Clock Ticks On…

So, my little unemployed clock ticks on….

I have sent Company X about a dozen resumes since I moved to my current location. I’ve never gotten a call from them… until today.  And they called me about a job that would, quite frankly, bore me to death.  AND would be a step back in pay.  Every time I manage to make a wage I can live with, I lose the job and then end up having no choice but to take a job that pays less and then I inch my way back up to a good wage, the company goes bankrupt/downsizes/decides to cut all persons with my job title and I take a step back again. (No, I am not quitting or being fired for doing something wrong)

In the past decade, my earnings have spanned a range of $15,000. (Low being $… high being $+15,000).  And it has not been consistent… it’s been low paying job, high paying job, low paying job, high paying job, low paying job, high paying job so when someone demands your salary history, they have no real way of pinpointing your actual value.  What they are used to seeing is that say, in 2000 you made $10 an hour. You worked for that company for 3 years and left when you were making $13 an hour.  Then you got a job that paid $13.50 an hour, where you worked for 5 years and when you left that job it was for a job paying $20 an hour and so on.

In my case (this is an example, not at all my real earnings) it’s been more like  in 2000 I was making $10 an hour. I got laid off, took a job making $9.50 an hour (and worked a second, sometimes a third job). Worked there for almost 2 years then that company went out of business and I got a job making $15 an hour…got downsized after 6 months and took a job that paid $11.50 an hour, that was a contract position that lasted 8 months and then the contract ended and I got a job making $20, which lasted for 6 months before I got downsized and because of circumstances took a job for $12 an hour… and had a second job.  The point being there has been no steady progression but I have a threshold of “this is what I NEED to make in order to not have to work two (or more) jobs”.  I live in a very inexpensive apartment in a not so good part of town.  I ended up shouldering all of the marital debt in my divorce, so I have to keep making payments or my credit gets trashed and nearly every employer these days runs a credit check so defaulting is NOT AN OPTION.  The internet is pretty much my one luxury.  The rest of my money pays the bills and keeps a roof over my head. I haven’t got a dime saved for retirement.  I (thankfully) do not have student loans (of course, I am being hurt by not having a degree, but the crippling debt I would have had to shoulder would be worse than trying to convince employers that real world experience is just as valuable as being able to quote something you learned in a textbook).

And so, the clock ticks on… And only time will tell what happens next…