). We're not that desperate yet! I tried to tell hubby it is the beginning rather than the end of his discussions with them, since now he gets to arrange to speak to the regional HR director and explain why he is more qualified to be a store manager. Why would he want this? Fewer hours, less of a commute, and more hands-on managing vs. paperwork.

He was ready to let it drop, assuming he did not "wow" them enough to change the interview in mid-stream. It's a lot easier for them to humiliate you if they can trigger a bout of low self esteem. I am more inclined to think he just wasn't talking to the right person and presenting the right info. Really, since he had a Director-level position at a major national retail department store, to assume he was qualified to only be assistant store manager of a much smaller store is quite unreasonable. That's why he needs to talk to the HR guy about other options.

Did I mention his temp job ended Friday? They called today begging him to come back. The boss was trying to prove to his higher-ups that they needed an extra person to help run their new supply system, and I guess being a man short for one day really did create havoc.

Being honest, hubby didn't go behind the temp agency's back, but had them call the agency instead. Of course with the price of gas he said they'd have to up their rate of pay. In the meantime, he agreed to go back for one day when the lady from the temp agency offered to get him a contact with someone in non-profit. His "dream job" is to become a director at a non-profit.

How to Stand Up for Yourself

2005-08-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

I was very proud of hubby for not accepting that crappy job offer for once in his life. So the headhunter said there is another possibility of a better job closer to home. Let's hope that one works out! If he hadn't refused to be jerked around, they never would have brought up the other possibility. Let that be a lesson :-)

Of course in the meantime we are still bleeding money. His temp job ends today. I hope he can get unemployment insurance to lessen the bleeding until he gets a real job.

My savings aren't going to last forever. Good thing I was saving for major repairs like a new roof and major bathroom repairs, not to mention our IRA contributions. All of them on hold, and I can only hope not permanently off the table. My stomach hurts. (No insurance, of course!)

Crappy Job Offer

2005-08-24T11:43:00.000-07:00

So one company where hubby applied to be a store manager, even though he is qualified to be two or three steps up from theat job, wanted to interview him for an assistant store manager job (which would be career suicide as well as not paying the bills). At least they were honest.

Another company was interviewing him for a store in Fresno (talk about suicide!) but then came back with an offer to hire him for an assistant store manager position in another town, supposedly on the "fast track" to store manager, at which point allegedly he would have to move yet again after 3 to 6 months.

Having gone through this sort of thing before multiple times in his career, I can tell you we have never seen a company keep those kinds of promises. Every time he has agreed to start below the position they say he's qualified for, they have kept him at the lower job title with the lower pay rate and worked him to death doing the job they refused to position him into in the first place.

One notable example was a retailer who has since gone bankrupt who said they wanted him as a store manager but hired him on as an assistant. Then they had him moving from store to store as acting store manager, doing exceptional work without the pay or title, trouble-shooting major problems that existing store managers had caused and/or couldn't fix, pulling their fat out of the fire constantly without ever getting that raise or promotion. The excuse was that the boss' position in charge of making that decision turned over 4 times during that period.

The reality is that there is always going to be turnover in the decision-making positions, and the new guys are always going to want to start from square one and never honor the promises that were made by the previous regime. These high-level retail guys (even the women) love to swing their dicks around and are often incompetent managers. So if you agree to their downgraded promises, you end up a chump.

I beleive that is standard business practice. Now I think he needs to start applying for jobs that are one or two levels above the job he actually wants. This acquaintance of his did get a store manager job with the first company I mentioned. Hubby thinks that a change in vice presidents resulted in a change in policy, that now they want to "hire from within." I'm wondering if it is just that his acquaintance may have applied for a district manager position and got a downgraded job offer to store manager.

Hubby was most recently above a district manager position. He was a senior manager at the corporate level doing Director-level work. Naturally they hired him in with the promise they would create the directorship for which he did all the work, but no surprise, they never got around to it.

Agendas

2005-08-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

I got some very nice moral support in a comment to my last post. I was replying and then realized I should make it another post rather than bury this all in a comment.

