Back to High School

I remember what it was like looking for a job in Apple Valley when I was in high school. There were a lot of kids looking for work, and not a lot of employment opportunities. I had to know someone to get the job at Little Caesars.

I feel like that's the job market I'm in now, except for that if I don't find something soon, I'll get kicked out of my house or something. Oh, I also have 5 other people depending on me. Boy is it ever fun.

I'm about 99% sure I don't want to do factory maintenance anymore. I've applied for jobs delivering pizza at Dominos, and for overnight stocking positions at Smith's and Albertsons. I've also applied for part time work with UPS. None of these jobs pay very well, and we're probably going to be looking to sell the house sooner rather than later, which is kind of scary in this real estate market. Any of these opportunities I am trying to take advantage of should work out well should I find work in fire or medicine. I realize that I'll probably have to take a job with lower pay than I was used to (the Portland job would be like winning the lottery) and I'm ok with that. We've cut out a lot of our unnecessary spending lately, and we're making more cuts out of necessity. I believe that even unemployed and stressing out of how I'm going to pay off some significant credit card debts, I'm still a happier person than I was a month or 2 ago. I've got some clarity now that at least my life isn't going to involve a job that I don't want to do anymore.

So, for anyone that reads this that is still deciding what they want to be when they grow up, use me as a cautionary tale. Don't study anything that you have no interest in, even if it represents a significant increase to your current pay. I felt trapped by a crappy job and career path when I made up my mind to start studying electronics, but I never really found any interest in it. Having a job just to pay the bills and from which I derived no enjoyment for the past 4 years has sucked, I can't imagine doing it for 40 or 50 years without enjoying anything that I do.