Unemployment @ MindSay

-"Hi, I would like to apply to Rogers Video"
-"Sorry, we don't accept applications in store, you'll have to apply online"

The problem is that once you go online to apply, its basically submitting your resume and preferred location.
Yes, very good. Only, that some people don't really have much of a shining resume, especially on the work expirience front, but otherwise are potentially excellent workers! It feels like I am thrown back into the "we want you to have more retail expirience for us to hire you" while at the same time no one hires to give that expirience!
Now, the reason why my resume is so goddam shoddy, is because of that stupid depression & addiction and you can count that I lost 2 years of my life doing nothing. I mean I am not even going to graduate university this year because of that.

And now I am ready to grab life by the horns again and fix it only I find that I am met with a brick wall everywhere I go! (and I cant even find a general labour job at the moment, like warehouses because there aren't any openings! wth! is this a time of economical depression or something? warehouse jobs used to be available all the time).

A while back I had the good fortune of walking into a Blockbuster and they took my resume and done the screening (first time I threw my application at them I didn't have even a screening done). Turns out that they are hiring right now. And then they actually called me for an interview. I was so unbelievably happy and excited. I am actually getting a chance to get one of the best jobs ever (well for my situation). A product I love and knowledgeable about - movies, games, gaming consoles. Also five free rentals of movies and games per week. omagawd! Not to mention the location is fantastic for me. the people are nice. I really wanted to work there. Not just like "yea I want to work to make money". It would've been the sort of job I would wake up smiling to go.

I thought it went mostly well, we talked. I asked some questions which I thought were totally relevant. My lack of any real expirience is sad of course. And I am a bloody idiot with some of my responses. I was excited and a bit nervous and my head wasn't working full steam ahead. I wasn't expecting the question "how would your friends describe you?"
well um, an eccentric pun-loving smartass with a tendency to laugh really loudly, shriek at horror movies and stay till 4 am playing games? That isn't right. S'not what I thought at the time too.
I said something along the lines of playful and adventures (goddam me! what are you applying for a match maker or a job?!) I should have said more along the lines of responsible and the person people can count on. or something of the sort. DUH. I dont know why I blurted the BS I did. In the end she asked for my references and I gave her the printed sheet.

She said they are hiring for begining/mid of July. So in two weeks she said I am going to find out if I got it or not.  Ah, but there are 30 other people she is going to interview. Which means in the end of the line she'll forget about me , my enthusiasm and motivation and all that will be left is a lackluster resume. I hate this so much!

Now its coming to the end of this month and she haven't called my references at all. Not on first day , not later. is it because she lost them (but then she could've called me again to reask, right? unless she lost my resume/application/interview notes) or is it because she was so unimpressed she decided its not worth to call my references even? I mean even the manager for cashier position from home depot called my references and she didn't take me in. she still called.

There is of course the fantastic possibility that she liked me a lot and decided to put my resume aside because she liked me (yeah, do these things happen to people beyond dreams? well if yes then not to me) or the more tame idea that she doesn't really like to bother with references at all unless resume or a claim looks suspicious.

This was a fantastic opportunity and I feel I missed it. I hope not. but I am getting worried. I did walk around and gave out my resume to another Blockbuster but they said they aren't hiring right now. They didn't even do a screening =(

Bah.

I just hate it that it all comes down to my resume and expirience and such. No one lets me to start over and charge at it full force. And other jobs I am just not excited to work there. I mean yeah money + expirience = yay. but Blockbuster is where I wanted to be.
I hate more that a lot of stores now do the "apply only online" like Rogers and Best Buy. In person I have a chance to make a positive first impression. And when its more person based I can explain myself and maybe communicate my enthusiasm.

On a better note, I finally made it to campus. Mother drive me. I made my new Student Card. Finally. (I lost the other one with my calculator). Usually it costs 12$ to replace. But the lady there let me of the hook with no charge ^^

I also picked up the Student Calendar of 2008. A lot of the D-level courses are limited enrollment of 20 people only. And I failed/got really bad marks on most my courses. I am worried SO MUCH that I will get like into none. But now I am ready to study my ass off and totally want to prove it to the world.

My wake up call came too late. I just screwed my life so bad it seems I cant really fix it anymore ><
The solution, of course, to the employment problem is to look towards volunteering a bit somewhere to get reference and more resume padding. But I cant find any places too. I am NOT going to work with kids. EVER. I dislike the little snot eaters and don't have enough patience for them. Also I don't know where to look ... I hate working for free, in a boring job (since I haven't been given any artistic talents ) for what is basically full time =/ And the only volunteer thing in my email inbox is something about volunteering at a hospital as an experiment subject. Personal interest, yes. But not something one can put on the resume. =/

So after a week of not being called in to work, I was finally let go.  Which is fine, since I've been looking around for a new job since last Monday and felt too awkward to actually apply for anything.  It's all for the best since having that job was not working so well.  As someone told me, "I wouldn't feel too bad if painting houses wasn't high up on your list of skills."  Indeed.

So what now?  Now it's back to summer, I suppose, and back to the want ads.  I'll try to get a new job, but if I don't I'm not going to cry about it.  Having worked some, I could theoretically enjoy the rest of summer in good conscience, if not quite good funding.

We'll see how it shakes out.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

 

By Tim Kilbride

Special to American Forces Press Service

 

May 21, 2007 – Economic expansion through the revitalization of domestic industrial capacity is a major factor for stability in Iraq, a senior defense official said May 18 during a call with "bloggers" and online journalists.  Iraq's state-run factories once served as the lynchpins of diversified regional economies, said Paul Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business transformation.