Hubby really has strong qualifications. We've talked to two headhunters who are really excited about him. I think that must be good for his self-esteem after being beaten up on his previous jobs. In a way I'm not sure he ever figured out how not to take it personally. It seems clear to me that most companies are abusive because it is cheaper to beat down the employees' self-esteem than it is to promote and pay them what they are worth.

But the headhunters, whose living is tied to whether their candidates get the job, are thrilled to find a good one. When he talks to them, they treat him like the pretty girl at the dance, for once. How nice to feel desirable.

It's his mid-life crisis attitude I have to worry about, whether he will stubbornly insist on tanking his best chances of geting hired just because he would rather "do nothing" à la his favorite movie Office Space.

Not to sound too flippant -- I know he has genuine feelings about pressure in the workplace to deal with. I just didn't think it should come at the expense of our financial security such as it was. Like anyone who was not born into wealth, we were not that secure to begin with. We didn't get our "starter" home (a joke phrase since we can't move up from here!) until our mid-30s, and started to save for retirement even later (only to see those accounts crash to almost zero after 9/11).

Because I don't have the qualifications right now to go out and find a job that would pay the bills, I don't think he has the luxury of dropping out to find his bliss. Certainly I never did.

Btw, as the "Chief Financial Officer" of my household, I already keep our modest lifestyle to a bare-bones budget, so in case anyone was wondering if there was a way to reduce those expenses (aside from moving out of Calif., in which case we'd never be able to afford to come back, and did I mention in a blog post that would break my heart?)

Lime Green with Worry

2005-08-19T13:23:00.000-07:00

Anxiety over hubby's job search. First, more procrastination. He has 3 thank you notes that are 2-3 days overdue, if you buy the advice that you "have" to send them within 24 hours.

Also I heard him doing a phone interview yesterday, and he spent the first 20 minutes saying "uh" or "um" 2 or 3 times in every single sentence. I hope the interviewer didn't fall asleep before hubby got comfortable talking.

Career advisors do say the interviewer makes up her/his mind in about the first 5 seconds.
...

I really like the look of the template I chose for this blog. They offered a soothing blue version of the same design, but that wouldn't have fit the mood of my posts. I read a post in someone's blog about how she hates the trendy lime green everywhere, but that is one of my favorite colors regardless of "trend" *and* I think it works beautifully with my blog subject.

Cross-Linking and Readership

2005-08-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

I was so pleased to get the first comments posted to my blog, and I emailed Tish that I'd like to hear more of her review of Liza Dalby's book Geisha. Tish wrote back:

"I'll definitely go back and post comments on your blog again!

I'd like to add a link to your blog blogroll--so, let's exchange links (cross-linking is good).
Linking is important. I think there are several women on my blogroll who would enjoy reading yours.
:-)"

That's cool! I read this on Tish's blog:

"But what about those of us who are not in a particular niche? As I said, if I hunted around for blogs of single women over 40 with no kids, I'd be pretty out of luck, and every blog entry I made would be like the sound of a tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear it. What would be the point and purpose of blogging?"

I'm not single, but I am over 40 with no kids, and I do feel that my blog posts are kind of like the tree falling with no one to hear it.

Part of my purpose is to just let off steam here and say things I can't say to friends and family, but I agree there's not much point if no one reads the blog. It's discouraging to see no page visits on the web counter or click-throughs on the ads or search bar.

Btw, top bloggers can easily disparage those who are just starting out and looking for cross-links, but I don't think it makes someone a "blog-ho" to want those things.

I am steamed that the two blog listing sites I signed up with "way back when" I started this blog haven't listed me yet. I just emailed them that I put up their links in good faith, and now it's time for them to list me. Link back "or else!" Hah. The thing is if you've got no readers, what do they care if you delete your link to them?

