Not Discouraged, Abandoned

[Daveparts]

Not Discouraged, Abandoned
By David Glenn Cox


Last month the number of Americans who lost their jobs was revised down to 467,000, just under a half a million. The total number of newly unemployed now stands at 14.7 million people. That number was revised downward 358,000 by a government technique used to classify those unemployed for more than twelve months as discouraged workers.

I am one of those workers, but I do not consider myself a discouraged worker as much as an abandoned worker. I have four resumes, depending on what type of job I’m applying for. I check the want ads every day and apply for anything that I’m even remotely qualified to handle. What is discouraging is what is available out there to apply for. Do you speak Pashto? Neither do I, but there are translator jobs available.

I went on a website, which I won’t name; well, let’s call it, for instance, “Jobs Godzilla.” Most of the job listings were dated from April and in this economy if they haven’t filled those jobs in ninety days they never will. On top of that, the category where I was looking listed twenty pages of jobs but began repeating jobs after page five. The government, using huge computer banks and incredibly complicated mathematical equations, has determined that this economy will create 879,000 jobs this year, or roughly less than one job for each of the fourteen now unemployed, not including the half a million newcomers added each month.

A national website was looking for journalists to write about homelessness in America. I thought, "Hey! I’m a journalist and I’m homeless; this should be a slam-dunk." But I never heard back from them. Either I wasn’t journalist enough or I wasn’t homeless enough to qualify. It reminded me of the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films where African American actors couldn’t even get acting jobs portraying Africans.

As I check the want ads each day I’ve learned to classify them into three categories, jobs, scams and commission only jobs. You know those little machines that all the stores have where they slide your credit card through? You can sell those machines and earn a commission on each sale. First, remember that most stores have yearly contracts with their suppliers or have bought their machines outright. Then your supplier must meet or beat the credit terms the merchants are currently receiving. Now, figure in that 600,000 more retail locations are closing than opening this year, and you’re on your way to great earnings potential.

Sell insurance to the elderly: just pay a $200 license fee and take the test, and then they will supply you with leads all within seventy-five miles of your house. You use your car, your phone, your gas, and if you make the sale in the worst market in seventy-five years, you’ll earn a commission and residual income. But don’t count on too much residual because you are selling to the elderly, you understand.

Be a grant writer, earn big money writing for others requesting federal grants! Want to learn how? Send $199 dollars and we’ll teach you! How about, “Drive the long hauls and earn big bucks! Are you a trucker without a rig? Come on down, great prices and low, low financing plans available. Don’t know how to drive a big rig but always wanted to learn? Come on down. Buy a rig and we’ll send you to truck drivers school! Come on down, great prices and low, low financing plans available."

One of my favorites was a commission only job to lure suckers into buying memberships in online dating clubs. If you reeled one in, you got one hundred dollars. You place an ad like this one on Craigslist: “Lonely girl seeks adventurous older man for NSA good times!!” Then when the sap responds, you tell him your name is “mesohorny27” and you can be reached on XYZdateclub for $399.95. Have your credit card in one hand and your … well, you get the idea.

Then there are the mysterious jobs. “Earn up to $1,000 per week, send resume to...” You just have to believe; if it was a legitimate job, they would explain it or at least qualify it. Just out of curiosity I applied for one of these mysterious jobs.

“Are you looking for a part time job other than the job you are doing before? I am looking for someone who can handle my personal and business errands at his/her spare time. Someone who can offer me these services: Receive my mails and drop them off at FedEx (nothing illegal). Shop for Gifts Sit for delivery( at your home) or pick items up at nearby post office at your convenience. Let me know if you will be able to offer me any of these services."

"I would love to meet up with you to talk about this job but I am currently away on business. I am in Australia so there will be no interview. I will prepay you in advance to do my shopping. I will also have my mails and packages forwarded to your address. If you will be unable to stay at your house to get my mails, I can have it shipped to a post office near you and then you can pick it up at your convenience. When you get my mails/packages, you are required to mail them to where I want them mailed to.”

If we’ve earned nothing in the past ten years it is how to spot the Nigerian scam, “Are you looking for a part time job other than the job you are doing before?” Sadly, these jobs are not the only comic relief offered in a dismal job market. There is the Wow package: Teeth whitening on wheels! Have parties, invite your friends over for teeth whitening, over $7,500 in product yours for only $3,725, wheels not included! You’re the expert; you’re the boss! In the back of my mind I hear this high pitched voice saying, “Hey, Moe, we don’t know anything about teeth whitening.”

“Shut up and get the dynamite, you puddin head.”

