I HATE WINTER

[Boogeyman]

MauEvig, we'd all like to retire and enjoy our golden years without fear of want. But instead of looking at an end game, perhaps you should be looking a little closer to now and today.

Less than 15% of the people employed today remain with the same employer or job for their career. Back in the days of high paying assembly line jobs at auto makers, not only could you find a job for life, with good pay, benefits and retirement, but it was almost a guarantee that your kids would follow in your footsteps and have the same life guarantee.

I'm afraid those days are gone forever. You are not alone I can promise you. I know well educated and trained people who are working way below their levels just to put food on the table and some aren't even doing that.

I understand your reluctance to deal with people. Once you've been a cop as long as I have, there are days you get of bed and think....Oh I don't think I put up with the bull**** today. But you got to do it.

I have sat on several hiring boards myself and have talked with human resource people about what they want and how to up your chances of getting the job.

I'm sorry to have to tell you, but ALL jobs want someone who is a people person. If you go in and tell them you're not, it really does hurt your chances. An employer wants someone who will not listen and do what their job description entails, they need someone who is positive in thought and deed. In other words you need to show yourself as being bright and positive and mature. The way you portray that to a prospective employer is to come across as a people person.

For instance: You make eye contact with the interviewer. You smile a lot, and you speak in a strong(not loud)voice. You sit up straight during the interview and don't fidget in your seat.

If you get a question that you're not familiar with or understand, look at at the person who asked and say, could you please explain what you mean? Could you please repeat that? Always say please and thank you. Look and behave sure of yourself.

Tell them your long term goals are to climb the ladder with the company. This is what they want to hear. They are looking for someone who will make a commitment with them.

Always wear conservative clothes too. Leave the goth or hip hop clothes at home and understand that these people are offering you a job and it is they who set out the rules and morays to adhere to.

Never speak badly about a former employer. Even if you hated the job. You tell them that your old job was a learning experience and you were happy and grateful that you had a chance to work there, but you also felt you had done as much as you thought you could accomplish and wish to move on to new challenges to continue your search for personal and job fulfillment.

If you were fired and nobody asks you if you were, don't volunteer the information. If you are asked why you were fired, be simple and direct with your answer and tell them the official reason given. Don't say things like "the boss didn't like me" or "they were out to get me" To an employer that just sounds like sour grapes and you refuse to accept responsibility for your actions.

At the end of the interview thank the panel or person and always remain upbeat and positive during the interview.

Portray yourself as a winner and and your chances of winning the interview and getting the job increase greatly.

I agree with all of this but if none of this works, bribe them.

[Kolchak]

MauEvig, we'd all like to retire and enjoy our golden years without fear of want. But instead of looking at an end game, perhaps you should be looking a little closer to now and today.

Less than 15% of the people employed today remain with the same employer or job for their career. Back in the days of high paying assembly line jobs at auto makers, not only could you find a job for life, with good pay, benefits and retirement, but it was almost a guarantee that your kids would follow in your footsteps and have the same life guarantee.

I'm afraid those days are gone forever. You are not alone I can promise you. I know well educated and trained people who are working way below their levels just to put food on the table and some aren't even doing that.

I understand your reluctance to deal with people. Once you've been a cop as long as I have, there are days you get of bed and think....Oh I don't think I put up with the bull**** today. But you got to do it.

I have sat on several hiring boards myself and have talked with human resource people about what they want and how to up your chances of getting the job.

I'm sorry to have to tell you, but ALL jobs want someone who is a people person. If you go in and tell them you're not, it really does hurt your chances. An employer wants someone who will not listen and do what their job description entails, they need someone who is positive in thought and deed. In other words you need to show yourself as being bright and positive and mature. The way you portray that to a prospective employer is to come across as a people person.

For instance: You make eye contact with the interviewer. You smile a lot, and you speak in a strong(not loud)voice. You sit up straight during the interview and don't fidget in your seat.

If you get a question that you're not familiar with or understand, look at at the person who asked and say, could you please explain what you mean? Could you please repeat that? Always say please and thank you. Look and behave sure of yourself.

Tell them your long term goals are to climb the ladder with the company. This is what they want to hear. They are looking for someone who will make a commitment with them.

