fuck this, i quit. louise, get in the car.

[digitaldiscipline]

bah. maybe i shouldn't bother getting a job somewhere else, i should just open a fucking bar.

[edited to add: talking to recruiters has simply reinforced the point that, without throwing myself bodily at some fucking training for certifications [though i could probably get A+ while sleeping poorly], landing a job that doesn't pay for shite in the tech field is not an option.

i've been out of the tech field for nearly three years, professionally, and i don't think that anyone bothers to read the "home business" section of my resume. tech employers see someone who was out of work for a year, and then got a job as a fucking secretary [sorry, margaret - what i do is barely talking monkey work - i used to have a gig where i did the red-pen edit stuff fulltime]. . . "what's wrong with this guy that he couldn't get another tech support job or something?" well, gee, maybe it's that doing frontline phone support, when call numbers and not actually fixing the customer's problem, were the priority - that's bullshit.

go back into editing? i've been out of that field for seven years; three if you count my last paying freelance proofreading gig. yes, i suck at marketing myself.

the tech employers see a word person or office flunky. the word people see a geek. neither of them see someone who is eminently qualified to do a damn good fucking job in their field, as well as bring a lot more to the table. . . they'd rather have two specialists than one skilled generalist, so i'm SOL.

maybe i could become a handyman or a slumlord if the bar ownership thing doesn't pan out.

oh yeah, i would need capital to do any of these. someone kill K's ex-husband, that $200k would make her life a lot easier. i've had most of the family members i wouldn't mind losing die already, and all i got was this lousy t-shirt.]

Comments

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

dood.

open a bar!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

*ponders*

[smaugchow.livejournal.com]

You got a bouncer right here. Hell, I'll even goth up for the gig if needs be.

Open a titty bar in the bible belt - you'll be a billionaire. Those goddamn Baptists will make you a rich man, condeming you as a smut peddler during the day and squandering their childrens' college fund on lap dances at night. Yee haw!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

the only problem being. . . i'd live in the bible belt. *snerk* at least, until the first couple million rolled in. . .

[geekers.livejournal.com]

:-\

[etcet.livejournal.com]

no, not really quitting. . . yet. just. . . bah.

[geekers.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry things are still sucking badly for you... :-\ I hope you find something better, soon.

[paisli.livejournal.com]

Did I miss something.. why are you looking for a job??? :-/

[etcet.livejournal.com]

mine is just dead-end suckage. talking to recruiters has simply reinforced the point that, without throwing myself bodily at some fucking training for certifications [though i could probably get A+ while sleeping poorly], landing a job that doesn't pay for shite in the tech field is not an option.

i've been out of the tech field for nearly three years, professionally, and i don't think that anyone bothers to read the "home business" section of my resume. tech employers see someone who was out of work for a year, and then got a job as a fucking secretary [sorry, margaret - what i do is barely talking monkey work - i used to have a gig where i did the red-pen edit stuff fulltime]. . . "what's wrong with this guy that he couldn't get another tech support job or something?" well, gee, maybe it's that doing frontline phone support, when call numbers and not actually fixing the customer's problem, were the priority - that's bullshit.

go back into editing? i've been out of that field for seven years; three if you count my last paying freelance proofreading gig. yes, i suck at marketing myself.

the tech employers see a word person or office flunky. the word people see a geek. neither of them see someone who is eminently qualified to do a damn good fucking job in their field, as well as bring a lot more to the table. . . they'd rather have two specialists than one skilled generalist, so i'm SOL.

maybe i could become a handyman or a slumlord if the bar ownership thing doesn't pan out.

oh yeah, i would need capital to do any of these. someone kill K's ex-husband, that $200k would make her life a lot easier. i've had most of the family members i wouldn't mind losing die already, and all i got was this lousy t-shirt.

[paisli.livejournal.com]

Want my job? ;) I'd hand it overy freely!!!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

how's the money, what's involved? denver rocks.

no, i'm not kidding. i just don't think i have the cisco chops to hack it, and am unfortunately a little thin on the funds for certification training.