"Are you tired of going to work in the business world or a retail store? Do you feel like some days you're not making a difference? Do you want to have fun as the days go by at lightning speed and everyday is something new and different? Do you absolutely love small children? (3 months to 3 years) Then, we may have the place for you. Kids your Kids East XXXXX Preschool is looking for a few special people to assist in the classroom with their lead teachers. Job entails helping take care of the children, reading, playing and taking kids on the playground as well as helping keep the kids and their rooms tidy and clean. You will aid in their mealtimes, art projects, playground time, music classes and even help them play in our waterplayground. Come have some fun with our kids and make a real difference in your community. $8.50 to $10.00 per hour."

Or, “This Independent Contractor in Atlanta needs your talents. We offer a very competitive salary within a challenging and professional work environment. You must have your own transportation, your own tools, meter(s) and a ladder (a minimum of 10ft). You must also have a high school diploma or GED equivalent to apply. If you meet these qualifications then we want to talk to you. We are an equal opportunity employer. Please contact us immediately at atlantal.com. Leave your name, phone number (day/evening), and your email address along with your level of experience and someone will be in touch with you. This is a 1099/contract position. Your future is waiting!”

“A challenging and professional work environment,” means difficult; a 1099 means all the taxes come out of your end, and contract position means that they can fire you with or without good reason. They don’t want to invest in you as an employee, just to use you until the need is gone.

I want a job but I want a real job, a real job that pays a decent wage. The Los Angeles Times reported that there is a gang robbing banks in town. Working in teams of four they rob banks in series, robbing as many as four in a day. They’ve earned the title "buckshot bandits" because they use shotguns as their primary weapons. I would never encourage crime, especially violent crime, but considering how the banks are treating the average American, and the current job market, it’s to be expected.

We are not discouraged workers, we are abandoned workers; workers hunting polar bears in Miami and flamingos in Alaska or elephants in New York City. Yet the government chooses to call us discouraged instead of accepting their own title, failure. Don’t give me any “All hail Obama” nonsense. Adding thirteen weeks to unemployment benefits isn’t a cure, it’s a band aid. The President’s own estimates expect this depression to last two more years, or ninety-one weeks after the unemployment runs out.

[cleveramerican]

1. Maintain contacts from old job

ask people in the field
Join professional associations
Keep looking, try to stay positive

Industry needs workers, people die,retire,have medical problems.
a new job is out there for you

[Daveparts]

2. Good Advice

Except, that the industry that I worked in no longer exists. I has been destroyed by foreign competition. Most of our competitors are out of business as are most of the customers. The Japanese now live in fear of the Chinese who are dumping engines for as little as ten dollars a CC.

That downward pressure destroyed the parts business and the repair business because it is no longer cost effective to repair.

This leaves only the large engine manufactures who work within a factory down approach. Like many industries this one is reeling due to the economic climate. No work for contractors means no sales for equipment companies.

[cleveramerican]

7. don't give up

how about distant branches of your former industry?
it may sound simplistic, but its the most important thing.

[tomreedtoon]

3. cleveramerican, don't peddle those lies here.

Industry does NOT need workers because there is no industry in America any more. All the physical labor jobs went to China, all the intellectual and technical jobs went to India.

"People in the field" and "professional organizations" are fearful of losing THEIR jobs.

Have you seen the closed and shuttered plants, car dealerships, restaurants, mall storefronts? Do you seriously believe there is any point in trying to compete against Wal-Mart by opening a store to sell anything? How freaking stupid ARE you, cleveramerican?

The fact that you willfully ignore is that since Reagan, businessmen stopped caring about industry or being a part of their community and started worshiping profit at any price. The business class is hopelessly retarded and corrupt. They have thrown away American productivity, the only true health of a nation, to foreign countries so they can make their damn quarterly profits.

There are no jobs. There will not be any jobs. Wall Street and the Harvard MBA program have betrayed America, and until everyone in those organizations receive the traditional punishment for treason to one's country, nothing will change. Take your Pollyanna crap and sell it to "Godzilla dot com."

[cleveramerican]

6. your right Tom should sit down and cry

that'll help him

[Donnachaidh]

11. he probably already HAS sat down and cried - especially with the

non-stop Pollyanna *advice* that really doesn't work if there are NO jobs.

[Merlot]

12. There is a difference between sitting down and crying and facing facts

And the biggest fact is that once you're unemployed, it's a mark against you. Hiring managers want to hire people who are already working. Even getting layed off is considered the employees fault.

ANd if you're over 40, the odds go down even more. Actually, over 35 is pushing it.

So unless you face these things, you're continually banging your head against the glass wall. It's not self pity, it's reality.

[tomreedtoon]

13. No, he should find a way to apply kinetic energy...

...to the heads of the people who fired him, and the people who destroyed our country. And so should everyone else who's been screwed over by the suits.

The problem with your approach, cleveramerican, is that you insist that it is the job hunter's fault that he doesn't have a job and can't get one. "You aren't trying hard enough. You aren't searching enough on 'godzilla dot com.' Your shoes aren't shined." In other words, you're absolving the rich, powerful and greedy from any guilt for the nightmare of this economy.

