Mar 30
Well guess what — this morning I got a call from a manager at a local Walmart about interviewing for a part-time cashier position. Yes I applied and yes I’ll take it since no one seems to need me to do anything else. It’s up to 32 hours per week, he said, especially if I’m available anytime, and I am. That’s not much, but even if it’s peanuts it’s still more of a paycheck than I’m currently getting, which is exactly none.
Tomorrow’s the interview. Wish me luck.
11 Responses to “Possible Real Job at last?”
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March 30th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Best of luck. I know the feeling having been out of work (at one time) for better then 2 and a half years. Finally took a job with UPS and have been there for a year and a half. It isn’t even close to what I was once making in pay or the level of brain power used in previous jobs. But it IS a steady pay check.
Wal-Mart fills a great many of their managerial openings from with-in. Perhaps you will find yourself much further up the food chain in very short order.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
V. good; good luck. I’d kill (but not people) for 32 hours per, regularly: hope they’ll give you near that. Although overnights are a royal pain and I might find a reason or two to pass on the occasional one of those.
March 30th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Absolutely, good luck.. being retired, I no longer have to worry too much about the job search, but like everyone else, I’ve been there.
I realize the job situation in the US is not what it was, or could be, but as with all things, that will change. Worst case, one has to go where the work is. Inconvenient, but many times opens new doors, adventures, and another path to explore.
Best of luck and even in bad times, stay optimistic, and alert for new opportunities.
Codger in BC Canada.
March 30th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
They told me that the people who are available at any time (you know, Sundays, late night hours) are the ones who get the most hours. Well, I’m available at any time! And I can handle overnights if I’ve had enough sleep.
March 30th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
The job market has definitely changed since the last time I was looking for a job. It was hard five years ago (that was about the last time) but I did get a job within a couple of months. Now it’s like a black hole. My favorite is when I get a phone call from one of my emails asking me to come in and fill out an application, and then when I do so, I get a blank “why are you here” stare from everyone. Hello? You told me to come in? I better not get that tomorrow.
March 30th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Here in Victoria, BC and most places west of Ontario, the job market is hot and crying out for people. I believe the unemployment is down to below 4% most places. Amazing how it cycles, but that is the way the economy works. I have a neighbour who is 67 and wanted part time work, but even tho Walmart begged her to work more hours, she refused to work late nights. [Just to give you an example]
Hopefully, it will work out well enough for you tomorrow, to tide you over until a better opportunity raises its head.
Still the bright side is.. “you needed to downsize your stuff” as George Carlin refers to it. Best way to do it, is to move or be under threat to have to.
March 30th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Florida has had a real blow, but that’s because we depend so heavily on the real estate market down here. The home building companies really got in over their heads — it’s a common Florida story. I was working for a major homebuilder — they had to do massive layoffs because of the housing market crash. The thing is, even a flunkie like me knew that they were heading for a fall — they went ahead and flooded the market with scads of new inventory homes, and then the sales just slowed to a crawl. I’d seen it before, with what happened after Hurricane Andrew (I was working for a mortgage company back then that had gotten used to being one of the major providers of low-income, high-interest second and even third mortgages; after the hurricane in ’92 the Fed was giving away low interest loans and the small companies like the one I was working for, that had been in business nearly 50 years, just couldn’t adjust).
I don’t know how I got into working for mortgage companies and home builders either, but when the market is good such things are major industries in this state. But when the market is bad… Let’s just say I’ve been hoping to avoid working a concession stand at Downtown Disney.
March 30th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Right, I can sympathize with the Disney concession stand bit. Almost worse is a ticket taker in Ft Meyers winter circus quarters.
The Fed really let folks down this time in the US, allowing this whole boondongle in mortgages to happen.. a few of our banks got hit holding those worthless papers also.. luckily, not allowed here, and housing still going great, but with prices going up and up, one wonders for how long? But we don’t have 30yr mortgages, 10yr likely best. and no deductions for mortgages unless purchased to earn income. I think it’s going to hurt down there for awhile. Gas keeps going up, which is ridiculous as we supply a lot of the raw material. We pay the eauiv of $4.74 a US gal here.
I guess the only other major industry is tourism and that’s seasonal. Time to move to Key West? Become a beachcomber? [g]
With prices going up, living on a pension is a little tight as well. At least I don’t have health care costs to worry about. [knock on wood I stay healthy]..
March 30th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
“The Fed really let folks down this time in the US, allowing this whole boondongle in mortgages to happen.. ”
Well, the Fed’s not our daddy, too many of us have simply lost the ability to control ourselves. No one forced the builders to build, the mortgage companies to loosen their restrictions and lend to everyone and their dog, or the buyers to get in over their heads. That whole “the government should” has been the whole problem from the beginning — everyone seems to thing of the government as some sort of combination nursemaid and Santa Claus. It just ain’t so. The problem wasn’t the Federal government, it was the people.
March 30th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Good luck, Andrea! Maybe you can get an employee discount on cat food.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:41 am
“It just ain’t so. The problem wasn’t the Federal government, it was the people.”
Absolutely correct. However, in the current society, unlike a generation or so ago, everyone plays the ‘victim’ card, and blames someone, something else. It’s never their own fault. Thus they don’t deal with it, and go on, they wail, whine, plead, and grovel.
Before asking for help, learn to help themselves. But alas, it will take another depression to teach that lesson again, I fear.
I wasn’t around for the last one, but my parents were, and they learned it, and taught it to their children. However, many of them found it difficult in a modern technology world and mass communications, as well as the liberalization of schools, and authority, and ‘justice’, to instill what they had learned, into their children. And with the desire to provide better than they had it, [misguided tho it was], their kids became latch-key kids with both parents working to provide that lifestyle. But then we all know this, and it is slowly destroying western society, and there seems no cure that will be followed.
No wonder the seniors in our society prefer the times they grew up in, and shake their heads at what they see around them. Loss of respect by children for adults, authority, and their grandparents, and teachers, began in earnest, 50 years ago, and the results have been chaotic. I wonder sometimes how this civilization manages to continue, then I will happen upon those young adults, and kids, who somehow have learned those lessons and applied them with great success, and have truly enhanced their world and those around them. So my hope that the future will be better is reinforced each time, I have one of these encounters.