Would you believe, I have maintained a private web site since 2003 for extended family, and with all my blog entries there, plus over 50 pages of content, they hardly ever visit the site? (Ditto with my new Flickr photo-sharing page!) So if friends and family hardly ever read a web site made especially for them, how much harder is it to get "perfect strangers" to read a blog?

At least with cross-linking we all have at least one thing in common -- we all blog!

I wanted to reference a post I made at BlogHer under the topic "Does the Current Link-based power structure matter" and found I had started the post by referencing a comment Tish had made -- not so coincidental as it turns out, since we are thinking along similar lines about links.

I was all ready to put the entire BlogHerRoll of links up here until I found that it doesn't fit into my Blogger sidebar. So to anyone who thinks their blog would be good to cross-link with mine, leave a comment as I'll be putting them up manually. Hopefully I'll get so many readers that I'll have to qualify that statement with, "as time permits!" :-)

Big Red Flag

2005-08-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

Last week the headhunter called and said the client had a question for hubby, which was exactly when did he leave his last job. I don't know why he was telling them that to begin with, but to me that sounded like a big red flag. She was too polite to use those words, but I've heard them enough so far to know what was going on. Especially since his prior job was as a financial officer, doesn't that raise a big red flag that he was so imprudent as to quit before lining up another position? Being that rash with our personal finances creates a red flag concerning his level of responsibility on the job.

Worse than that, I heard the first part of his phone interview with the actual employer, and he went on and on talking about how he quit his old job in hopes of going into a totally different line of work even though the job prospect was in his old industry! I felt like he was deliberately trying to tank the interview because he didn't really want that kind of job anymore no matter what the consequences. Because he has never been in any real danger of homelessness, he doesn't seem to realize that is where his decisions are taking us. That's a big red flag for me!

Red Flags

2005-08-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

By the end of any given year, I'll bet most people who are sensitive to language can identify a certain number of catch phrases that became so virally popular that they would rather stick a knitting needle through their own eardrum than hear the offending phrase one more time.

Yes, I just referenced "viral," but I'm not "done" with that term yet. "I'm done," or "Done!" pronounced with peevish self-righteousness, however... well, to use a slightly older expression, I'm so over that.

Maybe Lisa Kudrow's catch phrase on The Comeback, "I don't need to see that!" will inspire a new one, "I don't want to hear that!" The ones I am really sick of hearing right now are "at the end of the day" (does everyone on TV have to say this to make themselves feel they have just prounced a Deep Thought???) and "that being said" (not the least of this phrase's offenses is its grammatical inconsistency re. verb tense). As they said in my high school years, gag me with a spoon!

All of this leads up to my recent experiences in the job search industry, where one of their favorite pieces of jargon seems to be "red flag." There is a "red flag" in your job history, your references, your behavior during the interview, whatever. (See, we can't get away from these phrases -- "whatever" was a biggie!) Or they use it as a verb and "red flag" you.

To keep these blogs to a manageable size, I'll make this "Part 1" and post how this all relates to hubby next time. I will say that all of this talk of "red-flagging" can make the job searcher feel inadequate. Is it the scarlet letter of the New Millennium?

My Favorite Shirt

2005-08-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

If your favorite shirt made you look fat, would you want to know? I wouldn't, but that is exactly what happened to me last Friday. I went to a JobLink interview workshop, and the afternoon session was devoted to videotaping an interview session. I did not need to see that!

I have to give myself props for sticking with it. Most of the workshops I've attended had way more people on the sign-up sheet than actual attendees, and then there would be drop-outs halfway through the day.

I told hubby my life lately is all about doing stuff I don't want to do. Like, I really didn't want to do the videotaping, but I felt that since they had paired us up and there were only 4 people left in the class, it would have been letting down the other guy to back out. That shows determination and responsibility, to all the employers out there!

I also went to a yoga class at my gym last night even though I didn't feel like it. Yay for me! See, when you're down on your luck you have to find any little thing to pat yourself on the back for.

