Yeah Hawkeye, I know exactly how you feel...
OK, a couple of updates…
No, I haven’t heard anything from Goodwill about the Supervisor job and at this point I don’t think I’m going to. I don’t think I’ve made it to the second round of interviews so I am going to write them off and move on. It’s been more than two weeks since I went in to that interview and I figure that if I haven’t heard anything by now, then I’m not going to. Two weeks of silence is usually a sign that they don’t think I would be worth hiring.
Secondly, I have a better idea of why I haven’t been able to get a job – my credit rating sucks.
Now I know that a lot of us are in this position where we have lost a job, have no income and have no way to pay important bills that employers consider to be a measurement of how good or bad an employee you would be. Not being able to pay the power bill or the water bill is bad enough, but when you’re unable to make your mortgage payment then that is when the employers start writing you off as worthless and start tossing your resume into the shredder. I think I’ve figured it out though, I think I’ve figured out the threshold for being able to get a job these days. Think of it this way – if your credit score prevents you from getting a loan, then chances are you won’t be getting a job either. If your credit score is such that the banks won’t talk to you, then it is a pretty safe bet that Human Resources won’t talk to you either.
Come on people, we all know that these days companies use credit scores against us when making hiring decisions. It doesn’t matter that President Obama asked them not to do it or that it eliminates otherwise qualified applicants – they do it anyway!!! These days you have to have a credit score of at least 700 to qualify for a loan and probably a job, so my measly FICO score of 557 is just not going to cut it. Memo to HR Directors: in the future you should just put whatever the minimum FICO score you are looking for in your job ads from now on. That way you can save all of us “unpersons” a lot of time, aggravation, stress and heartache so that we will know not to send you our resume in the first place! It might be illegal to actually do that, but if you’re going to judge us by a three-digit number anyway, then you might as well be honest about it!
Having said that it’s time to get to the topic at hand…
I’ve had some really weird-ass dreams for a couple of days about a week ago and I’m just now getting to the point where I can write about them. I think my subconscious is trying to deal with our situation the best way it knows how – by generating nightmares.
Are any of you familiar with the BBC series “Doctor Who“?
Well recently I had a dream where I was actually a part of an episode of that show, and when I say part I mean I was actually a character. I could sense that I was somehow connected with the Doctor in a way that wasn’t made clear, but we clearly knew each other and we knew how the other man would think. I’m guessing that I was some sort of future incarnation of the Doctor, but that I wasn’t really him. I was with David Tennant’s Doctor on an alien planet which was home to a human colony. This colony was a little different however, in that there was something that the Doctor was there to try to prevent, but in the end was powerless to do so. The main part of this dream took place in what could be a log cabin in the center of the main town of the settlement. I was holed up in that cabin with the Doctor and several of the town’s citizens who were trying to escape some horrible event that was taking place outside.
What was happening was some sort of ritualized rioting in which the targets were not the figures of authority…but the settlements children! The children of the settlement were being attacked by their own elders! Their Parents, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles were going after them with the intent of sacrificing them to some unseen force in what could only be described as some sort of religious fervor. We could hear the screams of the children as they were trying to run away as they were being chased out of town by adults carrying clubs, hatchets, machetes, swords, scythes, pitchforks – anything that could be used as a weapon. We were all trying to get away from the windows so that we wouldn’t be seen and possibly forced to join in the slaughter when I saw something out the window…
A boy of about 11 or 12 was trying to get away from this one bearded man who might have been his Father while he was begging for his life. Whoever the man was told him that this was meant to be and then cut the boys legs from underneath him with a fire ax. At that point I turned away from what came next but I could hear the thwacking of the ax hitting flesh as the boy was butchured to death.
Where was the Doctor during all of this? He was sitting at a table in the next room with a forlorn look on his face. I could see it in his eyes that he knew that he was powerless to stop it, and it saddened him immensely. He could fight enemies with all sorts of technologies – Daleks, Cybermen, Sontorans – but this was one weapon that even the Doctor knew he could not overcome.
Faith.
Then something really weird happened…
All of a sudden a large group of the settlers started pressing themselves against the house and started pressing Holy Water onto the house with their hands. Some of the Holy Water was even mixed with blood – their children’s blood. We couldn’t understand what was going on until the Doctor said it – they were blessing the house with the blood of their own children. We were inside the very icon that their children were being sacrificed too!!!
And that’s when I woke up!
It wasn’t until later that I figured out who I was in the dream – I was the Valeyard! I was the amalgamation of the darker side of the Doctor’s nature brought to life. However I didn’t feel like the same evil character that was first created – I had been changed, probably by the Time War. I surmised that I was now working with a re-built Torchwood, and that I was now taking this one trip through time and space to try to help The Doctor. After the dream I imagined sitting with The Doctor at that same table trying to absorb what had just happened with him telling me that some things just cannot be stopped – that they were meant to happen. I guess he was trying to help me come to grips with a problem that I had been having by bringing me here.
