The offical "I HATE WORKING" thread

http://www.linkedin.com/

It's basically like facebook for professionals.

Detuned wrote:

http://www.linkedin.com/

It's basically like facebook for professionals.

OK, guess I'll have to look into that one too. Thanx.

...and hey, if anyone's interested in a shady gig selling fraudulent life insurance, I have a couple of phone#'s for you.

I do, I have a part-time job as well. It pays a lot better for less than 10% of the time I put at my full-time job.

I might check out that "linked in" thingamabober. My current job is safe (as far as I know anyway) but the whole atmosphere has gotten stale. I'd probably benefit from a change of scenery.

Like Freddy, I've been doing more or less the same thing since the 90's. I feel like I missed my chance to jump ship some years ago when most of my original co-workers did the same. It was like they all graduated and I got left behind. Now I'm the old man in the office. I tried looking for other gigs, posted the resumes, even had an interview or 2, but nothing panned out. Now I'm on the cusp of 40 with a family depending on me. I can't start all over again.

I'm pretty good at what I do (graphic artist) but the biggest problem is that there are 12 year old kids that know the programs and computers better than me these days. I can't compete with a kid fresh outta college that has better skills and willing to work at half my going rate. I've gone for training to better myself, but I just don't have the time and money to keep up with all the changing technology.

The baseball season is starting up again, so I'll pick up some part time work running the scoreboard. That should be a nice little pick-me-up. The weather isn't helping either. I want out of this cold-winter funk. Bring on spring!!

So hey, I set up a profile on CareerBuilder.com tonight and already applied to three positions that sounded interesting. Not bad for a night's work I'd say. I already think I like this site a little better than Monster; it's not quite as overwhelming and seems a bit more user-friendly. We'll see how it goes.

Will look into this "Linkedin" gimwidget when I have more time.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I'm pretty good at what I do (graphic artist) but the biggest problem is that there are 12 year old kids that know the programs and computers better than me these days. I can't compete with a kid fresh outta college that has better skills and willing to work at half my going rate. I've gone for training to better myself, but I just don't have the time and money to keep up with all the changing technology.

That's how I feel in the about going into IT. I'm good with computers, I'm just not trained. My wife wants me to go to school to actually get trained, but who wants to hire an old guy. I do need to leave the grocery business before it is too late.

Detuned wrote:

Joker, can you PM me your email address?

Done!!!!

Fat Freddy wrote:

So hey, I set up a profile on CareerBuilder.com tonight and already applied to three positions that sounded interesting. Not bad for a night's work I'd say. I already think I like this site a little better than Monster; it's not quite as overwhelming and seems a bit more user-friendly. We'll see how it goes.

Will look into this "Linkedin" gimwidget when I have more time.

Linkedin is good for searching for jobs. Connect to me when you sign up!

chewie wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I'm pretty good at what I do (graphic artist) but the biggest problem is that there are 12 year old kids that know the programs and computers better than me these days. I can't compete with a kid fresh outta college that has better skills and willing to work at half my going rate. I've gone for training to better myself, but I just don't have the time and money to keep up with all the changing technology.

That's how I feel in the about going into IT. I'm good with computers, I'm just not trained. My wife wants me to go to school to actually get trained, but who wants to hire an old guy. I do need to leave the grocery business before it is too late.

Yea, IT guys and graphic artists kinda go hand-in-hand when it comes to making a career out of it. The good ones that are really into it are REALLY INTO IT. Almost to the point of obsession. Their whole lives revolve around learning new programs, watching for upgrades and updates, spending every waking moment talking about, reading about or working with computers and/or programs.

I just can't compete with that kind of dedication. When I shut down my computer at the end of the day, I also shut down "work-mode". I rarely, if ever, work on projects at home or stay late to finish something.

Leo -- will probably get onto Linked-in over the weekend. Watch for me!