 

Turning those factories back on not only would provide employment and wages for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, he said, but also would set off a ripple effect of smaller business generation throughout the areas in which factories are located.

 

More importantly, Brinkley added, "Economic prosperity is a counter-measure against social unrest and violence."

 

Pointing to studies of the post-World War II reconstruction of Europe under the Marshall Plan, Brinkley said it was programs to return people to work and prevent economic stagnation that kept the continent from falling back into war.

 

While Iraq presents different circumstances, he observed, the fundamentals of the problem are the same.

 

"This is a human population that's suffering economic distress," he said. "And if you alleviate the suffering, I believe the job our forces have and the Iraqi defense forces have gets much easier."

 

Religious zealots will remain a problem, but that situation is more easily controlled, Brinkley said, if the greater environment in which they operate is normalized.

 

"If you take away the portion that is simply frustrated and fed up after four years, and seeking any income," he noted, "then I think the job of our forces and the ability to stabilize the country gets much, much easier."

 

Iraq's industrial legacy includes more than 200 formerly state-run factories, with a skilled work force more than 200,000 strong, Brinkley said.

 

Because of United Nations sanctions lasting from 1991 to 2003, Brinkley said, Iraq was forced to move beyond a dependence on oil exports and develop an industrial capacity to meet its internal needs. "This country already had a diversified economy," he noted.

 

"When you look around the country what you find is just a variety of factories making ... essentially anything an economy can consume, with the exception of high-tech goods," he explained.

 

Brinkley now heads up a team tasked with turning that production capacity into a tool for stability through growth. His Task Force for Business and Stability Operations - Iraq is charged with evaluating Defense Department business processes and systems affecting contracting, logistics, fund distribution and financial management, to ensure alignment to theater commanders' goals for reconstruction and economic development in Iraq.

 

The program originated with Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, former commander of Multinational Corps Iraq. Chiarelli identified a relationship between unemployment and insurgent activity after collecting numerous reports of former Iraqi factory employees being paid to lay roadside bombs. According to Brinkley, the connection is obvious.

 

"Probably the worst time we ever had in the United States of America was the Great Depression," Brinkley said. "And, the Great Depression was a time of great social unrest. It was violence in areas around the country, and the peak unemployment rate in the United States during the Great Depression, I think, was in 1933, and it peaked at 25 percent.

 

"The work force in Iraq is experiencing an unemployment rate, an effective unemployment rate, in excess of 50 percent," he continued. "I don't know of any population in the world ... where if you impose 50 percent unemployment there aren't going to be militia roaming the street and people blowing things up. I just accept, and I think most rational people accept, that economic distress creates sympathy for violent activity."

 

Turning the employment situation around involves a three-pronged strategy to support the restoration of Iraq's commercial engine and create markets for Iraqi goods, Brinkley explained.

 

First, he said, the U.S. military could become a primary consumer, contracting for goods that "meet the requirements of military planners to support our forces."

 

The second part, Brinkley said, involves reconnecting "the commercial links that existed throughout Iraq" under the U.N. sanctions. Iraq's import gap from 1991 to 2003 was made up with domestic industry and business-to-business sales within the country, he explained. "It was part of the fabric that held the society together," Brinkley said, and holds the hope of mitigating some of the more overt factional tension that has emerged since 2003.

 

The final piece for now is to attract foreign investment, Brinkley said. His task force is leading U.S., European and regional business executives on tours of Iraqi factories, encouraging the purchase of Iraqi goods, and negotiating contracts to transfer work into Iraq, he said. In the country's areas of relative stability, he noted, what is "probably the most highly-skilled work force in the Middle East" is capable of manufacturing a wide range of products.

 

The Iraqi government is funding the factory-turnaround effort, Brinkley said. He added that those factories already selected for rehabilitation are on a "transitional path to privatization, very similar to the model that we've seen very effectively used in the Asia-Pacific region, in countries like China."

 

Key to the Asia-Pacific model of moving slowly away from state ownership, he said, is privatization in phases: reducing the work force in factories over time; and putting in place profit and loss models.

 

Iraq is operating in a critical window to successfully restore a diversified, competitive economy, Brinkley cautioned. With pressure on the Iraqi parliament to pass hydrocarbons and revenue-sharing legislation in the near future, he said, the country needs to take active steps now to avoid letting oil become its sole economic driver.

 

Brinkley described two models typical of oil-rich countries. In the first, he said, foreign companies come into the country, create walled compounds around wells and refineries, and import all of their equipment and labor from abroad. In the second model, energy companies are encouraged through incentives and legislation to consume goods manufactured in the host country and put to use domestic capacity. This latter option is key to successfully managing Iraq's oil resources, Brinkley said.

 

The compound model, by comparison, "would be a terrible mistake" since profit would accrue with the government but wouldn't necessarily reach the population.

 

If Iraq manages to revitalize its industrial sector, develop markets and encourage investment in a timely manner, Brinkley predicted, "then this country could become something unique in the Middle East - a diversified economy with a skilled work force, a professional middle class, an educated middle class, that serves as an example to the rest of the region."

 

He added, "I believe that's what we'll see here, and I hope that's what we see here, but to me this next 6 to 12 months (are) really critical as those decisions are taken and as those first contracts for petroleum development take hold."

 

(Tim Kilbride is assigned to New Media, American Forces Information Service.)

 

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