Re. That post where I was worried that hubby's procrastination would be detrimental to his upcoming interview, it turned out the headhunter had already decided from his résumé that she liked him because she had a similar background. He called it the best interview he ever had for a job he wasn't ever going to get (it turns out he didn't have the background they were looking for). So there's another contact. Score one in the plus column.

His interview illustrates something I learned in the workshop: they will make up their minds about whether to hire you within the first 5 seconds (if not sooner). He was lucky she was interested in talking to him anyway. Typically, after their minds are made up they spend the rest of the interview justifying their decision to themselves, but you don't ever know what they're thinking or why.

Rock On Redux

2005-08-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

If you remember the story about my humiliating application to the upscale grocery store, you might appreciate these examples of the people they chose to hire instead of me.

I should have known my chances weren't good when the first person I spoke to told one of the girls to "get this customer an application," strong emphasis on customer, and in fact that is still what I am.

Yesterday I went there to buy my favorite cereal. Imagine my surprise when the check-out girl said, "enjoy your Cheerios," seeming not to care that her store brand had a similar name but were decidedly not the competing brand.

It reminded me of the time a couple of weeks ago I bought their store brand cookies and the check-out guy took the time to comment on what a stupid name for a product they were.

Now, I wonder, what makes these kids who have less than zero loyalty to the company brands somehow more "hirable" than I am??? I think that is bad business practice. What a world.

Displaced Homemaker

2005-08-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

I did have some good news, which is that I am eligible to receive job counseling under the category of "displaced homemaker." Although we have no plans to d - v - rc - (I had to get that word out of my blog because it was generating bad ad topics!), hubby is unable to provide for us now, forcing me to look for a job outside the home. We had to fill out a number of forms including a list of all the unpaid labor I provided. We wrote it up like a résumé, and I must say it looked impressive.

I was telling the counselor today that what has really energized me the past couple of weeks is blogging and Flickr. If only I can find out how to make a living doing those kinds of activities!

Tough Work

2005-08-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Answer me this if you can. In America, the wife is not supposed to tell her husband what to do on pain of being accused of "trying to act like a mother and not a wife," or of being called a nag or worse. Well, what if, as is usually the case, the husband never completely grew up in the first place and is not performing basic responsibilities? In a job search, that includes not procrastinating in regard to contact management.

Like, hubby got an email a week ago asking for added information before an interview scheduled for Thursday of this week. After much delay, he finally got around to writing out the things that were needed on Sunday. Then when he asked for editing help, he argued with everything I said. This is typical, and extremely exhausting. Not to mention disrespecting my expertise.

There are certain things in a job search that are humiliating beyond your control, and others that you have control over. For instance, a prompt response to the people you are trying to get a job with seems like a good idea to me. It seems like putting your best foot forward and presenting yourself with professionalism. But of course I can't tell him that because it would be like "nagging."

I felt humiliated myself because a couple of weeks ago he had procrastinated to the breaking point in emailing some résumés, etc., to potential employers. So I was helping him type things out really fast to get the emails out before the end of the day and mis-typed a digit in our phone number. Then this beautiful but inaccurate letterhead got cut-and-pasted to the new documents we sent out yesterday. If he weren't procrastinating and then arguing and thus distracting me, that wouldn't have happened.

Anyway, I do realize stuff happens. I'm sure he had excuses like that he was too brain-fogged after getting back from his temp job last week, or the perennial excuse with him that he always thinks he needs to do X before he can do Y, but however valid the reasons, the result is the same. Now the executive search company will have only a couple of days before the interview to look over his materials and attempt to call his references. Let's hope they are impressed and don't think he's disorganized.

Deserving vs. Not

2005-07-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

I was feeling down the other day when we got a notice that a cousin of mine got married. First it looked like a wedding invitation, but having never contacted me before in his entire life, we obviously didn't rate an invitation to the wedding. And yet they had the nerve to send an after-the-fact announcement with a separate gift registry page. So we aren't good enough to ever talk to or invite, but you want gifts from us? That's some bullcrap right there.

