Would like the board's opinion on my current situation...

[americandream]

Bullying and being generally pushed around seems to feature quite prominently in your woes. Perhaps retraining in a skill/craft/profession/employment that enables you to enjoy more room in terms of self-direction...some form of self-employment perhaps.

Good luck.

Hmmm... That has actually happened a lot. Not sure what kind of cues (nonverbal or otherwise) that I'm giving off. Of course, if you look at cases around the country, there are lots of teachers getting "in trouble" or fired for the most trivial of reasons. Never mind that a substitute has even less options to protect themselves from a petty vindictive administrator.

It probably has less to do with you and is perhaps more of a reflection on the sorts of stresses/power dynamics those around you are also confronting/enabling; work colleagues, management as well as parents. Who knows. What you do want to do is distance yourself from this toxic mix if you can and by whatever means works for you. and the sooner the better.These sorts of issues are only going to get worse as wages, job opportunities and collapse in work conditions in general, pick up pace.

[Cog]

My advice to you is to manup, quit feeling sorry for yourself, get a real job, quit mooching off mommy, deal with your woman issues or simply ignore they exist and most of all grow a pair.

I hope this advice will send you on your way to being the productive citizen that I fully expect you are capable of being.

[ohanian]

My advice to you is to manup, quit feeling sorry for yourself, get a real job, quit mooching off mommy, deal with your woman issues or simply ignore they exist and most of all grow a pair.

I hope this advice will send you on your way to being the productive citizen that I fully expect you are capable of being.

Cog, You are being mean. Not everyone is as psychologically tough as you. And in the current environment, I am sure a lot of people are having a (emotional) depression and suffers a terrible loss of self-esteem. Suicide rates are high.

It cost you NOTHING to give verbal advice is a gentle and kind way. I was mean to others in the past then one day I found myself on the other side. And so I regret and will regret to the day I die, how mean I was to others in the past. The knowledge that I was mean to others will live with me forever. It's a stain that I can never wash off.

[dsula]

Americans would starve if illegal Mexicans didn't do the work the rest didn't want to do and you guys don't have half the safety nets most civilised western countries take for granted.

Haha. That's a good one. I don;'t know about you, but I would for sure go and dig up them potatoes myself before I'd starve.

[ian807]

I'm not sure how good my advice is but here goes....

1) Take a crap job. I've done this at several low points in my employment life. My first year out of college, I made $385 a month proofreading for a non-profit. Even in 1981, this wasn't much. I was an economic vegetarian. Beans and grains are darned cheap at the bulk aisle bins.

2) Start some sort of business. You'll need transportation, most likely. I had a "maid" a few years back, who was about my age (50s) and a slightly overweight white guy. Not much education. He made, he claimed, about $50K a year cleaning houses. We paid him $70. I doubt he was ever here for more than 3 hours. I think he did 3 of those a day. It wasn't much, but it kept the wolf from the door. Cash business. Few if any taxes and he had all the work he could handle.

3) Private tutoring. Better paying gig. Fewer students. No politics AND you get to leverage your current skill set.

4) Exchange labor for housing. Craigslist is full of guys doing this. I don't know how well it works out, but I'm considering it for my next house rehab if my usual guy isn't available for some reason.

Good luck. Don't be scared of antidepressants (St. John's Worth has worked for me, on occasion) and perhaps most important, don't quit. A lot of things in life come from staying power and little else (like your former bad boss who got promoted). Keep at it.

[WildRose]

Hi, Oneaboveall. Hope your day is going well.

I'd like to put in a plug for private tutoring, as others have. Do you know how hard it is to find a good tutor? One who can really help a person understand a subject. My daughter had to do some math upgrading a couple of years ago in order to get into university, and I can tell you she had such a tough time landing a good tutor. She eventually found a young woman who was close to graduating university to tutor her, and this helped her get the marks she needed. I think math, chemistry and English are subjects that often require tutoring. Of course, there are a lot of new citizens to the US who need English as a second language instruction. If you think you may be able to help people more on a one-to-one basis, this may be for you. Hang in there, and keep busy with positive, constructive things. I wish you the best.

[Cog]

My advice to you is to manup, quit feeling sorry for yourself, get a real job, quit mooching off mommy, deal with your woman issues or simply ignore they exist and most of all grow a pair.

I hope this advice will send you on your way to being the productive citizen that I fully expect you are capable of being.