This is always typical of people who support the system and the establishment. It is becoming clear to us unemployed and hurting people, even if it isn't to you, that the system is corrupt. We know that you can't elect away the problem, that a nice, polite guy like Obama can't fight the greed and vice in Congress and the government, and that all the letters to the editor won't change things. It won't be long until the despair and frustration of the poor and impoverished will finally boil over into open warfare.

[Donnachaidh]

10. kinda hard to do when those contacts are from 30 stores that ALL closed

These folks are as abandoned as the OP is.

BTW, the gent who owned the 30 stores is out NOTHING. Within a week of closing the last store, he had three new partners, and he bought back the original store from the auction.

But he DID keep on the people making the least amount of money - and they also gave up their benefits to keep working.

Personally, that boss has a special place in hell waiting for him.

[PSPS]

4. This dismal situation is blasted through the media constantly

This dismal situation is blasted through the media constantly, though not where you might think. They almost never discuss this topic, of course. Their job is to maintain the facade on our Potemkin country. Instead, it is blasted through the advertising. It's full of scams.

- Lose weight through hypnosis
- Prostate "medicine"
- "Cures" for erectile dysfunction
- "I buy gold and you should too"
- Send us your old gold and we'll send you cash!!1!1!
- Do you have more that $10,000 in credit card debt? We can eliminate it!!11!!
- Do you owe back taxes? We can help!!11!

Those are the ones in the heaviest rotation these days. But there's still plenty of unsold advertising time that get filled with public service announcements and those provide some comic relief, at least the first few dozen times you hear them. The Ad Council is certainly good at what they do. A couple of my all-time favorites:

- "It's not a bag, it's a pouch" (credit advice)
- "My baby is talking in complete sentences!" (car economics)

The problem, of course, is that we don't make anything anymore in this country. Since we don't make anything, we don't need any workers. And without workers, there are no wages being paid. And with no wages being paid, nobody can buy anything. It's a vicious circle with a big drain in the middle. Perot's "giant sucking sound" indeed.

For many years, the only business model in the country has been the three-word mantra: Lie, cheat and steal. Cox's experience with looking for work certainly fits.

[sharesunited]

5. Bad economic times sure bring out the job scamsters.

Hey Obama Administration! Get your Federal Trade Commission after these blatant consumer ripoffs which prey on the unemployed! That crap is sooooo George W. Bush!

[juno jones]

15. True, and it's amazing how far back many of them go.

Many are almost identical to ones documented during the Victorian era.

[DemReadingDU]

8. It sucks

And many more of us will be with you in a couple years with no real job, no decent wages, no savings, no pension, no shelter. Nothing. There will not be much money, the banksters have taken it from us. We're at the beginning of a depression, and I truly don't see it ending in two years with increasing unemployment and no sustainable industry because it's been off-shored.

So we need a different model to live by, the old one is gone. Perhaps we will need to live with several generations of family under one roof sharing skills and helping each other and bartering with friends and neighbors. We're all going to need to go thru some kind of transition, but it's frustrating to find the answers.

Thank you for writing here David, you are like a window into the future for the rest of us.

[Hugin]

9. Excellent writing!

Honestly, the way out of this predicament would be to hire everybody and pay them too much. (Not, way too much... But, a little bit.)

Haha! The Stooges' Whitening Shoppe bit cracked me up. :D

[tomreedtoon]

14. Your sarcastic reply was actually advocated seriously.

While running out the leftovers of my medical benefits, getting my teeth fixed, I read an editorial in Car and Driver in the waiting room.

The article emphasized the bourbon the editor and his friend was drinking - well, what do you expect? Those rich and insular idiots have money to buy cars and the gas to run them around. But the idea he suggested was that someone with money, probably the government, should reopen the factories in Detroit. These factories should build something useful that people want. Cars, spatulas, meth lab equipment - it doesn't matter what.

These factories should hire the unemployed in great numbers, pay them more than they would normally get, help them rehab and modernize houses and settle them to live near the factories. He remembered that Henry Ford scandalized the other American industries by paying his workers $5 a day, and then surprised them when those same workers could afford to buy Ford cars.

This was not the bourbon talking, much as those rich bastards at the car magazines like the stuff. It was the sound of someone who actually cared for the public and their needs, and recognized that his survival depended on their survival. In other words, it was someone with more sense than any greedy stooge graduated from an MBA program in the last three decades.

[Hugin]

16. Unfortunately, my reply wasn't sarcasm.

Not in the slightest... It's truly what I believe.

and, more over, if I could afford it, I would implement it.

[ShamelessHussy]

17. Very good article, thanks for sharing

Do you or a friend have a digital video camera?

I was thinking with your creative talent maybe you could come up with some 30 second to 3 minute skits on life in America these days... I am sure there is a lot of interest and if you can be as creative in them as you are here who knows how big it could be on youtube?

best of luck Daveparts, I am still looking, too (going into my 5th month)