A Reasonable Forum on Religion, Science, Skepticism, and Atheism

Register or Log In

1. 

   Kodie
   Member

   Why it's shitty to be poor and undereducated:

   I don't consider myself to be uneducated, I do have a BA after all, but I kind of blew it in college, most likely due to disinterest, social phobias, all the shit in me that's always been broken and the way I coped around it so people think I'm a normal and capable human being. Other than that, I'm (supposedly) pretty intelligent. Anyway, I've been underemployed and coasting close to empty for a long time. Instead of climbing the ladder to a well-paying soul-crushing job, I got my soul crushed on the bottom rung of a lot of different ladders. I'm trying trying trying to find my niche. Trying trying trying to resist the urge not to take my medicine here.

   Anyway, I thought I would try education. I thought about it a lot of times and always gave myself excuses I didn't want to do it that just don't make as much sense as doing it for all the really good reasons that it frequently comes to mind. Because it's a government position, requiring licensure even for substitutes (you know, I thought maybe I should see if it's a good fit), and even providing financial incentives from public and private sectors to train, I am all by myself and overwhelmed with paperwork, reading, options, programs, requirements and deadlines. I can't even find the first thing I need to do. I need a license or pass a test first. I think. There are fees, but I wonder if I can waive or defer those fees. When is the test? Can I take it online? I don't have the attention span to follow instructions unless they're all written out on the same page and not these 24 tabs I have open.

   What I do have is food stamps, SSDI, and a therapist who is mediocre. I tell her I need a "practical" kind of person, she's ok, but I need an additional counselor (more like a guidance counselor) to weed this shit out with me. For free. The business with the safety net is that when you need something, nobody knows anything but their own job and their own specific business with you, so you're all alone to figure out what else you can do, where to get it. How is anyone supposed to counsel their way out if they don't know what programs are available to them? It took a long time and a lot of effort I'm way too tired for just to get what I do have. Besides for me, just anyone who wants to change careers and doesn't know how to go about it (besides getting a Phoenix degree), at least I'm hooked up in the system, but I don't want to take, I don't want to maintain, it's not that glamorous as you may have heard. They want you to transition back to work if you're out of work, but they don't make it very easy if you really try to do exactly that.

   Outside of that, I'm left with the prospect of just applying for jobs I did before because that's all I really know how to do, and probably can't get since "the gap," and really don't want to get on that merry-go-round anyway since it leads to re-debilitation. Outside of that, I need training and a counselor to guide me over the steps, or some wealthy old guy who thinks I'm 29.

   So, anyway, my experience within government programs is they sort of do what they do, and it would cost more to do more, so I can understand people thinking they don't work so cut them, but they could use a lot of improvement and could be made more efficient. I hate to hear the ways people on the street or even politicians (who are likely unfamiliar with what being on the system is actually like) propose to fix things. #1. A way to talk to someone when you call the food stamp office, someone. Last time I called, the receptionist told me my worker (whom I'd left 4 messages for already) didn't work there anymore and transferred the call to someone who just left for vacation. I had to call back 6 times to talk to another person. In the first place, I had to look online and not at the top of my letter for the general phone number and ultimately had to drive all the way over there to get any service. #2. Someone at the clinic who is like the paperwork guidance counselor. My therapist "looks into it" after I describe and request what I need and the next week she finds one thing I might try but I have to put myself on a 4-month waiting list. I'd rather make an appointment there with someone whose job it is to be familiar with the programs. It's like they don't want people to get off dependence, and the needy get blamed for not taking advantage of programs that exist to help people work again.

   Posted 7 months ago #
2. 

   FO
   Member

   Sorry to hear this Kodie. =(
   I have been in a similar (but all the way lighter) situation until a few months ago.

   I don't really know how things work there, but probably calling the teacher's union may yield some information.

   The other thing I can tell you is that it's fucking hard and there's no way around it.
   You are entering in unknown territory, which is frustrating enough already, and you are doing it from a difficult situation, which makes everything worse.

   That is the direction you have chosen and it is worth the pursuit, so stick with it and prepare yourself for some ugly times: even if you fail you don't want to live with the regret of not trying hard.