Cog, You are being mean. Not everyone is as psychologically tough as you. And in the current environment, I am sure a lot of people are having a (emotional) depression and suffers a terrible loss of self-esteem. Suicide rates are high.

It cost you NOTHING to give verbal advice is a gentle and kind way. I was mean to others in the past then one day I found myself on the other side. And so I regret and will regret to the day I die, how mean I was to others in the past. The knowledge that I was mean to others will live with me forever. It's a stain that I can never wash off.

I'm not being mean, I'm being blunt. He doesn't have a lot of time to get his affairs in order and he certainly doesn't have time to sit around a mope about it. Time for him to retire the comic books and toys and face the reality of a world that is getting more brutal by the second.

[Quinny]

What a knobbish remark

The numbers are misleading here, depite 5% unemployment a lot of 'qualified' people are not finding work, especially those not prepared to leave a large city, or take on any nitty gritty work.

As long as they can collect welfare & Medicaid, they will not do any "nitty gritty work".

[FairMaiden]

I don't know about the site either. Maybe ppl here are already deteriorating socially in prep or they've scared off most of the nice ones. I wrote that I was having a problem w/some rude Chinese ppl in my area and I was called a white supremist! I was concerned about being a community that doesn't accept me (peak prep related)...I didn't say and I don't think chinese ppl are rude in general. Nor did I say "Asian" bc there are plenty of polite Korean and Vietnamese ppl here. I also know lots of Chinese ppl who are nice...not sure WHY it's like this in this tiny area of a large city. Anyway, didn't want to make this about me - but I was about to leave the site for good after that. I did have a point here too. I rarely think twice about what's written on the internet. There are good ppl and bad ppl everywhere - even on the internet. No one is worth upsetting yourself over bc 99% of the time the issue is theirs. So when someone says something to you, or back stabs you, then you need to learn to just brush it off. People can't insult or upset you if you don't let them. Since I've learned to do this, I have been a much happier person in most situations.

If you have been reading here since 2009, then you knew the 2008 recession wasn't getting any better. Yet you decided to give up your job anyway. Not a very good decision. I'm not writing that to be mean. But you have to be honest about mistakes to learn from them and not repeat them. If you were still in your job, my advice would have been to get a girlfriend. Having a sounding board who understand the female HS head games could have been a valuable resource for you. It's also therapeutic to have someont to vent to that is sympathetic.

You've had a lot of great advice on here about the job situation. Good luck and don't give up!!

[Oneaboveall]

If you have been reading here since 2009, then you knew the 2008 recession wasn't getting any better. Yet you decided to give up your job anyway. Not a very good decision...

I quit in August of 2008, the stock market crash did happen until I was already at Clarion in October of 2008. By the time I found this board, I was already half-way to my second master's. Never mind that the bullying supervisor basically told me that he would make look so incompetent that the district would have no choice but to fire me. I also had people from the Human Resources department show up at my room twice. I can infer from that that he was trashing me to them. Staying there wasn't really an option

[Oneaboveall]

My advice to you is to manup, quit feeling sorry for yourself, get a real job, quit mooching off mommy, deal with your woman issues or simply ignore they exist and most of all grow a pair.

I hope this advice will send you on your way to being the productive citizen that I fully expect you are capable of being.

Cog, You are being mean. Not everyone is as psychologically tough as you. And in the current environment, I am sure a lot of people are having a (emotional) depression and suffers a terrible loss of self-esteem. Suicide rates are high.

It cost you NOTHING to give verbal advice is a gentle and kind way. I was mean to others in the past then one day I found myself on the other side. And so I regret and will regret to the day I die, how mean I was to others in the past. The knowledge that I was mean to others will live with me forever. It's a stain that I can never wash off.

I would ask everyone to please not quote Cog as I put him on my ignore list, but he shows up if you quote him.

As for you Cog, let me say this: You are the biggest piece of shit walking the face of god's green Earth. You think you're hot shit just cause you run your own business? A business that depends on government contracts? And you want to call other people moochers? Like I said before, for all you've accomplished, you count for absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Yet you think you can talk to everyone like they're garbage. Insulting everyone on the board doesn't make you look tough; it makes you look like a pussy who talks tough from behind a keyboard. Why don't you do the world a favor and go walk in front of a fucking bus, asshole.

[peeker01]

Oneaboveall - The world is full of cogs (sorry cog). Job One in your return to the workforce
is to learn how deal successfully with people you don't like or don't agree with. Not trying
to be mean, just trying to help.

