Unemployment is Hard

[shes2smart]

They should take ANY job, and if it is not exactly the job they want, they can continue looking for a better one while working the lesser job. Long spells of unemployment are just so stressful on so many levels, it is better to work any job at all while trying to get a better one rather than to let the stress and uncertainty drag on and on.

 

That's what my husband did to screw up his unemployment benefits...took the first thing that came along...and it was horrible. Terrible company/work environment. First day there they left him in charge with no training and no idea of what to do....then got all pissy with him when things weren't done right.

 

On the whole, he would've been better off not taking that job and keeping his benefits while he looked.

 

I wonder if you yourself ever been in the "take any job" and keep looking for another one situation. At one time, I may have had the same opinion, but after the experiences I've had with jobs/employers in the last 10 years, I no longer believe that any port in a storm is a good idea.

[Mesemene]

It also really pays to bear in mind that UI benefits vary drastically from state to state, and don't always reflect the cost of living variance.

 

UI here pays $199 a week after taxes. That's the CAP.

 

Where my ex lives it pays $367 per week. Our cost of living is approximately the same. Yet, his locale offers about a 75% higher UI compensation/benefit compared to ours. That's one heck of a difference.

 

So where he could (and does, he has seasonal layoffs) afford to wait for "something better" where he lives (or in his case, for a new contract), out here, something better is anything that offers $7.35 per hour full time, or less part time.

 

Yes, it sucks. When the company my husband and I both worked for had a major layoff during the recession, we went from making $16 per hour and $21 per hour to $398 a week, to support, at the time, a family of five (sometimes 7 when his ex dropped off the boys and no showed to pick them up for months.)

 

Sometimes you have to take a sucky job and tough it out. Yes, if you're in an area that offers reasonable UI benefits, you can use them until you find something really good. But if you don't, survival depends on competing for what's available, often, not ideal.

[reader]

But why aim so low right away when you can apply for something higher than minimum wage?

[Mesemene]

I can only be glad for anyone who hasn't experienced when even a minimum wage full time job would be welcome.

 

Around here at that time, even McDonalds wasn't hiring. I'm not exaggerating.

 

One of our best friends had a master's degree and had been with the company long enough for a decent severance. He's one of those that, when he does something, he does it three times as hard as most would. So during his severance period, he applied for anything that was equal to or close to his position he'd been in - a high level IT manager.

 

After 6 months, he finally had to take a job in sales for a bank at about 9 bucks an hour. Not because he wanted to jump at anything - because there was literally so few jobs, and such a glut of degreed and highly OVERQUALIFIED people, that nothing else panned out.

 

My husband is certified as an IT tech, with other associated certs - and has 15 years experience. Yet, he had to take a call center from home IT help desk job for 12 bucks an hour and miserable supervision (nonexistent) and pay for our own second line, just to try and make sure we could all eat. I ended up at the corner gas station so I wouldn't have to add transportation costs into the mix - I walked 2-3 miles each way, even in the 120+ summers.

 

We did what we had to. I'm not saying it's not ideal to be able to pick and choose - just that in some areas, benefits are so laughable that for some, it's not possible for long, and if something doesn't happen fast, it's get something, or go under.

[Catherine_3]

Wow, this thread has made me appreciate my guy so much more! He is definitely looking super hard for a job and getting interviews and several close but no good offer yet. He is also picking up contract work along the way. Plus, he takes the kids to school, gets them ready, does chores (at least the manly ones...).

[reader]

Wow, this thread has made me appreciate my guy so much more! He is definitely looking super hard for a job and getting interviews and several close but no good offer yet. He is also picking up contract work along the way. Plus, he takes the kids to school, gets them ready, does chores (at least the manly ones...).

 

I would hope a woman is not judging her husband's unemployed activity on how many interviews he is getting

[shes2smart]

Wow, this thread has made me appreciate my guy so much more! He is definitely looking super hard for a job and getting interviews and several close but no good offer yet. He is also picking up contract work along the way. Plus, he takes the kids to school, gets them ready, does chores (at least the manly ones...).

 

During the time my husband was unemployed, he picked up the household chores, cooked dinner most nights, and ended up taking care of a lot of little things around the house we never seemed to have time to do when we were both working. He started his new job right after the first of the year.

 

While only one poster verbalized the sentiment about "I'd be gone if a partner hid that much debt," I have no doubt others had the same sentiment if they read my earlier post. It's easy to jump to that conclusion if you have just that sliver of information. But here's why I'm choosing to stay and work though this - part of the reason he hid it was he thought he could handle it and he thought he was doing me a favor keeping it from me because he's aware how that sort of thing stresses me out. There was a series of poor choices made because he has a lack of knowledge in that area. Because of the way his life has played out, he's never had to be completely on his own (went from his parent's home to his first wife to his grandmother's when they split then me) At its base, he didn't make any mistakes that I didn't make when I was first starting out on my own. Granted, my credit card debt at it's worst was just over $10k - so a little less than half of what his is - and when I made those poor choices I was single and didn't have any sort of responsibility to anyone but myself, but still, the fact of the matter is I made similar mistakes...and those mistakes taught me how to make better decisions. I think that's the way most people learn -- they have to mess up and touch the hot stove a time or two before they really get it.

