A
male
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Just about one year ago I graduated from college and was so excited about my future. I had the world in front of me and all my close friends and relatives were telling me I’ve accomplished something great. Flash forward through that year and all the people who were congratulating you and telling you the great things you will do are gone. They are silent now. All they ask you is, “How’s the job search coming,” or “Something will happen.” You can tell in the way they say it that they don’t mean it. It’s written on their faces, they believe you aren’t trying hard enough, because why haven’t you found a job in the past year. I feel like I have let everyone down. Once that feeling sets in and you realize that people just pity you, you lose hope. Worst of all you feel lost. For the most part being lost is seen as a bad thing. You have no purpose or drive, you are unsure of where to even go.I came to that moment in my life where I felt as though I had no one to turn to. I felt all this anger toward the people who said they supported me. I didn’t think they really did, I just felt like the support system was only there when times were good. My thought process is fairly simple, a supporting person is one who doesn’t question the decision you have made. They stand by you during a decision, they should be there to say I believe I what you are doing or why you did that. They wholeheartedly want to help you by listening and simply saying I understand or I know next time will be better. My “support system” has stopped doing that and I’ve come to the realization that they never really felt like that. I’ll tell you what my “support system” does, they tell me what I’m doing wrong, they are quick to second guess my decision making and worst of all they tell me this has gone on long enough. Jobs don’t grow on fucking trees. I work my ass off every day to apply for at least four jobs a day. I work part time for my brother at a job I hate just so I can make money. He is really the only person who supports me. He tells me how hard it is and how I’m doing the best that I can. He believes in me and has my back no matter what. But everyone else has had enough. I have nowhere else to turn. I was happy to work for my brother and so gracious that he would allow me that opportunity. But the moment I took that job I lost the support of my girlfriend. She hated what the store sold and was opposed to me working for family. She said noting good comes from working with family. I really feel like she doesn’t have my back on anything and that she feels I’m not really trying to find a career. These feelings I had turned to reality the moment I chose to decline a job after a year of looking. I thought I was doing the right thing. This job offer wanted me to start the same day I interviewed, but out of respect for my brother and my current part time job, I said no to the offer. I felt that not giving any notice to my current employer was irresponsible and unethical. I wondered if the company who offered me the job would be pissed off if I gave them no notice on day and just quit. That is not the person I am and not someone that I want to become. I believe in doing the right thing, I thought I was doing the right thing but now I have no clue. Everyone said I should have taken the job. My “support system” immediately questioned me about it. They weren’t there to support me and they just harassed me and told me I made a mistake. Support system my ass, no one had my back at all. Who do you turn to now?I turn to no one, and I do what I think is right. I don’t believe I have anyone who will support me and I am fine with that. I don’t care and I will continue to do what I believe is right and say to anyone else who has struggled to find a job, believe in yourself and trust what you feel is right. Do what you think is necessary to find that job you want and go all in on it. Don’t get down every time you receive a rejection, find the positives and go forward. Learn from your mistakes and continue to make them. No one is perfect and this is still a tough job market. Believe in you and ignore everyone else who doesn’t fully support your decisions. Find your happy, and stop trying to please others. Your happiness is most important and you need to find a support system that believes that too. Better days await those who seek happiness for themselves. Keep trying and never give up hope. At times I have and I can say truthfully that in those times I questioned myself and didn’t believe. I now believe that what I am doing is right and that I will continue to fight forward and never doubt myself again. I am my support system and I believe in me. I know what I am doing is right. I will continue to fight for my goals and I will never doubt my decision making again. Thank you for reading and I hope you all find your happiness and belief in yourself.
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male
reader, Mark1978  +, writes (30 May 2014):
 Hello,
A very well written article. Im currently unemployed and have an interview on Monday. Its a depressing, tough job market out there with much in the way of frustration and little in the way of reward.
I am in my thirties and have plenty of experience yet struggle to find a job. As WiseOwl has said, its the same for everyone; we are either too old, too young, over qualified, under experienced or just one of a thousand people applying for every job opportunity. I have been unemployed before, when I left college and having been in this situation then and now I read your article with great interest.