I was thinking of swallowing my pride and trying to get in touch with him anyway when I saw they were married in the Hamptons. This seemed odd, since they live in Texas. I wondered if her side of the family were rich; maybe we'd could some good networking out of them. I also have a Disney World vacation villa reservation that I need to sell, but don't know anyone rich enough to buy it. But I found out it was just a place they'd heard about, the family didn't live there.

Then I thought of this other cousin who rooked my single uncle into co-signing her student loan, then defaulted on it so they came after him and threatened to take his house, making him literally sick with worry. She had used the money to spend 2 years in France. Hey, I always wanted to go study in France for a while or even just see Europe, but of course being a responsible person I could never afford to do it.

It's hard to find readers for your blog when you can't tell your "natural readership" -- friends and family -- about it. That's the only way I can feel free to write about my evil cousins etc. Also I am still keeping hubby's job loss secret because our family does not have any contacts that could help him network his way to a new job, so why worry them unecessarily? Not to mention some people just feed on other people's misfortunes. I only want to tell people who will think good thoughts.

How did that girl who ruined her own finances through overspending get people to visit her web site and pay her money? How did she get the press to drive traffic to her site? If I put up a "tip jar," would anyone rally to the support of good, deserving people, or is it only the stinkers who manage to thrive?

Kicking us when we're down

2005-07-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

Ever notice that big companies or governments get to do what the "little people" can't? Like flaunt laws with impugnity. Of course you have.

Sonoma County has a great resource for job-displaced folks called JobLink, and miracle of miracles they fought to keep the workshops open to the public. This has been of immense help to hubby and myself. But the rules to see a counselor are that eligibility includes having used up your unemplyment -- leaving out those who did not get unemployment -- and a disgustingly low limit on how much you can have in the bank -- for instance, a single person could only earn $4600 total in the past 6 months to qualify. So we aren't getting one-on-one help.

But that is all to say I did talk to a counselor there once who told me that legally employers must get you your COBRA forms right away. For those who wonder, this is the program that allows people to keep their health insurance once they lose their jobs. For a price. A very steep price. We'll get to that. I have to say I was surprised to hear they were supposed to speed that info to us, since it took literally a dozen calls to HR and 7 weeks before the paperwork showed up.

In the meantime, I slipped in the kitchen during the 4th of July weekend, and my knee is still messed up. Honestly, our health plan had just raised its co-pays to $25, and $500 for an emergency room visit whenever the doctor's office is closed, such as holidays, so even if hubby were still employed I wouldn't have gone unless broken bones were involved. But it was annoying to realize if something dire had happened, we didn't even have the paperwork to cover it.

But here's the thing: COBRA costs a fortune. The per-month cost to keep the insurance we had is over $650. Add another $150 and that's a mortgage payment! (I'll discuss housing costs another time.) If that isn't a kick in the teeth I don't know what is. (And at almost $40/mo. to add dental, let's hope there are no dental accidents! It's cheaper to risk it and pay $85 to get your teeth cleaned every 6 months.)

I call Shenanigans on this system! I call Bullshit! [pounding fists in angry frustration] Hello, government, we are out of work. We have no money coming in! How do you expect us to pay those gouging prices??? It is a system that is supposed to help those between jobs, but all they are doing is helping themselves to your savings, helping you hit rock bottom faster, helping you slide faster into a pit that you'd never be able to dig your way out of.

Did you know that to be eligible for food stamps and medical the individual can only have $2000 in the bank? At that point they wouldn't be able to afford to pay their bills. Why wait until the situation is hopeless to offer "help"? And yet...

The feds want to make it even worse by making it harder for people to erase their debts and file for bankruptcy. (Of course I don't want to go there, since that would ruin my perfect credit rating -- I think I'd probably sell my house and break my own heart before I went to bankruptcy.)

Hypocritically, this slap-in-the-face to the have-nots is coming from the administration that has tanked the US surplus and plunged us trillions -- yes, trillions of dollars in debt! Mega bullcrap! You didn't vote for the Bushies against your own self-interest, did you?