 

So, for me it comes down to a couple of things:

 

Do I toss away a relationship that's been part of my life for 12.5 years, and been good for much of that time, because my partner made some poor decisions without giving him an opportunity to correct the behavior and do better? What kind of person/spouse does that make me if I expect him to be compassionate and understanding when I f-up (and I certainly have) and don't offer him the same sort of compassion and understanding in return? And is that the sort of person/spouse I want to be?

 

In a lot of ways, choosing to stay and work through this is not about him....it's about who I am as a person and as a spouse -- who I think I am, who my actions say I am, and who I want to be. It's not easy taking an honest look at those three things and realizing there's a bit of a gap in between them, while also dealing with the righteous anger I have over being lied to and being stuck cleaning up someone else's mess. Because even if I never pay one penny directly to his creditors, I will still be stuck with covering his living expenses while he pays this off while we are together....and ending a marriage has costs involved, too. There is NO WAY I can not be involved in the clean up.

 

It's too easy to sit on the outside of situations and say "I'd do this" or "I'd never do that" when you're not and have never been ass-deep in that situation. (...and it's also too easy to sit on the outside and say "Well, I'd never get in that situation in the first place," too) In some ways, I think some of the experiences I've lived through in the last 5 years have everything to do with teaching me to be less judgmental than what the surface details were about. Y'know that old saying about walking a mile in someone else's shoes? I have a different understanding of that than I did a decade ago simply because of some of the f'd stuff that has gone on in my life during that time.

[lavenderdove]

>>I wonder if you yourself ever been in the "take any job" and keep looking for another one situation.

 

Yes, I have... I've had one job that was horrible and ended up lasting only about 6 weeks... and one that lasted 3 months... in both cases I sucked it up and kept working them no matter how bad they were and just kept looking and found the right jobs for me in both cases then quit the sucky job and went into the good one. And in a third case where the company owner was sexually harassing me and fired me on a trumped up charge because i wouldn't 'play nice' with him, I immediately enrolled in school again because I realized that i needed to find a good career where I could easily get a job and didn't have to put up with sucky jobs or bosses if i didn't want them. And I spent several years working full-time and going to school at night getting a career that ensured I could always find a good job, and that was REALLY tough but I knew what the ultimate goal was and it was really worth it in the long run.

 

So in the end those sucky jobs were a great learning experience for me and set me on a path to realizing I needed a good career to be able to really take care of myself financially and avoid any long stretches of unemployment and those sucky jobs in future. So preparation and wise financial planning is a large part of surviving unforeseen circumstances like layoffs and a bad job market.

 

But those sucky jobs also kept me employed and also kept me from having a big gap in my resume that people want you to explain. I understand there are times when you lose a job through no fault of your own and it is very hard to find a job, and no one wants to work a sucky or 'hard' job.

 

But it is honestly easier to find a GOOD job when you recognize there are three separate goals: the first is to cover your bills as a first priority (any way you can and in any job that you can find), and the second is to get yourself educated so that you can work in a field where you are in demand and there are good jobs and unemployment won't last long, and the third is to strive to find the best job you can, but to recognize that takes effort and initiative and sometimes you have to suck it up and take whatever work you can find to pay the bills and keep you from having a large gap in the resume and show you have initiative and want to work rather than sit around doing nothing while waiting for a plum job to fall into your lap. There is absolutely no shame at all in 'lesser' jobs if they keep you afloat and active and working until you do find that better position or are able to educate yourself in another field that opens up to better jobs, better pay, and less likelihood of crises caused by long spells of unemployment because you can't find anyone to hire you.

[shelty24]

I have been told take any job right now but my last two jobs were so stressful, I ended up with high blood sugar levels and almost diagnosed with diabetes. My legs swelled up and I could hardly walk. I am 24, slim and generally fit and healthy but I was so depressed I would cry for no reason on an almost daily basis and had insomnia. I also had anxiety due to an armed robbery where the company didn't take any steps to make me feel safer there.

 

Its not worth taking a job you hate, working for a**holes who treat you like absolute dirt. I don't want to work for another company like that. I am an all or nothing person. I will throw myself into the job and literally work my a** off but when your working for a company who ignores all your hard work and promotes the laziest person there who also has a bad attitude-it can be very distressing.

 

Right now, I am only applying for jobs that I like where there are opportunities for career advancement in a positive environment.