Frustrations

One week ago, I didn't think I would have a place to live and I thought I might be in the beginning stages of an eviction.  I've since raised enough in PayPal donations through the PayPal button to the right of this post to be able to pay for December & January's rent.

I'm trying to remain positive but new frustrations make getting out of this mess seem less likely.

I applied to many places in the past week.  I applied to Starbucks, both retail and corporate.  The great thing about Starbucks' retail online app is that you can apply for multiple positions at once in a cluster of locations in an area.  Costco uses the same online application software, so I have, with 2 online applications, applied for over a dozen positions.

My expertise is in food and the food industry(not restaurant industry), so I have applied to positions in several companies and several positions in one food company.

To date, I have had a phone interview with one company and several rejection emails from another.  That is it.  I reach a point where I run out of things to do on my end.  At a certain point, I have to depend on someone to hire me.  Hell, at some point, I have to be lucky enough to get just a phone interview.  The truth is that nobody has to give me a moment, a thought, or a chance.

Then the panic sets in...

Am I unemployable?  Is my resume bad enough that there are always going to be other people that get interviews ahead of me?  My resume makes me look a lot worse than I really am as an employee.  I'm smart, I have skills, and I'm a fast learner, quickly absorbing technical knowledge.  But as I tried to start a career after college, I embarked on an odyssey of finding a good job/person fit.

What normally happens is that I run out of time/money and I am forced to say yes to the next opportunity, regardless of if it's right for me.  I took a position in 2008 with Cargill to work in their feed mill.  Cargill is a great company, but my training was in food science and operations, not necessarily mechanical engineering or management in a feed mill.  Boo hoo, right?  I know...  I took the job because Cargill has 54 different business units and I was assured by a corp recruiter that I could get into a different area of the company if my training to be a Plant Manager of a feed mill didn't go well.  That wasn't the case, and after trying(and failing) to catch on in a different business unit, I left.  Cargill was nice enough to give me a month and a half to try to find another position, after which, we would part ways.  Unfortunately, Cargill has a very decentralized HR, and were unable to pluck me from one area and put me in another.

That lasted 5 months.

My odyssey continued with several other jobs where the company was bad or the training program was bad, and in between, I worked lower level jobs to sustain myself until the next opportunity.  So this will be the part where people comment, telling me it's my fault, and to a certain extent, that's true. The question is whether the punishment for being brutally honest about my job/person fit is a life sentence or something I can overcome.  I will not apologize and do not regret being picky about a career position.  If I'm going to work somewhere every day until I retire, then it's going to be doing something I have a passion for and wake up every day wanting to do.

I tried to get into the creative end with marketing and the prospects there seem even worse.  I'm great with ideas, well spoken, and well written.  I thought that I should have no problem being a copywriter... except that I didn't go to school to be a copy writer... except that I didn't work an unpaid internship doing copywriting... except that every copywriting opening starts at 3-5 years of experience in copywriting.

I found the same thing to be true of the ad world.  You can't get a start in advertising... I know this sounds insane, but you have to have always been there to get a foot in the door.  There are no entry level ad jobs.

I like writing and even have a standing offer for freelance writing work, but at $40 a published submission, it's more a hobby than a job.  To make matters worse, I have a computer that keeps shutting down as I get into anything like writing or a long online application.

I have a Late 2006 Intel iMac that I got when I was still at Ohio State.  It's about 7 and a half years old and really starting to show it's age.  To make matters worse, these particular iMacs have a known issue with the soldered on graphics card, where the screen will go black or the computer will overheat.  If my computer freezes while I type this sentence, then blogger will have my progress saved and I can return after waiting for the computer to cool off.  If my computer freezes while in the middle of a long application, I will have to start over, in many cases.

I only asked for the bare minimum amount of PayPal donations to pay rent.  I didn't want to overly rely on online solicitations for all my bills.  But if you like my writing or if you're a fan of Mac OS, I would be willing to accept donations that would help me get another iMac.

I'm probably as likely to get enough donations for that as I am to get hired on somewhere... Either way, I hope I'm wrong.

Eviction!

As a prologue to my last post, my internet was disconnected just moments before my sister called, telling me she put some money in my bank account so I can get my internet turned back on.

I was pretty relieved to have that fire temporarily extinguished and thought it would be a great time to step outside, get some fresh winter's air, and buy some cat food for Ms. Teschmacher.

Then I saw this taped to my door...

I had to get a loan from a friend and a family member to pay October and November's rent, but I was never able to pay rent for December.  I am now a month behind with next month's due in a matter of days.

Rent is $520

Presumably, $520 would buy me a few more weeks and $1,040 would get me through the first half of February.  I say presumably, because there is a possibility that he just wants me to leave regardless of my ability to pay.

So unless I get a lot of PayPal donations or a good paying gig real fast, my next Poor Blog post may be from the car I'll be living in.  The notice says that if I'm not out by the 2nd(keep in mind that many businesses will close early tomorrow and remain closed for New Year's Day), then he will start formal eviction proceedings.  I may have no other choice than to let the court order me homeless.

Disconnection!

The threat of disconnection hangs over all of us poor people daily, especially as we may not be able to pay our full utility bill... or any of it on a given month.

My electricity was set to be turned off by Duke Energy next week.  I owe a total of $178, which includes several months of non-payments, partial payments, and late fees.  Thankfully, I was able to negotiate a 6 month payment plan for the past due amount, where I pay $30 a month + whatever the current charges are.

So I started today with over $150 to my name and that $30 payment brings me back done to $120.

My internet is very behind as well.  Usually, I carry a month past due and end up paying the minimum amount due to Time Warner, which is half.  That 'half' increases every month as new late fees are added into the total I have to at least pay half of.  

I called Time Warner to make arrangements and they were much less flexible.  My total bill is $228, of which, a minimum of $154 must be paid to keep the service from being disconnected... which is supposed to happen today or tomorrow.  Should I fail to pay that amount before they pull the plug, it will cost an additional $36 to have the service scheduled for reconnection.

Remember, I now only have about $120, so... not enough for Time Warner's minimum payment.

I called Time Warner and navigated their prompts until I got someone in billing.  I told her my situation and said I would like to set up a payment plan.  The only payment she could accept was the minimum $154.

So I may not be on the internet for a while, except for a friend's WiFi.  I currently use the internet for job applications and Netflix($8/month).  No internet, no job applications. No job applications, no interviews and no jobs.  No job, no money for the internet.  

It's very hard using a friends internet to apply for jobs because you have to upload resumes that usually reside on my iMac.  Also, I have to go to his place to use the computer, which means it may be several days before I can check on emails regarding jobs and do the follow up I need to be competitive in the job market.

Welcome To Poor Blog!

Hi.  My name is Sam and I am poor.

That is an awkward, uncomfortable, and embarrassing thing to admit, but it's true.

When I say I am poor, it's important to note that I am not saying that I have failed to become rich, I'm saying I don't have enough money to cover most basic living expenses.  When I say I am poor, I don't mean that I only make $30,000 a year or that it is sometimes difficult to pay on my student loans.  I have been unemployed for most of the last 6 months.  I am 2 months behind on rent and several months behind on utilities.  I have no savings and I am in real danger of eviction and losing my electricity and internet.

What I intend to do through this blog is document my misadventures and give the more fortunate in this country an uncensored window into one person's poor life.  I'm not sure how often this will get updated and I'll have to decide whether to plan specific posts or merely vent bout the suck, my life has become.

Check back in for more updates...