Can't find a job, horrible work history

I found this post on another forum, and it was very interesting to me. So I want to share it here:

Nick writes:

After getting fired or pushed out of nearly every job I had or making bad choices which led to burnt bridges what can I do now?? I can barely get temp work which now requires a Resume & interview with the actual client since clients can now pick and choose. These jobs were in back office type operations & accounting for many financial services institutions even some of the TBTF banks

I have some money from a deceased relative. My savings is about $300,000 and I can probably reopen an unemployment claim and get $302 a week for the next 20 weeks.

I am 36 years old. I have no friends because of the Scarlet letter of U from being unemployed. Yes, in this part of the country (Boston MA USA) you are seen as a moron if you are not working (especially if you are white and have a college and advanced degree). Even career coaches tell me I am a lost cause and that the only way I will ever get a a job ever again is out of sure luck.

Look I admit I (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up over the past few years but also feel like I have always been treated like (*)(*)(*)(*) by coworkers & supervisors. Mainly I didn't feel like I ever fit in.

Also, my expenses are pretty high close to $7,000 a month. I am single, no wife, child or even pet to support. I live outside Boston Massachusetts in a Blue collar cheaper area of the North Shore that still costs $1620 a month in rent. Cannot move because of my horrible credit & no job -- 2 things that you need to get an apartment anywhere.
I am looking at either buying an existing business or going to another city and pretty much try to start over with temp work. At this point pay doesn't matter. I have a BA in Accounting, MS in Finance, 2 parts of the CPA passed but willing to accept $15 - $20 an hour. I just came off of a temp job paying $20."


Someone else on the forum suggested,

"$300,000 can be the startup capital for a pretty profitable business. Whether it's legit or not is up to you. If I was sitting on that, I wouldn't be thinking about (*)(*)(*)(*)ing work. I'm surprised you have an MS in Finance and you don't know what to do with $300,000."


To which Nick responded,

"What exactly?? I hear people say this but in what exactly ?? Believe me I would LOVE to work for myself or buy an existing business.

The whole interview 'process' -- being cross examined by some 20 something 'HR Associate Director' or getting fired because of some trivial matter (note: I always was able to get unemployment, no company ever challenged or contested the claim) or being told that a temp agency can't help me because of sinister information in their database from 2005 is complete BS.

School doesn't teach you office politics, how to deal with many of these holier than thou douchbag assclowns that will make your life hell & push you out if you don't walk, talk, dress or act like them. Anyone who has worked for any financial services company in the northeast should know exactly what I mean."


Concluding Thoughts

Basically this man has 300,000 dollars and university degrees that should be valuable in obtaining a good job. But he is not very motivated, and the fact that only low level poorly paid positions are available at this time does not help. The high cost of rent and housing no doubt also takes away from motivation. This man grew up in Boston and that is all he knows. It would be difficult for him to decide to live somewhere else with a lower cost of housing. The regions with the type of jobs he studied for generally have a higher cost of housing. It would not be easy to move. Lack of job and bad credit history would only make it more difficult to find a place to live.

Obviously, Nick needs to reduce his living expenses. Perhaps moving into a smaller apartment, although admittingly anything cheaper than 1600 per month in the Boston region is going to be very small and unpleasant. He needs to find someone else to share an apartment with. If Nick has determined that he is unable to find a job that he is both able to get, and willing to do, then it makes absolutely no sense for him to continue living in Boston for the next few years. He should find somewhere cheaper in another part of the country. Not working and paying 600 dollars per month is better than not working and paying 1620, which is what he is doing now. Nick needs to do his best to find happiness in a difficult employment situation, and begin to develop relationships. But when one is depressed one often alienates other people around them. Being depressed at unfulfilled expectations will only lead to a cycle that can snowball downward.

 

"School doesn't teach you office politics, how to deal with many of these holier than thou douchbag assclowns that will make your life hell & push you out if you don't walk, talk, dress or act like them. Anyone who has worked for any financial services company in the northeast should know exactly what I mean."

I can't imagine why he can't get a great job. I can't imagine why he has no friends. I'm sure he's right and he has no friends because he has no job.

Let's face it. He's a total dickhead. He will probably end up drawing SSI disability for a permanent emotional disability, i.e. being a total dickhead.

 

With expenses of $7 k/month, the person will be broke in a little over 3 years without a job and about 6 years with a job that pays 20$/h.

BUY a house (no loan- credit history becomes irrelevant) in Maine for about $100-150 K, grow your own food or raise your own livestock to cut expenses and use the remaining $150-200 K for taxes and expenses and then reassess your life. It is clear that the person is not cut out for an office environment.

 

Yeah. I wouldn't advise him to start a business. Even if he figures out what to do in business, and any entrepreneur has a million ideas, he'd probably be the type to berate his clients for any small problem. People who think the deck is stacked against them usually did most of the stacking themselves.

He could probably finish his CPA, get some work doing taxes for small CPA firms that need extra help during the busy times (jan-apr, sep-oct) and invest his money wisely to live off the interest during the rest of the time. Cutting down expenses would help a great deal and any financial advisor can help with that.

 

That dummy has opportunities I could only dream of having and he has the nerve to cry like that?

Pathetic!

the ass oughta try working at a fast food restaurant for 3 years because the economy tanked and nothing else was really available.

He has no idea what hard times are like. He deserves his fate.

 

He has $300,000 yet he is complaining? I would LOVE to have that much money. I'd start up my own business.
I am sure there is something he could do with the money. It looks like he'll have to use it, rather than save it. He could spend a portion to try and see if a business works.
First thing he should do though, is to find a place that isn't so expensive!

And why couldn't he move interstate or to another city? With that much money, it should be easy for him!

 

Yep 300k would make a great start on a little farm somewhere, or a shop.. Some people expect the world and have a million excuses why they need MORE.

