I’M EITHER OUT OF THE OFFICE OR NOT AT MY DESK, PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE

I don’t know if any of you can relate to what this topic is about; but if you can, and have any thoughts you want to share, please do, and if you don’t and life is good, well I will just say a big thank-you for stopping by and reading.

So most of you know I am letting go in the not so far off future of the age of being 60. I have been a caregiver for many years, maybe longer than I care to admit. After being a part of the elderly’s lives and taking care of my dad and then my brother’s long struggle of MSA; my body finally caught up to where I am today.

I have some college course under my belt; but no degree. I have written a couple of books and published them; but I am no Stephen King. I have empathy for others and a compassion for those in need.

I am a mother of three and many grandchildren. I am divorced and try to make ends meet on my small amount I receive from SSDI. I have Diabetic Neuropathy and balance issues. Now with all that said, I am at a point where I need to change careers? Or should I call it jobs?

College is out unless I can find one for free and then find that special company who wants to hire a senior citizen fresh out of college with no experience. I have placed online applications with no response what-so-ever.

I think this is where I get disgusted. When I was a kid, yeah, well I know that was years ago, but when I was a kid, you went to the company, filled out the application, talked to a boss, got hired or not right there.  I guess this is just the way the world is today. No touching, no face-to-face, no live person to talk to, and many times there are no options of dropping off an application either.

There is much thought to putting together a resume that stands out, looks professional, and hoping the person on the other side of the screen, well his/her eyeballs just literally pop out of their head and they are screaming and jumping up and down saying, ” Yes, that’s the one. I have found the perfect person! Get her on the phone right now before someone snatches her up?”

What I see by taking the time to put together a resume, and then setting up a brand new account, so that I can see the jobs offered on their particular web site, and then figuring out how to put that resume you have saved on your computer to a copy and paste on their site, and making sure it is not too big to upload, can be a big deal for some people.

Then after we are exhausted and our brains are fried from trying to think of good references and which jobs did we hold seven years ago, doing the transfer from site to site of resumes, the very least we could receive is a THANK-YOU FOR APPLYING FOR A JOB WITH US.

No, that isn’t the way it works anymore for a lot of jobs. You sit back in your recliner and wonder if you did the whole set-up right; or did you forget to click upload, or did it get to the company or maybe lost in cyber space.

You wait patiently for your phone to ring for the next few days, just knowing you have something to offer; but the phone doesn’t ring, so you are left to your own ideas of what happened.

Is it any reason that some get disgusted and then depressed and finally get to the point of giving up and living off the system? Just a polite email or text, letting us know something. Anything would be nice, even an email with nothing in the subject matter.

I am in the process of getting a hold of one of fifty companies that work along side of Social Security for a program called Ticket to Work. Let me tell you, it is definitely work.

It is my responsibility to use my cell, because I have no land line phone to call any or all of these places. I started today, reaching out to quite a few. Do you know what I got in return?

I know you guessed the first guess, voice mail.

The person you are trying to reach is either not able to speak to you because they are on a line with another person or not at their desk. Please leave me a short message and I will return your call as soon as I can.

So then I go into the next level which is making sure I carry that darn cell phone everywhere with me. Especially to the bathroom to do my business. God forbid that phone will ring just as I am, well you know what we do on the pots.

 

 

Well it is 7:45 pm. Not one place I called returned my phone message I left today. It’s alright. Tomorrow is a new day. A new day to worry, a new day to scramble for food. A new day to figure out how I am going to get my clothes washed. A new day to try to borrow money so I have heat this winter. A new day to ponder on whether life is worth living or not.

I am not suggesting that the upper paragraph is mine. I am just using that as examples of what can be happening all around us as many of us who are doing all they can to not have to live on the system try to survive.