As for Career Builder... I joined that site last night, I applied to three jobs on it, and got a call from one of them this morning. Wow, talk about service huh?? Anyway, it's a P.R./marketing company, they're apparently expanding so they're lookin' for people with P.R. experience. I happened to mention that I did a college internship with a P.R. firm in my cover letter and even though that was only for one summer almost 20 years ago, that lone little tidbit must've been enough to get me in the door, cuz they want me to come in for an interview next week; they're gonna call me back on Monday to set up the date/time.

Holy crap, maybe I should've been using CareerBuilder all along! Wish me luck. Even if nothing pans out from this, it was at least nice to get a call from a legit outfit, and not some scam artist wanting me to sell life insurance.

And SPEAKING of scam artists...
Ever since I started using these job sites, my SPAM folder overfloweth with shady job offers. I got this one today and it's my favorite thus far. I actually moved this message to my "SAVED" folder so I can keep it for posterity. Behold, the Almost-English Job Offer of Doom!! (Subject line of this message: "JOB FOR KEITH")

Dear Sirs

We laid hands on your resume on the service of the society Careerbuilder. We believe that you may correspond to our position “Dating-copywriter". For the moment we established a new and yet prosperous field of concern intended at contributing to dating platforms.

In connection with significant need of given good, we must increase personnel of our company.

Specifications

Older than 18
More than 3 hours of spare time on a day-to-day basis

Salary

in terms of the execute work is $30 hourly on the average
The remuneration is proceeded to in any way proper for you that is wire transfer or any E-money

Agreement of employment formation

If our office quickened your interest, make the following moves:


Register in our resource
Discharge test assignment the high-qualitative task is paid

Top Copywriting Partnership

Cooper Murphy is the US’s leading copywriting boutique with a global portfolio of clients. We have a authoritative staff – titled (copywriters, PhD textualists and quick-selling authors.

Our copywriters have relevant (experience|background|skills0 across many sectors, from consumer brands to enterprise software. We have penmen with fundamental scientific papers in finance, science of law, politics and computing science. Therefore Cooper Murphy is comfortable providing writing utilities for a wide variety of branches.

Thanking you in anticipation

...wow! $30 an hour, and they wanna pay me by wire transfer or "e-money?" This has gotta be legit!! My interest is definitely quickened!!! I will definitely register in their resource and discharge test assignment!!

Fat Freddy wrote:

As for Career Builder... I joined that site last night, I applied to three jobs on it, and got a call from one of them this morning. Wow, talk about service huh?? Anyway, it's a P.R./marketing company, they're apparently expanding so they're lookin' for people with P.R. experience. I happened to mention that I did a college internship with a P.R. firm in my cover letter and even though that was only for one summer almost 20 years ago, that lone little tidbit must've been enough to get me in the door, cuz they want me to come in for an interview next week; they're gonna call me back on Monday to set up the date/time.

MMmm.... maybe not. I did some Google research on this company over the weekend and I'm not liking what I see at all. I went to their web site hoping to learn a little more about them and while their site certainly looks pretty, it doesn't really tell you much of anything about the company or what they do. So on a whim I googled their phone # and found a laundry list of entries about them on complaint web sites. Apparently their idea of "training you for a career in marketing" is to send you door-to-door selling crap, or to have you walk around malls handing out coupons to people, and you get paid straight commission on whatever you sell, there's no base salary. If you become a "manager," that means you hire other suckers to do the door-to-door crap for you and you get to sit on your ass and get a piece/percentage of whatever they sell. From what I've been able to gather, they just change the company name (but not their address or phone #) every once in a while when people figure out their scam and get pissed,

MotherFUCKER. And here I had my hopes up. I wonder if they'll even bother to call me on Monday like they said they were gonna. And if so, I wonder if I should even bother to come down and see what it's all about. I'm not some dumb fresh-outta-college kid so if they think they're gonna dress me up like Bozo the Clown and send me around to malls passing out ice cream coupons, I will tell them (very politely of course) to stick their "job offer" up their ass sideways.