 

5 riskiest and 5 safest startups.

For the OP, might I recommend one of those P&G lanudromats? Those are practically turn key operations. They require long hours but very little interaction with people. Paint wholesaling might be good as well.

 

This guy's attitude and work history show why he is a failure so far. He is clearly arrogant and argumentative - two personality traits that will ruin your career and life.

He needs an intense attitude adjustment if he wants to have any chance of succeeding.

 

Unless he's Steve Jobs.

 

True, but at least Jobs had vision.

 

He has $300K in cash, but can't move because of a "credit check"?

Tell the landlord you're going to pay for the entire lease in cash. Then pull out the cash. That should take care of the "credit check." I'm a landlord. I sometimes rent to college students who have no credit. But, when their parents hand me a cashier's check paying for the entire year, guess what? Their credit doesn't matter anymore. Duh.

Or, better yet, relocate to where I live, and buy my 3000sqft house for a third of that money, then buy a couple apartment houses in my college town and rent them out for income. If he paid for 2-3 houses in cash and worked the numbers right, he could live in one apartment in one of the houses, and the income would pay all of the expenses for the rental business and give him enough to live off of.

Stupid.

 

Nick sounds like a troll to me.

 

To OP,

I can understand why you feel depressed, despite sitting on a decent stack of cash.

The politics that you find when working in the North East can make a person depressed. I've spent most of my life studying at a State University in Connecticut, worked in Aerospace for close to 7 years there. I know the office politics you talk about. Another 2 years near Philadelphia. Seriously, the people and environment in the N. East is very cut throat. Its everybody for themselves there. Depression can make everything seem hopeless, even when the situation is not that bad.

I suggest you do find a job in a different part of the country.

I'm slightly younger than you, also have a decent stack of cash sitting around. During the 2008-09 financial crash, I was unemployed for a year, everything seemed very hopeless. You feel like your family has abandoned you, and you have no one to depend on, even when you have cash. But unlike you I did cut my expenses, I've always lived on less than $2000 per month, but then a job offer came, for Savannah , GA.

The management team here seems more on top of things, and some of the people here actually talk and work with each other, rather than against each other. It could be the weather down here or "Southern Hospitality" thing or both, but I do suggest you consider working in a different state. You might be surprised.

Sometimes, its not always about the money, if you live and work in a community with good people who support each other, thats pretty much all you need.

Edit: Yeah, I meant to post my advice for "Nick", but obviously Nick is not the OP. So "Nick" if you're reading this, hope the above helps.

 

Jobs had a vision? Did you know the first Graphical User Interface and computer mouse for personal computers did not originate from Steve Jobs or Bill Gates? Both of those Pirates stole the ideas from Xerox Corporation.

For such a rich man, and all the advances in medicine, Steve Jobs can't fight off pancreatic cancer.

 

It's rather ironic that he died from PC, isn't it?

 

There are plenty of Americans who have been repeatedly downsized over the past decade.. Poor business plans, shrinking markets and a myriad of other reasons... including perhaps poor work performance.

That in and of itself is NOT an indicator of a poor work history.

 

Having vision is not the same as being inventive. The people at Xerox had little vision as to how to implement the things they invented. Jobs took ideas and brought them to the public in a big way. Without the "pirates", as you call them and to whom most wise people refer to as "entrepreneurs", humans would still be treating the wheel as a novelty.

As for pancreatic cancer, how was Jobs supposed to "fight that" off? It's not an easy cancer to beat under any circumstances and, with any cancer, no matter the prognosis, things can go from "no sign of cancer" to terminal in a very short time.

 

Unfortunately, Steve Job's vision was of himself on the throne of the PC world, controlling hardware, software, and how things "feel". Is inability to attain total control was a boon to all of us on this forum.

 

I don't think he could have. Though there are a few big players in the consumer and small business OS markets, the IT industry as a whole is highly decentralized and technology people prefer it that way. I've never been a fan of Apple myself, in fact, generally the opposite.

 

This puke needs a good smack in the mouth, god(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*). People that (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and complain when they don't know how lucky they are need a reality check. A 300K gift! $1,700/mo rent! 7K/mo expenses! For what?! My wife and I have been living in a basement for over a year trying to save as much as possible in this down economy, both working full-time + and paying off undergrad and graduate loans and we are (*)(*)(*)(*) grateful for the opportunity to be able to do this. The last we would ever do is (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) and complain and we don't have a quarter of what this dude was "gifted."

 

This guy "Nick" maybe have held decent jobs with good pay over the last decade. But nowhere do i see that the $300k was a gift/inheritance from parents or grandparents. It is possible to save up that much money when you are working over a ten year period. But his $7k per month expense does make me wonder. Has Nick always been spending that much over the years, or is that just a recent thing.

 

Please tell me what was Steve Jobs' vision for consumer computing? And why was it such a great vision.

 

"I have some money from a deceased relative. My savings is about $300,000 and I can probably reopen an unemployment claim and get $302 a week for the next 20 weeks."

You are right, I did assume the 300K was from the deceased relative, which is might be, but it also might be from saving. Hard to imagine saving that much with 7K/mo expenses.

 

His vision was for consumer electronics, both the physical components and the software that provides the interface, that would appeal to the masses. What made him "great" is that he actually managed to implement his vision ina significant way that forced everyone else to move in the direction that he was moving and constantly play catch up.

Whether or not you like what he created, does not change the fact that he had a dominating role in the consumer electronics market. As I said before, I have never been a fan of Apple, but that does not blind me to the fact of Jobs' role in the marketplace. One benefit to me, being a software developer and IT entrepreneur, when someone asks me to fix their (*)(*)(*)(*)ed computer I can turn them down easily if it's a Mac.