No surprise, they didn't call back

2005-07-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't decided if BlogShares is a great resource or a big time-sucker. It would be so easy to surf random blogs just to see what's out there until the whole day has gone by. I found one guy who has the kind of job I would have loved, if I could have afforded to go back to school (http://knowingart.com/) .

I would have loved to study the web part of it if those classes had existed at the time. So I can't quite figure out this guy's claim of "20 years building online systems," because when I was in school 20 years ago they barely had computers (The teaching assistants had to apply to a possessive tech guy to use the one Mac provided, and there was only one experimental computer classroom for freshman English in the last year I was there.) The internet and web sites did not exist. So how did he study web design 20 years ago? (I'm being a bit facetious here.) I didn't study art because the cost of materials and low chance of making a living at it were prohibitive, although I always liked it and was good at design.

Then I missed the golden age of web design where anyone could roll into a high-paying dot-com job. I felt my job was to manage the family finances and not build up debt going back to school (or moving away for a job). Now after all my work getting us a house and a perfect credit rating, it could all go down the tubes if my husband doesn't find another job before my hard-earned savings run out.

One thing the guy on BlogShares said was, "Get your wording triple-checked by a super-educated guy like me... " That rang a bell for me, not the least because I always triple check everything! I am a super-educated, experienced editor who can proofread with accuracy, dedication, and creativity for web sites or any other text. That is only part of what I have to offer, so it is disappointing when even the temp jobs don't want to call me in for an interview once they find out my high-achieving academic record is so dated.

Re. that first post (Friday July 22), as predicted they did not call me back after they got the answer to their quasi-illegal question. Are they really so naive as to think people don't improve and enhance their skills over the years? Not every job draws a paycheck, but all work and study builds expertise.

BlogShares

2005-07-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

BlogShares, in their own words, is "a fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by incoming links."

I just signed up and listed this blog in hopes of getting more readers. Now, by clicking on the link in the sidebar, you'll see that my blog has not been assigned to a category.

At first I thought wanted to be assigned to Places/California/Santa Rosa. I checked out their list of blogs, and while CA has lots of blogs, there are none from my town. I wanted to rectify that because of some sense of pride of place.

Now I am convinced, however, that my category should be "Storyblogs." Their definition fits my blog exactly: "Storyblogs are blogs in which most, if not all, posts are stories. These may be individual stories in each post, or may be a cumulative story continued in each post." Clearly this blog is the story of what happened after hubby quit his job.

If you click the BlogShares link in my sidebar, when you get to my blog listing you can help me out by clicking the link "Vote which Industry this blog belongs to." A window will open with a series of drop-down choices. In this order, you would choose Grouping: Internet; Industry: Blogosphere; Sub-Category: Storyblogs.

"Rock" On

2005-07-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here's something that happened soon after my husband dropped the bomb that he had quit his job. I saw this sign at a certain specialty grocery store, "Now accepting applications for all positions," so I filled out an application. Since it is my favorite grocery store, I figured since I need a job and I am spending a great deal of our grocery budget there, I might as well try and get the 10 percent employee discount. They had hired a lot of young summer help. I knew I didn't have tattoos and piercings, but felt it would sure be humiliating if they didn't give me a callback!

Three weeks later, after calling several times and always getting the same answer that they were "still looking over the applications," I went in and tracked down a manager, who told me they get about 50 apps a week and process 10, and that they had already hired 5 of 6 positions. Looking me over, he added they were looking for people who "rock" and who would be a "good fit." Since all the new hires are at least half my age with tattoos and piercings, my guess was that they would not consider me a "good fit." (It was sweet, when I told my husband about it he said, "Well, Honey, I think you rock!")

