The Official SRK Unemployment (aka "Extended Vacation") Thread. Too much free time!

General Discussion
1

In spite of these troubled times (and the vast repetition of certain threads concerning “I got fired” or “They released me” or “I quit my job”), I decided to create this thread for what (apparently) seems to be a growing pain among our ranks. :shake:

Hi, my name is Lantis, and I’m an unemployed fuck. Today, I achieve the milestone of being unemployed for one month, which I carry around with my OTHER milestones of 3, 4, 5…hell, I’m been unemployed for up to 6 months, no prob! Life seemed so promising when I graduated from college 4 years ago, then all of a sudden, my track record sorta went like this:

  • Call center agent (I even had 2 stints in that shit)
  • Front desk clerk in 2 different hotels
  • Banquet attendant at another hotel
  • Intern in the US-Mexico Chamber of Commerce (does this count as a job?)
  • Coffee shop manager
  • Social studies worker

Only during the call center job did I manage to get to a year’s worth of employment. The other jobs…not so much. Some didn’t even come close (I only lasted 2 weeks in my last job). :confused:

Sometimes, you sorta feel like your resume feels “thin”, and that every year that goes by, a thousand new competitors surge from whatever college you think of, and you sorta get lost in the shuffle. Hell, I know some people (like me) even resort to LYING in interviews just to get that job. Sometimes, you would just say “Yeah, even a job at Mickey D’s is looking pretty good right now!”, but then you think “Goddamn it, I didn’t bust my ass in school to end up flipping burgers with a bunch of illterate fucks who could probably not even tell you the alphabet correctly, struggling for the minimum wage”.

It gets probably 10000x frustrating when you KNOW you got skills that makes you automatically better than at least 60% of the guys who offer up for the better jobs, but for some reason, go unnoticed by the potential employers.

Oh, real life, how you smite me so. :sad:

And no, spending more time playing games or doing whatever stuff is NOT a good way to live, even if you’re financially supported. It can and WILL get boring after a while, believe me.

So, COME FORTH my unemployed brothers. Let us sulk in sorrow as society keeps pointing fingers at us for being social parasites.

2

Hi I’m Wellman.

The longest I’ve been unemployed outside college is about 5-6 months, not counting short term temporary positions. I am currently in a 2 month drought of steady work and living with the folks.

Don’t know if it is my lack of experience, my name (IRL hard to pronounce by most American raised folk), my facial hair or some personal quirk but shit hasn’t been popping off with the job market. If all goes well I might secure a position by the end of the week but I could use all the well wishes and prayers I can get.

I got to land this one cause the friends and family (that I haven’t run off yet) are really pissing me off about going back to school.

3

I really hate call center jobs.

4

Sorry to hear that, Lantis. If your track record is OK, being a policeman is not a bad route, and they hire a lot of folks fast and easy depending on where you live.

5

My last job that lasted more then a month was at the steamboat ski resort snowboard shop. Going to school and getting paid to help people out with rental equipment and advice, it was an awesome job. Car accident at the end of January got me sent home and that’s when the unemployment started.

After recovering, started looking for jobs that wouldn’t require a lot of stress on my injuries(head and left eye that causes double vision). So while looking for an easy job to make ends meet I started selling my video games, stick and other stuff. It helped, but it was only temporary because just as fast as I was seeing money in my hands from the srkers and other people, it was leaving my hands at the same rate. After applying at many businesses, I was accepted at a home improvement super store. When I thought I would be solid with this job, the human resources lady was wearing 2kh8 steel toed boots and I received a swift kick in the nuts as she put me in “front end.” Front end is basically pushing carts 90% of the time while the other 10% was moving heavy shit to costumer’s vehicles. The job was way too physically demanding for me, maybe it would of worked if I was 8yrs younger and healthy.

After a week, I returned the favor and didn’t bother to show up the following week.
The next job I tried was painting houses for College Pro. It is a house painting business that the employees and managers are all going to school. Atfirst I thought this would be a not so bad job inregards of maybe being a more relaxed atmosphere and some brews during the job. But it wasn’t like that as I found out that everyone was getting shafted on their paychecks as the amount of work we put into =/= to the pay we earn. The brilliant people behind college pro came up with a “budget system” that tells the managers to guess on how long the house should take. The problem is, when you have a manager that has experience being a painter making the decision on how long a house should take to complete to abunch of noobs, it completely fucks up everyone’s pay because all but one house I painted, we were “over budget” and got our pay deducted, sometimes to $5/hr.

After a month of that bullshit along with falling off a ladder, I told my manager I had enough of it. So it’s now been a few weeks since I lifted a paint brush, I only have enough money to pay the minimum amount on the monthly credit card bills and my car is on E. I’m probably going to try to sell more of my stuff and maybe see if I can sell some plasma until the school starts up again and I can use my GI bill and student loans to help me out.

6

One of my irl bud who happens to be a srk member went to dealer school and is a card dealer at casinos now. He is very happy with his decision, if that helps out.