[paisli.livejournal.com]

I don't have any certification and not a lot of cisco chops.. I mostly just order circuits and run auto configs on stuff :) I'm just so sick of tech I could DIE!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

could i bat my eyelashes and get your actual job description via email? heh. *hug*

[paisli.livejournal.com]

Ok.. I'm not REALLY going to give you my job, but yeah.. I will see if I can dig up the description and keep my eyes open for ya =) Although.. I'm not sure if I can find the descriptions.. things aren't terribly organized around here!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

well, if i know what you do, and who you do it for, extrapolating that to another company might be meaningful.

or maybe that's the pretzels talking.

[angel-renewed.livejournal.com]

Amen to quitting. I'm T-2 weeks at anytime now.

[ladysoleil.livejournal.com]

Well, honey, if you need a surly cocktail waitress with a heart of gold, I'm your woman.

gah. employment sucks.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

you are applicant #3. you are pre-approved for employment. thank you.

[ladysoleil.livejournal.com]

yay. As long as I get to pick my own uniform...

Oh, and BTW, you do not need to issue me an apology for any moment in which you express ire/dislike of secretarial work. A) It's not for everyone, it requires a certain level of patience which is found mostly in the insane/saintly, B) I'm not a secretary. Yeah, I type up a letter now and then and do some scheduling, but my duties go way past that to event planning, project management, budgeting, invoicing and financial stuff, etc. I'm probably more of a coordinator type. C) I'm not offended by what I do for a living and I'm extremely good at it. It's not what I want to do until I die, but it doesn't negatively impact the quality of my life too much, either. D) I realize it's a factor of our respective local economies and all, but I still think you're disgustingly underpaid. I'm paid less than I'd like, and less than I'm actually worth, but I'm probably drawing a fair to generous wage here.

just food for thought.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

i've had that food, and, yep. . . it's still awfully bitter. heh.

i will stop apologizing to you every time i bitch about my admin assist gig. i'm competent enough at it, but, really, how much satisfaction is there in translating the boss' scrawled sentence fragments into something resembling english?

i suppose i'm less offended by what i do than by how i'm treated - i've got professional cooties if i want to go anywhere else, and the people who respect that i'm smart and able to bust my ass when necessary are, essentially, everyone except my boss, whose life i have made so fucking easy that he can spend 5 or 6 hours a day piddling with his stock portfolio. . . . after dropping as much money to play with on his latest fling as he paid me, before taxes, last year. gee, thanks, boss, i really feel like i will be able to participate in this conversation.

hell, i'm just about ready to take over the accounting duties here as well, not just because they're a mess, but to have something constructive to do.

[aishlynn.livejournal.com]

#3??

who are #1 and #2??
and yes, my name had better be one of those...

so nyah.
:P

[anngwish42.livejournal.com]

I wanna work in your bar too. BTW, just to get your feet wet again and pick up some extra cash, you might want to throw your resume at Perseus.com; it's the best freelance editing/proofing resource I know.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

could you double check that link for me, latent mommie? i got a site that was, apparently, selling web survey software at perseus.com / www.perseus.com ?

[anngwish42.livejournal.com]

I'm getting spacy in my old age, sorry.
www.perseusbooksgroup.com

[etcet.livejournal.com]

that's okay - you're still approved for employment, too. ;-)

thanks. *hug*

[mykal.livejournal.com]

How does the title "tech editor" suit you? That combines both the "office flunkie" and "word geek" positions. Computer or technical publishers need editors who actually understand the subject matter their authors are writting about.

Or you can open the bar.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. that's a thought. however, the publishing industry seems to have two bases of operations - really fucking expensive [SF] and stupidly fucking expensive [NYC]. blergh.

[mykal.livejournal.com]

Or **Indianapolis**. And New Jersey ;) At least my humble corp is based in both.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

neither of those have -any- allure as places to live. sorry.

[angel-renewed.livejournal.com]

As for the recruiter thing...talking to recruiters is a waste of time. That's what I've found anyway. I tend to open the discussion with 'how much are they going to pay me and when is the interview?'. Anything else is just them blowing smoke up my ass and I don't need that.

Hmmm.... opening a bar in St. Pete.... *ponders*

[etcet.livejournal.com]

how regularly should i hound them? every other day? every third? i try to be nice about it, but, really - throw me a frikkin bone here, people.

but, yeah. . . i was pondering exactly what you're pondering. not competition for the big club nights, but something like downstairs at the castle. . .