Always wear conservative clothes too. Leave the goth or hip hop clothes at home and understand that these people are offering you a job and it is they who set out the rules and morays to adhere to.

Never speak badly about a former employer. Even if you hated the job. You tell them that your old job was a learning experience and you were happy and grateful that you had a chance to work there, but you also felt you had done as much as you thought you could accomplish and wish to move on to new challenges to continue your search for personal and job fulfillment.

If you were fired and nobody asks you if you were, don't volunteer the information. If you are asked why you were fired, be simple and direct with your answer and tell them the official reason given. Don't say things like "the boss didn't like me" or "they were out to get me" To an employer that just sounds like sour grapes and you refuse to accept responsibility for your actions.

At the end of the interview thank the panel or person and always remain upbeat and positive during the interview.

Portray yourself as a winner and and your chances of winning the interview and getting the job increase greatly.

I agree with all of this but if none of this works, bribe them.

SO! You've been to Atlanta!!??

[Boogeyman]

MauEvig, we'd all like to retire and enjoy our golden years without fear of want. But instead of looking at an end game, perhaps you should be looking a little closer to now and today.

Less than 15% of the people employed today remain with the same employer or job for their career. Back in the days of high paying assembly line jobs at auto makers, not only could you find a job for life, with good pay, benefits and retirement, but it was almost a guarantee that your kids would follow in your footsteps and have the same life guarantee.

I'm afraid those days are gone forever. You are not alone I can promise you. I know well educated and trained people who are working way below their levels just to put food on the table and some aren't even doing that.

I understand your reluctance to deal with people. Once you've been a cop as long as I have, there are days you get of bed and think....Oh I don't think I put up with the bull**** today. But you got to do it.

I have sat on several hiring boards myself and have talked with human resource people about what they want and how to up your chances of getting the job.

I'm sorry to have to tell you, but ALL jobs want someone who is a people person. If you go in and tell them you're not, it really does hurt your chances. An employer wants someone who will not listen and do what their job description entails, they need someone who is positive in thought and deed. In other words you need to show yourself as being bright and positive and mature. The way you portray that to a prospective employer is to come across as a people person.

For instance: You make eye contact with the interviewer. You smile a lot, and you speak in a strong(not loud)voice. You sit up straight during the interview and don't fidget in your seat.

If you get a question that you're not familiar with or understand, look at at the person who asked and say, could you please explain what you mean? Could you please repeat that? Always say please and thank you. Look and behave sure of yourself.

Tell them your long term goals are to climb the ladder with the company. This is what they want to hear. They are looking for someone who will make a commitment with them.

Always wear conservative clothes too. Leave the goth or hip hop clothes at home and understand that these people are offering you a job and it is they who set out the rules and morays to adhere to.

Never speak badly about a former employer. Even if you hated the job. You tell them that your old job was a learning experience and you were happy and grateful that you had a chance to work there, but you also felt you had done as much as you thought you could accomplish and wish to move on to new challenges to continue your search for personal and job fulfillment.

If you were fired and nobody asks you if you were, don't volunteer the information. If you are asked why you were fired, be simple and direct with your answer and tell them the official reason given. Don't say things like "the boss didn't like me" or "they were out to get me" To an employer that just sounds like sour grapes and you refuse to accept responsibility for your actions.

At the end of the interview thank the panel or person and always remain upbeat and positive during the interview.

Portray yourself as a winner and and your chances of winning the interview and getting the job increase greatly.

I agree with all of this but if none of this works, bribe them.

SO! You've been to Atlanta!!??

Nope. But I live in the same state Detroit is in...

[MauEvig]

Oh I understand completely. People want a "people person" and unfortunately with my anxiety it's difficult for me to socialize with a lot of people. I have my boyfriend and a few friends here and there, but not a very big social circle at all.
I can try and say that I'm a people person, a team player and such, and I even put that into my cover letters. But deep down, on the inside, I prefer to work independently. It doesn't mean I can't work with people at all, it's just more challenging for me to do so.
Every single day I go to work I feel a rush of anxiety and would just as soon hide in a corner all day. But I know that I need the money. So I go in there every day, put on a smile and run with it.