7

Awaiting inevitable Deathscythe post

8

OH, MAN! You have no idea how much hell that is…

I worked for two different campaigns during my call center stints: Nextel (before the merger with Sprint) and HP. Nextel was sorta OK now I think back to it. I sorta considered myself a Robin Hood guy during my stay there. I understood the customers’ pain most of the time, and made some tiny adjustments to their bills, which of course, all amounted up, and soon enough, I was the guy who had the MOST adjustments in the whole company: $5K-something (I doubled the amount of the second place). Surprisingly enough, I didn’t get fired. :rofl:

Now, HP…THAT was hell. News flash to all you HP users: if your computer breaks down, DON’T CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE! Go to a customer care store, Best Buy, Circuit City, whatever. They WILL try to cheat you out on your money, especially if your warranty is up. They will charge you customer service over the phone by the amount of $40 PER HOUR. So, no…please seek other options, kthxbye.

Policeman…in Mexico? :wtf:

Sorry, but I still have some sort of value for my life. Seriously, everywhere I see, cops are being downed by the drug dealers like they were in some sort of Contra game, especially up north. Besides, it has transpired via some videos that the police receives torture training during their practices, so yeah…I don’t want my higher-ups going Revolver Ocelot on me. :sad:

Unless I get shot down and later rebuilt as a Robocop of sorts…now wouldn’t that be cool? :cybot:

9

I’ve been unemployed for 3 months in the past… but Holland just spoils you with social income (that is if you keep up with their job interview demands)

But really… I had fellow office workers who had no fucking clue what they were doing.

Small example:
Dumb bitch asks me how the operating system works… “what’s wrong with that?” I hear you think, well my fellow SRK’ers, I’ll tell you why…
It was my 2nd day on the job, she already worked there for 6 months!

What I found out later was that she really and I mean REALLY had no fucking clue what she was doing.
And that is the problem… these people have YOUR job… and the job interviewers are just reeling them in… :confused:

10

Making an amazing amount of money has spoiled me . I refuse to work for less now. Knowing that I will be laid off is infuriating because I can no longer accept low wages when job searching like I did pre-college graduation. The skills are there, just need the chance to beast all over some fools.

11

Lets hope that this is the “Official” thread

12

Co-sign.

I’ve been unemployed for about 10 months now. My last job paid real well especially for people just starting. The amount of overtime was ridiculous too, so much so that even though you felt like dying after working 80 hours a week, once that check came in you were ready to start another back breaking week of manual labor.

13

8 months and counting.

14

sighs

I’m still looking for work though it helps that we finally got internet at our apartment again and we just bought a new (used) computer for a really cheap price so I no longer have to wait for a seat at our residential business center.

What I really hate is that I’m not getting any callbacks - at all. I’m applying for jobs that claim to have several openings, I have all the qualifications and experience but I get nothing back. I’ve been applying for jobs (seriously) for two weeks now and my phone hasn’t rung back once yet. Shit, I’m even trying some employment agencies but they aren’t calling me back either and I usually have great success with those.

Starting to get worried now. I have to have a paying job in the next two weeks or I’m not sure how we’re going to pay rent, and we live in one of those corporate communities where they don’t allow extensions or partial payments. Fuckers want to charge us an extra $250.00 if we can’t make payment by the 10th. I also just found out that I’m not eligible for unemployment benefits either because I haven’t lived in AZ long enough. WTF? It’s been a year already! How long do you have to be a resident to make a damn claim?

I have one more severance paycheck coming on the 8th. If I don’t have something shortly after wards, we’re fucked. Anyone here in AZ got any advice or better yet a job for me?

15

Well in my situation I was laidoff from my salary. Im still with the company as an independent contractor and still working on listings but right now im collecting on unemployment benefits while searching. At first I had phone calls and 4 interviews within the first 3 weeks. Then suddenly it slowed down a bit. I dayum near worked at Verizon Wireless as a customer service rep but i cant stand call center. Right now i’ve decided to go the government route. I have applied to the federal govt: HUD, Homeland Security, Food and Drug Administration, IRS, Securities Exchange Commission. I also applied for the state of maryland. So far the state jobs are looking good because im getting receipt back stating that im best qualified which means that i’ll be getting calls soon so i’ll see. But im a bit impatient since it has been about 2 months.

16

I got laid off :frowning: my job went over sea’s. Ive been collection unemployment for like 3 months…

and due to obama, wanting to be president… ( i think)…

im getting re-trained… meaning i can go back to school and the goverment pays for it :slight_smile:
so thats what ill be doing for the next year under the goverments expense :slight_smile:

17

You guys are dumb.

Become male prostitutes. Make that money.

18

well I guess from the paycut you can add me to the unemployed list. Still making some money but just not good part-time money like before. Gonna have to go find a real 40hr job now, I hear security pays well, don’t do anything and has lots of positions open. Only thing that was stopping me before was the guard card you have to pay for.

19

Been unemployed for like 3 months…and it’s been boring.

I’m collecting unemployment, and I’m back in school. I’m still looking around, and yes it gets tough for me since I don’t own a car. There are jobs available…but they are way too far from my commute.

Still, I got the jobsearch sites, and the school’s career center to help me out at this time.

20

Lantis what was your degree?

And ya, the police are always hiring. Just dont get above a 90% on some written test because they dont hire people who score too high. Statistics are that those people get bored and quit. Honestly, that would be badass being a cop. Rolling around my home town with authority, not at a desk, just driving around and scoping shit out, fuck ya.