tres wants to be a garbage man

[fayfay]

i swear, every spring we go through this. tres decides he hates his job and wants to either go on a rampage or quit. or both.

the problem is, he doesn't really have any education, and his only experience is in retail management (which he doesn't want to do anymore) and sheet metal/roofing. i'm not sure how he thinks he's going to become a park ranger or a garbage man, or a comcast technician with the background he does have, but that's kind of the direction he's moving in.

i've been on monster and yahoo hot jobs and craigslist all morning looking for something for him, it's not looking too good. it would be one thing if i was making my normal salary and could support him starting at an entry level position for a year but that is SO not the case.

any advice anyone?

fayfay

[lavender]

would tres be open to the idea of taking classes at a community college or technical school at night while he's still working at his current job? maybe he'd be okay with working retail if he knows it won't be for very much longer and based on anything i've ever needed to have repaired or installed the people who do that kind of work must make good money. he should talk to someone who's already doing the kind of work he's considering and see what they suggest. even if he's not ready to apply for other kinds of jobs yet he could go to places he might want to apply to and see what kind of training or experience they want.

and don't rule out garbage man - if he'd be working for the city the pay may not be bad at all. i've never looked into it to see but it could actually be okay.

don't you have comcast tv? here there's a harford community college channel that at some times during the day has a local job bank listing openings or where to put in applications. i would think there would be the same thing for each local area they're in.

[SuspendedAnimation]

I would say: try applying at any or all of those jobs. Comcast and Dish Network can be pretty hard up for call center people that they'll hire just about anyone. I think Dish Network was offering $11.75/hr though. But at least it would be a foot in the door.

Call centers are about the only thing taking applications anymore, I think. Unless he wants to work at the 7-11 for twice-minimum-wage, which I doubt.

Whatever he does, he should NOT quit until he has something else lined up. That'd be the kiss of death.

If he's serious about being a garbage man, has he run out in the morning (or whenever) to catch the garbage guys that come through the area to see what he needs to know, who he should talk to, etc. about getting a job there? I'm guessing it's good money (but a stinky, gross, annoying job!)

Also, tell him for whatever it's worth, I go through that same rampage every six months or so now. (It used to be every week, then it got down to every two or three months. It's getting better but still, I do understand the aggravation.)

As I told someone in one of my Sociology classes this morning while we were discussing the relative merits of Karl Marx (of which I find none, which I'm guessing will tick off Vinyl! LOL):

Somewhere along the way, it seems as though there became a sense of entitlement - that a college degree was designed to allow a graduate to write their own ticket, land the job of their dreams, be offered great sums of money AND they would enjoy the work. If work was supposed to be fun, they would not call it work. There is only one person on the planet that I believe truly loves their work and that is Jimmy Buffet. Everyone else may enjoy the money but bristle at the responsibility. Some may enjoy the work but despise the company. There are many facets to work happiness and it is exceedingly rare to get the "perfect storm" of all the components necessary to truly enjoy going to work every day.

I do not enjoy what I currently do. I do not like my current boss. The paycheck is okay and the medical benefits are adequate. What I really enjoy about the job is that it is only 4 miles from home, I get the chance to occasionally work from home and they pay $5,250 a year toward my education. I have completed 59 hours at UCD - all for free. I did pay for some community college (about 35 hours) and my dad paid for some time at Western Michigan University ages ago (17 hrs that actually transfered) so I'm nearing the finish line of a bachelors degree that has cost me about $5,000 - due primarily to community college tuition rates from my own pocket and a tuition assistance program from The Machine in which I work, performing unrewarding drudgery that inspires no one about anything.

So ... does Banana Republic offer any kind of tuition assistance? (I'm guessing not cuz aren't all retail chains notoriously cheap on the benefits & stingy with the perks?) Worst case, one class at a time (online even!) from a community college is helpful. If he can at least (truthfully) put "Currently enrolled at ____ college, pursing ____ degree, expected graduation ___" on his resume, it will help. Community college rates are pretty cheap compared to university costs. My $5k covers like 12-14 credits per year and considering it takes 120 credits to get a bachelor's degree, it could take forever. But where UCD charges me like $350 a credit hour (plus books), Red Rocks and Arapahoe community colleges are charging like $100-$125 per credit hour, plus books & fees.