The manager-boy suggested I try the other store in town, with the unspoken implication that they may have different hiring standards, but having shopped at both locations for years I can tell you the only over-30 people working there were hired previously. All the new hires at both locations were kids. Is this just a summer thing, or was it an upper management decision on the direction they want to take their company? I considered writing to corporate (this company does not have a public email address -- I know from when I wanted to tell them to stop introducing products that contain partially hydrogenated facts, as it does not fit their image or help the consumers), but they would never admit to such a policy, so why waste the time? It is supposed to be illegal to discriminate against age in hiring, but there you have it. Call it something else, like looking for employees who "rock," and it can't be proved.

I'm not the only one

2005-07-24T08:50:00.000-07:00

Humiliation happens to us all. I was just clearing out our email when I noticed that some woman was emailing my husband. I asked who it was, he said "Someone from work" (the place he quit), and it turned out this was the person who is now doing his former job emailing him all the time for advice on how to do the job. This one email I saw had a slew of questions that would have taken an hour to answer. I feel he needs to get more self respect and stop giving his time and advice for free. If they need his help, they can hire him as a consultant. I was furious.

At the same time, as soon as he quit his job he drove all the way to San Francisco (with the price of gas, bridge toll, and exhorbitant parking costs -- remember we have no income now!) to "interview" with this "company" whose pitch was that if he paid them $17,000 (as if we even had that much!), they would find him a job working as a consultant to small area businesses for four hours a week, for which the businesses would pay him $1000 a week. Now, if your bullshit detector isn't going off at this point, you might as well stop reading. That was clearly just an appeal to greed and laziness to part desperate people with their money.

Here is where the thoughts in the two preceding paragraphs meet: I say if he wanted to consult for $1,000 a week, why is he giving it away free for to the company that stabbed him in the back in the first place? I was disgusted. Not to make these blog entries too long -- you'll have to bookmark this blog and come back as the story unfolds -- but in brief his bosses were doing something larcenous, and when he did not want to have any part of it, they got mad he would not cover for them and made him so miserable that finally he had to quit.

How humiliating is this?

2005-07-22T16:01:00.001-07:00

Even the frickin' blog set-up does not list "Homemaker" as an occupation. What, don't these people realize how much work it is even if you are not drawing a paycheck? They also don't have an option for "Other." But they do have "Student," which was easy "work" for me. Not that my straight-A record means anything in a job search, since any work history over 10 years ago makes you look old to an employer.

I signed up with a temp agency, and the employers are so picky they are asking for resumes for temp work! The gal at the agency sent mine to one place today and they had the nerve to question my work history before they would even decide if they wanted me to come in for an interview. That's right, you have to interview for temp jobs! With the price of gas, to drive to another town just for an interview is a bit much. But I am guessing once they find out that every job I had in grad school was done in the 80s, they won't be calling me in for an interview anyway. There will be many more examples on this blog of ways employers get around the agism laws, no doubt (it is illegal to discriminate against people over 40). I took a résumé-building workshop at JobLink where we decided to leave the dates off my work history, since the purpose of a resume is to get you an interview, but what happens when the prospective employer preempts that process by asking quasi-illegal questions?

What made it even more humiliating is that my husband signed up with a different temp agency, and they sent him on a job for more money with no interview, even though I would have been much more qualified to do "data entry" than he is. His typing is rather slow and inaccurate. I'll have to sign up with that agency to do an apples-to-apples comparison.

He did just get home from that job and I told him my temp contact called and asked if I knew Excel. Even though it wasn't a part of the job description, they all seem to insist you know it (!!!) He told me he felt he got his temp job because the agency gave him an Excel test that he did well in, even though his job does not use Excel. So, although I would be a lightning-fast learner of any proprietary software, I wouldn't "test well" in Excel since I have never had the occasion to use it. We certainly don't have it on our home computer. I asked my temp agency if I could practice on their copy, but the gal said theirs was broken!

Btw: I never did HTML code, but I was able to figure out how to put in the links I wanted in the Sidebar and make them open in a new window although nothing on this site told how to do that. (I don't like links opening in the same window because with each link readers get further from your site and may not make the effort to surf back to it!) Would most people be able to figure that out in a couple of minutes or even take the initiative to try? No. But for some reason I am unemployable?? Oh, what a world.