Damn.

[unixronin]

I just woke up from one of those dreams that you hate to leave.  (Well, for values of "just" expanding to "about an hour and a half ago".)

It meandered around a lot, as dreams tend to do, and included such surreal moments as navigating light traffic in some unnamed and not-really-recognizeable city on what appeared to be essentially a Big Wheel.  I eventually ended up in a rather unusually laid out suite of offices, definitely very much not the typical anonymous American office suite, where I spent a fair while talking with a number of Japanese businessmen, who seemed to be engineers (and who, fortunately for me, spoke impeccable English).  They and I actually spent most of the time sitting casually on the floor.  After a while, I was asked to wait for a while when they went upstairs, and then was called upstairs to follow them a few minutes later, at which point I was introduced to about 20 people sitting around a large table, about half Japanese, half Westerners, and even one Maori woman.

I didn't realize the whole thing had been a job interview until one fiftyish Japanese gent who appeared to be in charge told everyone to welcome me to the company, which was followed by a brief cheer of welcome all round.

--Sigh--

In the real world, with once again every current job prospect looking unlikely to come through and my skills getting more "stale" with each passing month and no money to go back to school, I sometimes honestly wonder whether I will ever hold a professional job again.  I'm not getting any younger, and I've been out of work for 29 months.  Coming here and shooting for the GSU job was SUCH a bad idea.

But really, what choice did we have?  It was this, or go insane in a month or two trying to live with my parents, or probably homelessness.  At least here, thanks to Eastern Carolina University's Brody School of Medicine, I've been getting competent treatment for my foot, and may be able to get mobile enough to hold down a job at Home Despot or something.

Sometimes I ask myself, what the hell was it all for.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was that the Universe decided you needed time to heal.

Here's to prophetic dreams.

*CRASH*

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

All things considered, I think I'd just as soon have done my healing while I had a well-paying job with cool cow orkers, that let me work from a comfortable home that wasn't full of mold spores and where the girls didn't come down with ear infections every few months. (Poor Pirate actually had a ruptured eardrum about six or eight months ago.) The Universe hasn't done us any major favors on this one.

The only potential saving grace is, around here, it's actually possible for a family of five to live on a Home Despot paycheck.

[dirtynumbangel.livejournal.com]

I hate suggesting this to you, as I know it would likely drive you insane, but are there any tech support jobs available around you guys? It would be cash flow at least, and help you back on your (now mostly healed) feet.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

There's nothing near to us. The closest thing in town to a tech employer is Best Buy or Circuit City. The closest tech jobs are in Raleigh, and Raleigh's full of out-of-work tech people who are lined up to take them. Plus there's the problem that companies looking to hire helldesk monkeys are generally looking to hire kids fresh out of college, not experienced mid-40s folks with a family to support. The killer of looking further afield in this economy is, "Why should we hire someone from North Carolina and wait for him to move here when we could have someone local working for us by this afternoon?"

We selected ourselves out.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I ask myself, what the hell was it all for.

I hear you. When everything in the paper is either something I could have done at 16, or requires 3 doctorates and a TS clearance, I wonder if I'm ever going to find a job again. There don't even seem to be any welding jobs available.

Last time I applied at one of the big tech support shops, they told me that I had too much computer experience, and since they knew I'd be bored, they wouldn't hire me. That was during my last bout of unemployment, but I don't expect that's changed any.

It's vastly frustrating.

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think if anything, it's changed for the worse. Job applications are a black hole; your resume will be screened by HR clerks who haven't a fucking clue what all the big words mean, but have a checklist of buzzwords the manager of HR wants to see; if you do make it to interview but don't get hired, they won't bother to tell you; you have to be overqualified enough to get the job but not TOO overqualified; and then if you do get lucky, they'll expect you to thank them for offering you a salary that three years ago even they would have considered insultingly lowball.