Also, he should really think long & hard about what he likes to do, what he's good at and so forth. If he can nail down exactly what his goal is, he'll have a better chance of mapping out a route to get there. For me, it was pretty easy when I got laid off from the last job. I knew I wanted to stay with payroll so I spent the $500 for the study materials & exam fee and got my Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) standing. That alone can count as "equivalent" when they say "degree or commensurate experience required" and if he knows what he wants to do/be and can find the certification (if one exists), he can likely bypass the truly entry level gigs with the certification and get the perks from a decent (non-retail) employer to get a real degree.

If nothing else, he could / should / would do well to start tackling his core courses at a community college. Period. He'll need them if/when he aims for a degree and they could be helpful in an interview ... when the interviewer says "yeah, when we twist the widget" he might actually know what that means. (Substitute twist/widget for something accounting related or whatever, but you get the idea.)

Worst case, he could probably also sign up with some temp agencies. They might offer testing and tutorials on how to do some office-y type of stuff and they may even offer a gig that could lead to permanent placement or the random truly temporary gigs that fit with his retail schedule for that week that would allow him to try out a bunch of different industries & types of jobs. (That's how I learned that I would shoot myself if I had to do true data entry for a living! And how I knew I could never ever work in a lawyer's or real estate office. Blech. I did have fun working at the company compiling the plutonium packaging manual and it was fun doing the HTML tagging for the Nurse Practitioner's exam booklet online. Yep, there's all kinds of interesting stuff out there but he HAS to establish right away that he's ONLY interested in office work or else they'll send him on the crappiest blue collar jobs that lead nowhere. Trust me - I also worked at a temp agency once upon a time! LOL)

If he's been doing retail sales-y type stuff, he could join Toastmasters to give him some public speaking skills which would help with some of the professional networking stuff. Or Rotary or Lion's Club. I think they're all free, dunno. And worst case, that could get him a foot-in-the-door with some non-retail sales jobs that also have other types of jobs (like where I work.) (Our new sales people get hired at like $45k, I want to say but you only get salary for the first year and they fire the bottom 10% every month so there's no guarantee he'd make it the first year / long enough to survive on commission-only.) But those are more professional-oriented types of sales jobs, with cold calling ... but also with expense reports!

If he's a natural salesman, he could make a fortune -- IF he really knows how to sell. If it's a "not so much" thing, then maybe that's not a good thing to pursue. Dunno - just spitballin' here.

Btw, the garbage men in our neighborhood are independent. We go with this one company but there's another company that comes through. I think maybe most of Colorado is private, rather than public/city like it was in Detroit. Each homeowner has to pay the company directly every month/year instead of it being included in the annual property tax bill. City would be better than private, of course - cuz once he gets into ANY type of government job, it's pretty much a "set for life" kind of gig.

[lavender]

Somewhere along the way, it seems as though there became a sense of entitlement - that a college degree was designed to allow a graduate to write their own ticket, land the job of their dreams, be offered great sums of money AND they would enjoy the work. If work was supposed to be fun, they would not call it work.

so all the stuff i've heard on the oprah show about "follow your bliss, do what you love" is crap? thought so.

seriously, she says stuff like that and people believe it and i think that just creates frustration because let's face it, most jobs are something that nobody is actually going to love. they may like it for various reasons but mainly they do it to get paid. i think her point was to encourage people who have a skill or talent others will pay for to follow their dream and she had examples of people successfully running their own businesses doing just that, but that does also assume that one of a person's other skills and talents is running a business. though who knows, if tres has or learns a skill and already has the business experience from working retail, that could suit him perfectly.

btw i think my parents and a lot of other parents who never went to college believe everything you wrote in that quote.

cuz once he gets into ANY type of government job, it's pretty much a "set for life" kind of gig.

not always, though it's better than in private industry. but most people believe that too other than the people i work with.

[fayfay]

arghh i have to go to work so i can't give this a good reply but you can bet my ass is going to be out next to the garbage can tomorrow morning (tres has to work).

okay i'll be back in ten hours.

fayfay

[Trinity]

I know Comcast around here is always hiring for techs, and they train on the most stuff so it's not like you've had to do it before.

As as for call center people hired by Comcast... I resemble that remark.