Needless to say, my mood is pretty much ruined now.

On the other hand, I joined that "Linkedin" site... I can't make fuckin heads or tails out of it but I'm on it.

ya gotta watch out for "vultures" on any of these job sites. You're doing the right thing by researching companies that contact you.

I know it's frustrating, and you'll get one of these calls from time to time. There was one that kept asking me to provide my ssn, I told them that I had never been required to provide that information prior to signing hiring paperwork and I wasn't about to start now. They kept sending me update emails with contract jobs that were too good to be true, I just ignored them and eventually they went away.

But don't let it frustrate you to bad.

detuned wrote:

ya gotta watch out for "vultures" on any of these job sites. You're doing the right thing by researching companies that contact you.

Oh, believe me, I'm starting to learn that really quick. Haha. But seriously, would it KILL anybody to get me ONE FUCKIN LEGIT CALL just so I know other people are reading my shit on that site besides scam artists????

Speaking of which...wonder of wonders, the so-called "Marketing Firm" that I went back and forth with for a while last week actually called me back today. I just blew'em off, I told 'em I thought it over during the weekend and decided that it just wasn't for me. I had half a mind to go off on the chick and tell her about all the nice things I read about her company on Google, but decided there was no point. Problaby would've been fun though.

Get this, though... not even an hour after I got rid of that place, I got a call from ANOTHER so-called "Marketing Firm." Different town, different company name, but the same spiel. "My manager saw your resume on CareerBuilder and would like to speak to you immediately, we think you have management potential, come down right away for a placement interview, blah blah blah." I mean, it was practically the EXACT SAME script as the first place. If these two outfits aren't related somehow, then they must buy their bullshit telemarketing boilerplate at the same store.

I really didn't have time to fuck around with 'em but it was pretty obvious something had to be fishy, so I sez "Look, I can't really talk about this right now cuz I'm at work; can I call you back in a little while?" then I called my wife and sez "Quick, Google this company for me" and gave her the name. She did, and BAM -- same shit. Ponzi/pyramid/scam/etc. So I called THEM back and told'em "thanks but no thanks."

All I can say is Thank God for Google!! I swear, from now on before I reply to a job offer at either Monster or CareerBuilder, I'm gonna have Google open in a separate tab so I can do my homework on the company before I fill out anything.

Man I feel for you dudes doing some job hunting that really sucks, jobs are just really freaking hard to come by now a days, plus lots of places have no intention of training someone new, they want you to have the experience coming in to it and be young and energetic, bastards. And on the other hand some folks who have a job (self included) are getting to the point that there job just sucks ass and is not worth the "pay for the pain" of the day to day bullshit one has to put up with, and one gets to the point they want to find something else but opportunity is in short supply. Hell today is my last day of a really nice vacation, and I once upon a time used to be stoked about going to work being that I generally like what I do, but now I'm dreading going back to work, but need to just to get by and take care of the family. I was in Ohio for a week and it was freaking beautiful over there the way April is supposed to look, and I come back to Colorado to F'n snow? in April? I so just wanted to not come back home. Just too much to deal with here, felt like I had escaped a prison just to get put right back in. What a bitch, that and my grandmother passed away while I was on vacation, kinda put a damper on things, All in all I'm just not ready for "work", that necessary evil we all get sucked into. I feel the weight of being under the anvil again, damn it.

***WARNING CURSE FILLED RANT AHEAD...PROCEED WITH CAUTION***

Fucking marketing jag-off, douchebag, dick heads!!! They asked me to create a graphic to advertise our outdoor block party. No problem. I ask a simple question "How long should this run? I need a "kill date" for the electronic signage". Seems easy enough right? Start on this date, end on this one. Point A to Point B. So fucking simple my 3 year old twins could understand.