I don't wear my "hip hop" clothes to interviews. I dress professionally, I don't wear make up because I hate make up, and do what I can to be calm and act professional.

I think when I do interview though I get all nervous, and often times I trip over a lot of the difficult questions, especially when I can't think of an example of the situation they are asking me about.

But even just getting to the interview is challenging enough.

I suppose that it's not such a bad thing then that I view my cashier job as a temporary job until I find something better. But ideally I would like to try and find something better. I realize finding the "perfect" job is impossible, but I can settle for something that would at the very least help me pay off my debts.

There's also a difference between my dream job and my ideal job. Sure my dream job is ideal but it's more than an ideal job. My dream job would be to be a writer/artist producing novels, animations, and perhaps even movies and graphic novels. I'd love to be the next JK Rowling haha! But I'm not that talented, and I realize that even though I have story ideas in my head, I have a difficult time translating them to stories. It's called a dream job for a reason though, because it's in my dreams. Something that's probably not tangible. I'm sure we all have our "dream jobs" though.

My ideal job is a 9-5 Monday through Friday holidays and weekends off paid vacation, 401K and health/dental/vision benefits. I wouldn't say such a job is necessarily impossible to find, but extremely rare and difficult to find in this day and age. I'd prefer to be in a back office doing paper work with as little contact with co workers or customers as possible.

But I realize both scenarios, especially the above one are idealistic at best. The reality is even the best paying jobs are going to require me to work nights, weekends and holidays if I can even get my foot in the door.

So should I just plain give up and just settle for the unpleasant job I have, or keep going until I find something that's at least satisfying enough to settle into a career?

[Boogeyman]

There's also a difference between my dream job and my ideal job. Sure my dream job is ideal but it's more than an ideal job. My dream job would be to be a writer/artist producing novels, animations, and perhaps even movies and graphic novels. I'd love to be the next JK Rowling haha! But I'm not that talented, and I realize that even though I have story ideas in my head, I have a difficult time translating them to stories. It's called a dream job for a reason though, because it's in my dreams. Something that's probably not tangible. I'm sure we all have our "dream jobs" though.

Call it a hunch but would those projects involve cats?

I say never give up trying to improve yourself and your situation. Even the job you have has something to offer beyond a paycheck. You can learn how to do things you never learned before. Maybe there is a chance of moving up within that company. I don't know how long you have been there, but keep your eyes open to other positions that open up within the office. The more skills you have the more marketable you are to the next employer.

When I started with my last employer, I thought I would be someplace else in five years. Well 16 years later, I was fired. Now granted during that time, the state I am in went through a depression years before the rest of the country did and it lasted about four years. That made it harder to find a job during that stretch.

[MauEvig]

Some of those probably would yes. I'm obsessed with cats lol.

[Boogeyman]

I noticed.

[MauEvig]

I'm sure my avatar of my anthromorphic feline character OC Mau didn't give anything away right?

[Boogeyman]

That and when you had posted the link to your photos, I noticed several photos of cats.

[Kolchak]

Nothing wrong with being obsessed with cats. I'm that way with parrots.


Anxiety is with all of us and I tend to believe after being in public safety as long as I have, that people who suffer from anxiety and other so called emotional ailments are medicating themselves without need.

You don't need a pill to get you through the day. You also don't need a thousand people to call friends either.

Quality not quantity should be the rule for friendship. True friendship is too valuable to hand out like candy at Halloween. Instead a true friend is like diamond. Very rare and precious.

So the number of friends you have is not the issue when looking for and finding meaningful work.

Most of us would rather be left alone when work, truth be told. Nobody likes to think someone is looking over their shoulder all the time. Reality however; dictates otherwise.

Everyone and that includes people who own their business have someone looking down over their shoulder. You just can't get away from it in the real world.

And that unfortunately is where the problem has its roots. People are not comfortable with the real world and their place in it. We look for escape. We turn to fantasy lives, we dress funny, we act aloof, we pretend to have deep feelings, we take cynicism to new heights, we think we have all the answers, and everybody else is wrong. We turn to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain.

By doing this it guarantees us two things. We will never be happy and we will never take responsibility for our own failures and losses.