[pstarr]

Oneaboveall, there is no shame in sharing a life with your extended family. That is how the world has always worked. The fully-functional isolated single-family home is a very recent development. Folks didn't used to have their own kitchen, shop, entertainment center, garage. They shared (how un-American). Prehistoric humans lived in tribes, pre-industrial man lived in tight communities and towns. Kibbutz children live in group houses. Native Americans lived in long houses. Cheap petroleum and industrial automation have done us little favor. We live isolated in our splendor and dependent on more cheap petroleum to fill our empty lives with consumer products.

The United States of America is rife with Cogs. Folks who were born on 3rd base and seriously believe they've hit home runs and are God's Gift to The World. American delusion.

It does sound like you are depressed though. You should not carry the world and it's screwups on your shoulders. It is not you fault. Get help.

[EnergyUnlimited]

[some very sad life story - EU]....Given that I feel like I'm at the end of my rope, what do you all think is a reasonable course of action?

You need well off girlfriend.
Be nice to her and hope for the best.

[SeaGypsy]

Yeah plenty of 'well off g/f's' out there when you're unemployed living with the olds aged near 30? Don't think so.

Reacting so badly to Cog is not a great sign, as others have stated, his opinion is far from unique.

Disengagement is probably your worst enemy, reacting negatively to critical people feeds into disengagement. Better to be doing something, even for nothing financially.

[Cog]

Contrary to some people's belief, I wasn't handed anything. Whether it was digging ditches, painting houses, working offshore drilling rigs, and now surveying, I was always working to improve my situation by having a superior work ethic to those around me. If you are on the ball, you look at economic trends and readjust your game plan based on what is possible and how you fit in the overall scheme of things. I don't know if Oneaboveall ever saved any money along the way in case his plans fell through, but it doesn't sound like it to me.

I'm not going to handhold and sugar-coat the new economic reality for Oneaboveall, as is the practice of some here. Above all, he doesn't need to wallow in self-pity and fantasize about what might have been, but get out and make a new reality happen for him.

The new economic paradigm is one of brutal job competition. If you aren't willing to tackle that, you are going to end up on the bottom of the economic heap.

I'm not a cruel person but I do believe in being realistic at all times. If his degrees aren't working for him, then toss them out and figure out what he wants to do to be a productive citizen. At least he is thinking about doing something which edges him a notch above people who give up and sit on their ass all day everyday. Last I saw, fairness was not something guaranteed by being born. Some people don't like that but there it is.

Oneaboveall may have psychological issues. Trust me, we all do. And guess what, the job world doesn't care one wit about your abusive father. Manup and get out of the house and compete the best you can. Luck favors the audacious and bold not the timid.

[Oneaboveall]

Reacting so badly to Cog is not a great sign, as others have stated, his opinion is far from unique...

Cog has been asking for someone to tell him off for a long time. It has nothing to do with "reacting badly"; it has everything to do with putting a jerk in his place.

[EnergyUnlimited]

Yeah plenty of 'well off g/f's' out there when you're unemployed living with the olds aged near 30? Don't think so.

Maybe some divorcee in her 40-ties with good career or a widow?
Plenty of singles around... he just has to be nice, kind and smiling.

[Cog]

Reacting so badly to Cog is not a great sign, as others have stated, his opinion is far from unique...

Cog has been asking for someone to tell him off for a long time. It has nothing to do with "reacting badly"; it has everything to do with putting a jerk in his place.

I'm trying to help you out here. You need to do an honest assessment of where you are at, how you got to where you are now, and bust some ass to get to a better place. That has been and is my advice. As this country spirals downward into economic chaos, things are only going to get tougher for all of us. Break out of that self-pity routine and improve your situation. I don't know if you have been sheltered from life's realities or not, but its time to wake up to a rather different economic world than you grew up in.

You can start by finding a job. Any job. You will feel better about yourself right off the bat. Working in fast food is a humbling experience. Trust me, after doing it for four years in college, while seemingly everyone else partied, I made sure I wouldn't have to do it again. But do it again I would if I had to.

[EnergyUnlimited]

You can start by finding a job. Any job. You will feel better about yourself right off the bat. Working in fast food is a humbling experience. Trust me, after doing it for four years in college, while seemingly everyone else partied, I made sure I wouldn't have to do it again. But do it again I would if I had to.

Even if paid in chips?