You should see the long winded email with everyone and their fucking brother cc'd on to when it should start and finish, with no clear cut fucking answer to my goddamn question!! Loads of clueless shit-for-brain kids all speculating, but noone wants to be the responsible one and give me a fucking clear-cut answer. Sorry, dickhead, but the computer calender program doesn't understand "probably till around the end of playoffs in June sometime". I need an ACTUAL FUCKING CALENDAR DATE!!!

Holy fucking shit.

***END OF RANT. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME***

It's true all those in power positions are Douchebags, you hit that nail right on the head. I feel for you man, it's sucks getting the runaround from douchbags who can't get there shit together, hell they are the ones getting paid to make decisions and can't pull there head out there ass long enough to figure anything out.

The hunt goes on. Getting a little tired of getting e-mail blasts from Monster, Linked-in, and CareerBuilder of "jobs that match your criteria," and seeing the same job listings (which I'm either spectacularly under-qualified for, or entry level crap that I'm OVER-qualified for) day after day after day. I'm still applying to a couple of things per day at each site, but so far... not even a fuckin' phone call.
(*HEAVY SIGH*)
Fuck it. I think I'm gonna fake my own death, move to Vegas, shave my head and change my name. Who needs this stress??

Fuck it. I think I'm gonna fake my own death, move to Vegas, shave my head and change my name. Who needs this stress?? [/quote]

Hey man, Detuned had a great idea about starting a hippie commune, that's starting to sound good to me and I have a job. Just keep pestering people man, somethings gotta give, too many bastards that have good jobs and should be out on there ass and too many good people that can't get there foot in the door cause of greedy, self centered bastards that only look out for #1. Lifes a Bitch and she's in heat. Hope things turn around for you dude.

The hippie commune sounds great to me... the only problem would be convincing the wife & kids. But then, if I'm going to fake my own death I may as well make a clean break from everything, right?

...naaaaahhh, I'd miss them. And my dog. Oh well.

What a day, Gershom and I got kicked out of a sexual harassment meeting today. I guess walking in with our hands in each others back pockets was too risque? J/K Oh well, at least I have something to tell the wife about.

Akeldama wrote:

What a day, Gershom and I got kicked out of a sexual harassment meeting today. I guess walking in with our hands in each others back pockets was too risque? J/K Oh well, at least I have something to tell the wife about.

If a woman is giving the sexual harassment seminar, be sure to call her a cumdumpster if you get the chance.

Cumdumpster? wow that's one I've never heard, very creative. Too bad it was conducted by a dude that resembles Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.

or a Tossbox............

I stole cumdumpster from the movie Zack & Miri Make A Porno - it's in the "after-credit" sequence.

Nothin' to report on the job hunting front yet. Aside from those couple of scam artists/pyramid schemers who contacted me during the first couple of weeks, I haven't even had a bite. Trying not to get discouraged but it's tough.

...and maybe it's just me but thus far, Linked-in seems to be about as useful as titties on a bull for me. Am I missing something?

Even more annoying, now my mother is trying to "help" me in my job searching. She's a secretary in the art/theatre department at Fairleigh Dickinson University, which I guess means she has a lot of free time, because now I get at least one phone call a week that goes like this:

Mom: "Are you willing to work in New York City?"

Me: "Sure, as long as the money makes it worth it, why?" (NYC would mean an hour-plus commute from where I live so it would have to be a pretty sweet gig.)

Mom: "OK, because so-and-so here at work looked on The Google (yes, that's what she called it -- "The" Google) and Random House in New York is looking for a senior editor for digital media."

Me: "Well, that's great Mom, except that I know nothing about digital media, and the fact that they used the term 'senior' would imply that they are looking for someone with years of experience, which I don't have."

Mom: "Oh... yeah. You're right. But you really should look on The Google, there's a lot of stuff on there."

Me: "Thanks Mom. Yeah, I'll make sure to look at The Google as often as I can."


I wish I'd never told her I was looking for work... *SIGH*