I’ve got a knot in my stomach just writing about it, I can only imagine what it must be like for all of you reading it. But that was only one dream I had recently…
…the next night I had another.
I was walking along Eagle Avenue here in Boise trying to meet my wife somewhere. I’m guessing that she had the car which was why I was trying to walk to this place in the middle of a Thunderstorm. While I was walking I noticed that the wind had picked up considerably in the past couple of minutes. It had almost gotten to the point where it was going to blow me over. I looked behind me and I could see that there was a tornado on the ground not 50 feet behind me, and it was approaching me fast. Just as I got ready to run…
…I woke up.
Now, if these two dreams don’t give you an idea of how I am feeling about my employment situation and our personal financial crisis, then nothing will. Like Wifey said after I told her of the dreams “it’s your sub-consious’ way of trying to deal with our situation.”
Yeah honey, I get that, but did it have to be “Doctor Who”, Stephen King and “Twister” all rolled into one?
I guess I should be lucky that the villagers were not all Baby-Boomer Republicans who don’t want anyone else to have access to health care while managing to keep their own “socialized medical coverage” known to the rest of us as Medicare.
Ooops, I didn’t say that out loud, did I?
issue to be continued…….
Credit reports should remain with Bankers who need the scores to calculate loans, etc.. I feel they have no place in the Business sector of employment. I think it should be an invasion of privacy, invasion of character if employers use credit scores to determine if one is fit for the job, hirable or as a basis for one’s character. If that is the case, a lot of good people who use to have a job, and who can no longer make their mortgage payments, car payments and just basic utilities, will be applying for Government assistance because employers who use these scores are discriminating against those who normally would have good to excellent credit against those who previously had bad credit with no desire or hope of improving it.
As a former Republician, I am disappointed to see that Congress does not side with Obama when it comes to reports that ruin not only one’s reputation for finding employment but a person’s character. How easy it is for them because they have their paychecks and their payrolls big enough for them to afford housing, food, transportation and clothing, not to mention their overseas vacation homes, and whatnots. For the Average American finding work, it is not easy and it is more so when
Employers see fit to go into ordinary people’s credit reports, which should be unpremitable, since permission should first be given, and it should be with utmost care. It should be illigle for any employer to invade one’s credit report based on being hirable. it should be illigle for one to go to someone’s credit report just because they can. to me, invassion of privacy, could cause it to be in the wrong hands, could be stolen, altered, and even used against a person in other ways, not to mention having someone go into your credit reports could cause your scores to decrease if so many do it. How can we possible find work when our own government is not willing to protect something that should remain private, that can hurt us in the long run and done without so much as a release slip. After all, if we make it easy for employers to dismiss us because of our credit report, why not allow the average Joe to go into other people’s credit, such as those in congress and senators who we no longer support. Can we just their bank statements, credit reports and agendas as they do us, and call it legal grounds for voting them in or out? I can almost garrantee they would fight that real quick. But they have given employers to do this to us and we are to accept the judgement without question.
If this is the case, should we ask employers to supply potential employers for credit reports, bank statements to see if we want to work for their company? If they can do it, why can’t we? Why can’t we discriminate on the basis that they deal more with profits and reports than considering the right person for the job without a credit history and reports that might have once been good but isn’t do to lengthy unemployment. If they want to know one’s character, get a police report, bond them, but do not go on a score that can’t tell you if a person is good enough. Circumstances can bring down a score beyond that person’s situation. It is discriminating and should be against the law!
A lot of good people are losing their homes do to the banks being unwilling to refinance mortgages. It isn’t like they lose money, considering the amount of interest and fees they collect for late payments, nor the fact that they charge for every kind of fee. Yet, it happening all across America. What will the banks do with them? Tear the houses they do not sell? Let them stand abandaoned, while others break in and destroy what use to be someone’s home? It is a sad situation when banks think more of profits than letting someone stay in their home and don’t at least help that owner out in some way, with some sort of extention or small payment that is workable or acceptable, instead of thinking they can either foreclose and sell right out from a family in need.
I wish you the best of luck and pray that you find the strength and courage you need. I pray that finding work will happen for you and those in our position of unemployed people who need to work, willing to work and have to work.
Faith is a strong feeling but sometimes we have to believe. Your dreams weigh heavy and even though I am not quite in your situation, I feel for you. I struggle with my bills and work is not coming easy in this western town I live, but like you, I worry everyday what will come next and pray for the strength and courage to move forward.
I would like to know where are all the caring employers, people willing to take a chance on people like us? Where is the personal side of those employers who need good workers who never called in sick, never were late, who gave 110% and who were always willing to work the over time? Do they nbot exsist? Do they not want to give those people like me a chance, or like you, who just need to work to survive? Do they think a credit report tells them that I have never called in sick, came to work early, stayed late, covered for someone who did? No- and it won’t. It doesn’t say anything about work ethics or character!
Again, I wish you the best of luck.
P.S. Please consider freelance writing. You have the talent and the knowledge to go far!!!
Niche Site…
One of the most popular sites for relevant information on this subject [...]…