. . . though i harbor great ph34r & l0ath1n6 for the paperwork this may entail. . . but i give good bureaucracy, especially after all the shite i do with the coast guard here.

[angel-renewed.livejournal.com]

The big issue is the liquor license. Those damn things are pricey. There *used* to be a club night in St. Pete. As in gothy club night. It wasn't every night, though :-(

FDBOA

[future dive bar owners of America]

[etcet.livejournal.com]

hmmm. this bears investigating.

and learning how to write a damn business plan that's more than "provide liquor and music to freaky people. lather, rinse, repeat."

[thefeline.livejournal.com]

Were these just recruiters for NOLA, Washington, Florida or all over? Do you have your resume up and on job boards as well? Can't hurt, right?

I sure hope things get better. If I had trillion dollars, you know I'd hire you to be my personal bitch..er assistant..and uh...pay you for just being cool ;) heh.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

the specific placement company in question is Volt - Microsoft's main staffing place [back in the day, __masque had good things to say about them placing her with another software company you've probably used many times]. hence, it's seattle-only afaik. tampa/st.pete is getting wallpapered courtesy of monster.com, and MSFT has a bot on their job posting boards with my name on it, so they get a handful of resume submissions every couple of days for tech writing or software testing or whatever.

i am honestly not looking for a new job here in new orleans. it's a much nicer place to visit than live, even if living here means more of you freaks (http://www.livejournal.com/users/etcet/friends) have come to visit in the last 22 months than in the previous 28 years. ;-)

if i could find a field that would pay for me being cool, i'd jump at it, but there seems to be a requirement for innate celebrity there that i only meet in select portions of cyberspace. heh.

[thefeline.livejournal.com]

Yeah...well it was a thought ;)

And you don't wanna move anywhere else huh?

Yeah...I still need to visit ::hangs head in shame::. There's just been a lot going on here...offline stuff ;)

I sure hope things get better!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

the move - seattle is nice, so is denver. tampa has the benefit of good weather and good people and cheap real estate.

i want to buy a fucking house, dammit. that won't happen in new york or san fran. i don't care for the uber-city environment, and as decent as dc can be, it's infused with so much political bullshit that i don't see myself going back there on a permanent basis.

new orleans is nice, if you're in the right neigborhood, but it's dirt fucking poor, violent, stupid, and incredibly racially tense. i don't know how much there is to do, socially, that doesn't involve food [then again, i don't tend to do social stuff -anyways-, but...]. oh, and there's the special ring of hell that is insurance premiums down here because it's poor, violent, and prone to flooding.

[demented-angel.livejournal.com]

You need to so way open a bar babe, I am actually surprised you haven't already. As much love you have for that heheh you would rock and make a grip of money. I will be your dancer:) hehe *hugs* I hope things start working out for you soon and good luck with whatever you decide.

[good-eeevening.livejournal.com]

Where are you located? I actually DO have a good recruiter, but he is pretty local to the Tampa Bay area.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

New Orleans, but, as mentioned above, relocation for a good opportunity is absolutely doable. Our lease is up the end of May, so, really, anytime before then is keen.

[jruske.livejournal.com]

Dude - I'm sorry to hear that. I can relate, but I've been lucky enough that even with 4-5 months of no income in 2002 and 2 months of no income in 2003 - I've had family that could help, and the income from the in between gigs has at least paid down debt I've accrued in the bad times.

I'd hire you as my bartender if I ever open a club. Hell, I'd hire you just so I'd have someone cool to hang out with while I stand there watching my investment go to shit because the local goth'ies cannot be bothered to come out and support a venue for them.

Welcome to J's world

[yokes1971.livejournal.com]

Jenns's in the exact same f-ing boat.

On the other hand I know how to write Business Plans and get financing for new ventures. :-)

Re: Welcome to J's world

[aishlynn.livejournal.com]

Yokes,

whatever happened to that whole "i'm going to open a bikini clad waitress infested Tiki bar in the carribean" idea you had?

i think Rafe would still be into it - i know i would be! (would you be, Sweet?)

hmmmm...and the time is right and pirates are -SO- in...

just a thought.
and a little mental image to make ya smile more than you already are

;)

Re: Welcome to J's world

[yokes1971.livejournal.com]

Hmmm this could work. Jenns into it!

Let look at real estate :-)