Who wouldn't want one of these in their home?
There has got to be some kind of time limit, right?
I mean there is a “cut off point” or a “drop dead date” that applies to some kind of scale to determine if you’ve been out of work too long and are therefore “unemployable” because your skills have died, right?
You would think that HR directors or all of these career advisers would give us a clue as to how long is too long.
What is it? One year? Two years? Three Years? How about Six years, is that too long?
Now it’s not as if those of us who have been out of work for any extended period of time have been sitting around on the couch with a bag of Cheetos watching Cartoon Network all day long. Some of us (I would venture to guess most of us) have been out there trying to go back to work in any capacity. For some of us that means taking anything that we can get no matter what it is. In my case it was trying to make a go at outside sales selling $2,000.00 cleaning systems.
(For those of you who don’t know about the Rainbow Cleaning System, learn all you can about it and do what you can to get yourself one. It has been a Godsend for my asthmatic wife.)
Now I know that it seems like this would not be something that you could be successful at during a recession. But apparently Rexair Corporation, who makes the Rainbow, found a way to do just that. I’m not with them anymore but every once in a while wifey and I will bump into someone who is still working there and they will tell us that they are still going strong. They apparently started some new programs that makes the whole process easier and has enabled them to get more sales – even in this economy.
Why am I not doing this anymore? Well when I was doing it you had to get the people you went to see to recommend you to their friends and family, and in my case it was like pulling teeth without Novocaine. It didn’t matter how nice or likable I tried to be, they just would not give me anybody to go see, and if you have no one to see you’re basically shut down and out of work. In fact one guy I went to go see actually told me to give up trying to sell Rainbows because (and these are his words) “nobody in this state is going to want these. What you need to do is you need to go out there and find yourself a real job.”
Well, I’ve been looking, and looking, and looking, and looking, trying to get “a real job”. For the most part there is nothing. The jobs have simply dried up – for now.
This morning in my inbox I got an update from CareerBuilder listing a few jobs in my area. One of the jobs was for an Inventory Counter with RGIS. Now anybody who has ever worked retail probably knows who RGIS is. They’re the guys that come in after hours and count all of your merchandise electroniclly. It takes a few hours to do but it’s easier than trying to get your own employees to do it by themselves. I went and applied for the position and got an e-mail telling me to go get a time for an interview. Well they don’t have any interview times right now so I just have to keep trying.
I have no illusions that after six years of unemployment and underutilization that I can suddenly become underemployed overnight (the position is part-time), but I at least have to try.
That’s about all any of us can do I guess.
Car update: The guy we took it to lowballed us. We want at least $1,000, maybe even $1,500 for it. He came in at $800 telling us that we probably wouldn’t get a better deal anywhere else. Yeah, right. He kept going on and on about how it was an older body style but that it was clean and had low mielage. This guy really wants the car but he’s not willing to really give us what we want for it.
Now the local Saturn dealership told us they may have a customer who might be interested because he was looking for an older Saturn a few months ago. They’re trying to track him down so that we can get in contact with him. There’s a chance we may be able to sell the car directly to him with Saturn’s help for anywhere from $1,800 – $2,200.
At least that’s what I’m going to try to attract.