   Also, do not underestimate social networking: talk with people you know, ask around, try to find anyone that could have some experience or that could know someone that knows someone...

   You have a direction, it's definitely worth to sweat over it.
   Write here when you need to vent, and good luck!

   Posted 7 months ago #
3. 

   Kodie
   Member

   I appreciate that FO. I can't get myself organized or maybe I'm just looking for a loophole. What's the first thing I need to do? I think it's take an exam and apply to substitute. Pay for the training materials and schedule the exam and pay for it. There are other programs that help pay for school in exchange for a 3 year commitment to teaching in the poorer neighborhoods, but one needs the application in 2 weeks and to have taken a test or write in when the test will be taken, and that's a, you know, I might not even get in, it still costs a lot of money (to me) to apply, and it costs to take the test, it costs to get prepared, and it costs to pay for licensure. Another couple scholarships (both federal and private) which need me to already be enrolled in school. Transcripts from my college.

   So the real first thing I need to do is work somewhere else. Hence, the problem. I really didn't plan this out well. My history of work is terrible. I had dreams, but when I had a job, I never took the time to schedule it out and quit the bad job and take a new job. People I know are always telling me what I need to do is just get a job, take a job, take any fucking job. Even the guy on the social security office when I called said something about "pride of work". I've never had that. I realize that makes me seem like a spoiled princess to everyone and they resent me. Nobody will help me out. The only reason I went to therapy this last time is because I always do just eventually go back to work, I pull myself together like everyone suggests, I grind like I'm supposed to, everything seems ok, and I have no pride. I don't feel good just from working somewhere. Eventually this comes to the surface. It's not healthy to fuck up your work situation so much, so I took out time, but it's way too long. I'm not functionally better than ever. I am the same person who gets my shit together sometimes like I might be able to do a job if I just got one, and the same person who will fuck it up around 6-8 months later.

   A lot of people think I would make a great teacher, and I like helping people, and teaching kids, I think I have a lot of patience for certain kinds of shit, I really do, and I have a lot of vague ideas and values and motivations that will get structure as I train, and I don't really need a lot of money. I can't say this is my "dream", I don't want to say "I won't hate it as much as my other options," I feel more passion that this is the right way to go and I've sustained it. It's the demanding confrontational parents I don't care for, nor the bureaucratic red tape, and the lack of respect many people have for the profession and having to defend it. That always killed it for me. You know what else kills me? I went to college as an education major at a really good school to become a teacher and I dropped my major because the downside was prominent to me at the time, it had been my mom's idea not mine, and I graduated 4 years later unemployable basically. Every time I came to a fork in the road and said, dammit, I'll just do it and then changed my mind again. What pushed it over this time was honestly the schedule. What job doesn't have shitty parts about it? But what job offers frequent breaks. I hate to be that guy, but I'm kind of sick and I don't think I'll ever be able to work M-F year after year, week after week, solid. Even subbing as soon as possible, I would earn more in one day than one day of temping in an office - I do need some money and making it in a shorter amount of time sort of fits in with my bottom line - and I probably would be able to keep my benefits for a while.

   So basically, I have to get some other job, like a temp job, to do all these other programs and pay the fees, and it will all get fucked up if... you know, the election. I just feel super-stressed about all this! Thanks FO, thank you for the words of encouragement and support! I really need it! :)

   Posted 7 months ago #
4. 

   FO
   Member

   My pleasure.
   And BTW, there is a thread of mine here, a couple of months old, where I was freaking out myself about job and career, feeling I was unemployable and professionally dead.
   So yes, you are overthinking it.
   But it's natural that you do, so don't bash yourself on it.

   You are fucking smart.
   Better than most people.
   Yes, sometimes it's a pain in the ass to think so much.
   But you know what?
   Brains DO give you an edge, and they WILL help you land a job and they can put you ahead of others that had a smoother career.

   Posted 7 months ago #
5. 