What you need to realize is that you are not alone. Millions of people have felt this way and millions more will feel this way. The only question remaining is what are you going to do about it.

Wishing and dreaming are nice, but like drugs and alcohol, they solve nothing. At some point and time it will be up to you to understand and realize that the answer to the problem is you and always has been.

You just can't go into a gym the first time and bench press 400 pounds. It takes time and patience and hard work. Failure will come as it does to all of us and at some point we will become disillusioned and we will feel as if we are wasting our time, and we will never achieve our goals.

It's always easy to walk away and make excuses. People do it every day. All that proves is that in 10 years they will be angry, bitter, and never achieving their desired goal, but telling themself the lie, that they would never have made it anyway.

Don't quit. Take a look inside and realize you have more control and more power over your future than you know. Stop and take time to think. You are not the only person who is nervous at a job interview. Everybody is. Many times there are no right answers to the questions they ask you. What they are looking for is how you react. Not really what you say, but how you arrived at that particular answer and can you defend it.

Don't second guess yourself. Tell them how you came up with that response. Show them you can think and you can articulate what you believe.

Lastly, be prepared to fail. We all fail. We all get rejection letters. Don't take them personally and instead of letting them get you down, use them as motivation to learn where you fell short and resolve yourself not to make that mistake again.

Get up, dust yourself off and go back out and try again. The definition of a winner isn't about your victories. It's about how you refused to give up and say I surrender and I quit.

You will make it. You will be a success. All of us here are sure of that. Now it's time for you to realize it too.

[MauEvig]

I don't take pills to get through my anxiety. Honestly I think if it weren't for support from my boyfriend, and the friends I do have I'm not sure how I'd make it. But here I am, and I keep going taking it one day at a time.

I don't plan on giving up. Some days though it seems kind of hopeless. Some people have even thought perhaps I have bipolar disorder. I suppose even if I do, it doesn't change anything other than give a label to something I already am. Without a professional to back it up, and the fact that it's hard to diagnose anyway, I can't prove either way if I do or not. Either way, I seem to be doing alright enough to get by without said diagnosis. A Councillor suggested I might have GAD once and another Councillor suggested I had OCD. Who knows. I'm certainly not "normal" but normal is relative after all.

You are right though that friends are a real treasure to have.

I didn't realize that a lot of people would rather be left alone to work. I know that's the case with my mom and she cleans for a school. She's content to have her own hall, but they want to change the policy now where she'd have to work with another cleaner and both work on both halls. No one was happy about that. She's been at that school for over 10 years.

There are times when I wish I hadn't gone to college and just went into the workforce, but in 2003 I don't think there was any way to really predict that the economy would take such a downturn for the worst. I believed a college education was a ticket to having a decent job. But being young and naive as I was, I didn't realize it wasn't a guarantee.

It could be why a lot of people like myself are gamers. We look to ways to escape the reality of the real world. Games like the Elder Scrolls series, Guild Wars II, even games like Sonic the Hedgehog are ways of escaping reality. They're fun though, but I realize reality isn't like that at all.

You are right though that wishing and dreaming will do nothing. That's why I have made an effort to set goals for myself. Whenever I get a weekday off, I apply to at least one different job that I can find. I'm also planning on working on my art portfolio because who knows, maybe if I can improve my art enough I'll finally get recognized. I should probably do the same for my writing. After all, JK Rowling herself was homeless before publishing Harry Potter, and she's the first billionaire author because of it. I find such success stories inspiring. I think that's the best thing for me to do right now is set goals. If one job opportunity closes, there's bound to be another. I'm not going to quit the job I have either until I do find my ideal job.

[Andybev01]

Back on topic, because I'm selfish and don't want to waste this photo I took yesterday behind our office.

We're never having winter again, I fear.

[NeverMore]

You wouldn't believe how nice it is down here right now Andy. Meanwhile Lake Superior is freezing over.

[Andybev01]

I believe it Nevermore, we've been having your weather up here.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Bogyman, don't worry about it. Anyone can read into a written text that is not meant.

Right now, the IFT is sueing the Illinois Government over the new pension reform bill, so you may be right when you say that there will only be government insurance. It's getting so nobody can even afford to get sick.

Mike