Working

I've worked in some way or another from the time I was in middle school. I started as a groom at a local horse farm mucking stalls, grooming horses and cleaning tack, went on to work in the concession stand of a local ball park, was a student secretary for the dean of the nursing school at Ball State during the day and a bar waitress and Black Jack dealer at night all through college.

After college, I went on to work with special needs children in a daycare center, be a program coordinator on a psych ward for violent, developmentally disabled adults, a group home manager for low-functioning, developmentally disabled adults, and independent living home manager for an autistic woman, a car salesperson at Saturn and from there moved into my 'career' life with Saturn, Nelnet, Dartmouth and Roeper.

I've been blessed to have always worked either with people I love, in a job I love or both. Rarely have I dreaded going to work (though, at times, we all dread certain aspects of our job - cough, the auction, cough or certain people we work with - cough, my last team leader at Saturn, cough). I've just never understood those who see work as a 'paycheck' and dread every moment. I've always felt if you don't love what you're doing, do something else!

Since the untimely demise of Saturn, I've seen friends lose jobs and leave jobs. I've seen people refuse a job because it was 'below' them or take themselves to the brink of bankruptcy (and beyond) because they didn't want to 'start at the bottom again'. Though I could feel their frustration, I felt that if I was ever in that place NOTHING would be 'below' me. I have a daughter to support on my own, after all, and she needs food, clothing and shelter. After leaving Saturn, I took a position with Nelnet that was similar to a job I had had 7 years earlier at Saturn and a 50% pay cut, just to get back to bringing home a paycheck. I didn't see it as 'failure' or 'below me', I saw it as a new opportunity to prove myself and grow. Five months later I was the training manager for all four call centers in four states.

How often do we look down on those who aren't working or who are on welfare because 'there are jobs out there, if you just look'. Well, I'm quickly learning, it's not always that easy. I've applied for everything from customer service rep, to administrative assistant, to cashier to bookseller. I've 'dummied down' my resume (on the suggestion of numerous different sources), gone to job fairs, applied online, attended 'Networking' functions with the local Chamber of Commerce and pounded the pavement...everything short of dropping thousands of my resumes from an airplane (which I haven't ruled out, by the way).

I have officially been rejected for over 80 positions now - all electronically. We live in much different times, where hiring decisions are being made more and more by a computer program looking for specific words or phrases on your electronically submitted resume. Where a 167- question computer test is scored electronically and an 18-year-old kid tells you, "Sorry, you're not what we're looking for at this time. You can reapply in six months." When I asked, "Why?" the boy looked at me like I was crazy and said, "I don't know." Sadly, he truly didn't. So, why was I shocked when after researching all the companies attending a local job fair, reviewing their websites and pinpointing specific companies with positions for which I was qualified, I walked up to the first booth, introduced myself, told the girl I had found a position on their website that I was very interested in and she turned to the woman working with her and said, "We're hiring?" WHAT?!?!? YOU'RE MANNING A BOOTH AT A JOB FAIR AND YOU DON'T KNOW YOU'RE HIRING? *sigh*

So, what I've learned is that it's not just as easy as being willing to work. The company has to be willing to hire someone they view as 'over qualified' and who they fear may leave if something 'better' comes along. But, really, when you're unemployed, isn't every job better than the one you currently don't have?