   Kodie
   Member

   I don't recover in a couple of months. I have been spinning my wheels over a chronic issue my whole life. I need some practical help lining up the tasks. I am grateful that public services do exist to help people like me but I wish they would function internally a lot smoother. I have been on welfare before, I used to live in Boston before. I had no idea then, and there wasn't even an internet then, what to do to get on a track. Eventually, my building caught on fire and I was rendered homeless. The Red Cross doesn't relocate you, so I went to the welfare office, and my worker annoyed me with just being disorganized and interrupting me by taking calls. "The system" doesn't seem to work like any office that I've ever worked at, and I don't know what to expect. I was looking to relocate/HUD or whatever, and all she could offer me were women's shelters.

   Seems to me it would work better if you asked someone who works for the gov't for help, if it wasn't within their job description specifically, could do more than shrug at you. It would be great if they could advise you speak to someone else, a liaison in that office, or just a short list of helpful agencies to say, "I can't help you but these people are who you want to talk to." Even now with the internet, it's still like that. You can't even call the food stamps and get routed to a helpful person right away if your worker doesn't call you back. The receptionist seems to be a befuddled person who doesn't know how to use a multi-line phone or have an idea who is there and who is on vacation. UNLIKE every single office I've ever worked at, she made the mistake 4 times in a row and hung up on me twice because I got mad at her. The phones don't even have a menu to return to the operator if you hit a dead end.

   One time, at the beginning of my journey into this hell of a process, I was sent in a big circle of people who didn't know what to do for me, including a helpful private citizen named Connie. Yes, someone I spoke to at a public government agency gave me a phone number to call, and the person who answered was not connected with any offices and was at home, but at least she was patient enough to field calls from needy people and have some helpful numbers ready to point me in a next direction.

   I guess from time to time that it is, after all, easier to just buckle down and get a regular job. It probably is. "The system" seems designed to discourage people from using it, or discourage anyone from getting any farther than the agencies that just hand out free money. They're obviously overworked, frustrated, and mediocre working people. Last time I had to go down there, right after dealing with the non-functional receptionist, the people at the window snickered at me when I told them what happened. I was met with someone other than my worker at the end of the day in a liaison cubicle, she left me there to go make copies (normal), but did not tell me her name. Eventually, another woman came in and accused me, and the security guard came in and escorted me back to the waiting room. It's fucking degrading to just be there, so I know I'm supposed to be grateful, but I don't get this "welfare queen" bullshit. Who would face this nonsense on purpose and deal with it?

   Bureaucracy is fucking nonsense, so I come down from experience and say it could work a lot better and possibly cheaper. People need these services and it would work better if the agencies could connect you and help you find your way back out more quickly, you know, be all about putting you with a career counselor. An ordinary office would "upsell" the shit out of that plan to keep you moving along, but these people hand you the money you asked for after degrading you, and don't know anything else.

   I'm against people who think they know what doesn't work about it and making draconian laws so the needy can't cheat. It's broken on the inside and really the layman solution to that is usually alcohol, but the political solution is make it so you can't buy any, so you're totally fucked. I'm not saying it's right to spend your welfare check on a vice, but it's a short-sighted way to fix what's wrong with it and be proud that you're accomplishing goals with serving the needy in mind. Boning the cheaters out of a drink (and cosmetic things like manicures, of all things) is not really addressing anything that might overall save the taxpayers money, it's just giving the taxpayers the head on a platter they demanded and doesn't serve the innocent needy, which is most of us. Since I'm on SSDI now, I don't have to deal with that anymore, but I can't buy a chicken at the store if it's already cooked, or essential non-foods like soap or toilet paper, but I can buy all the M&Ms and soda and lobsters I want until the account runs out for the month. You can't say I should eat beans for dinner instead of pop-tarts, that's the idea. At least I have an oven - some poor people are living day to day without a way to even cook food they buy. Same thing when I had a Red Cross voucher after the fire - I had $100 in charity to spend at a supermarket, but I couldn't leave any change to go back another time, and I was living out of a Super 8 motel.

   So yeah, that's my rant for the day! Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I hope I can move forward and apply to some temp jobs this weekend, do some laundry, etc.

   Posted 7 months ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.