Reading this article through the eyes of my younger, unemployed self, I can absolutely understand where you are coming from 100%. If I had written an article in my early twenties yours would be pretty much how it would sound. However, as an older, more experienced person now, I can see some things very differently. I hope you wont mind my feed back/ideas :-)
Here's my back story: I, like so many people, went to college and enjoyed my student life, saw the world as being my oyster, planned amazing things and really thought that by the age of, say, thirty my life would be one amazing experience after another. Anything seemed possible with the optimism of youth and I was, to quote yourself, "so excited about my future. I had the world in front of me and all my close friends and relatives were telling me I’ve accomplished something great."
Yet after leaving behind my studies I had a shock. Like so many I quickly came crashing down to earth with a bump. I struggled to find work, any work, and I felt depressed and angry that life seemed to have played a horrid joke on me. Once I did get a dire job I was bullied, ridiculed, badly paid and used as cheap labour. Of course now, as is so common as we get older, I look back and laugh at how unrealistic and naïve my ambitions and future plans had been during my younger years. I cringe when I think of some of the things I confidently had told anyone with ears I would achieve while at college. It seemed a certainty then, a few months later I felt trapped in a nightmare of insecurity, disappointment, hurt and despair. I doubted myself, lost my confidence and my family treated me, or at least I perceived them as treating me, as being a silly, hopeless layabout who couldn't get a job. Like you I felt anger and hurt and all I seemed to get from my family was criticism. Where I needed support, a crutch, a guide, I got complaints, moaning and tutting.
But what I have learned since then is that life is hard. It was hard when I left behind my studies and then got harder. Equally I was weak when I left college and then I got progressively stronger. Much stronger. Its only by having stabilizers removed from our bike as a kid that we learn to balance and ride with confidence. Like wise its only by learning to live without the need of support and opinions of others so much that we learn to mature and live our own lives on our own terms.
In my early twenties it was hard having my dad tell me what to do and try and dictate my life. More recently, following a near fatal heart attack, it was me telling him not to do too much and dictating to him what he could and couldn't eat or do for his own good. Having dad moan something rotten at me for not finding a job was tough at the time, but its even tougher taking your dad to the toilet and watching him stand there out of breath having walked a few feet. The roles were reversed. In a ironic twist, now I was equally frustrated at him for doing too much and ending up back in hospital, now I was the one laying down the law as if my dad was a fool while he defiantly tried to make his own judgements. I have been through many things in life which puts my earlier situations into perspective. They seemed awful at the time, but now seem quite different.
Im sure if I had a young adult son or daughter I would be pushing them to get the best job they could, even if they didn't feel ready or felt I was interfering. Parents want the best for their child and want to use their own life experience to guide their son or daughter to great things, the child wants independence and respect and to make their own decisions. Two into one wont go.
Now I am unemployed again I have a different approach to when I was younger. My parents are older now and not in great health so they cannot support me as they once did, my friends have enough of their own problems. That leaves me.
The experience I had first time around taught me self reliance, to be able to stand on my own two feet and support myself and my family, rather than needing supporting. I am now experienced enough to hold my own in an argument on the subject of my own life and choices and im old enough not to have to explain my actions to anyone. Im not perfect by any means, far from it, but I look back to the past and realise my pride, struggle for independence, and inexperience lead me to be too unwilling to let others guide me who were much wiser than myself. I always took the stance that my support group didn't understand my situation, didn't know how I felt and didn't care about me, only what they wanted. Now I realize it was my own lack of experience and knowledge that was partly to blame. I was making poor choices, taking easy options and making excuses. I let my lack of confidence subconsciously sabotage my job hunting (half hearted applications, excuses as to why it wasn't worth applying, etc), and let my pride defend that position for far too long while others became increasingly frustrated with my excuses. I guess I was too willing to defiantly defend bad choices while my parents tried to give me the kick up the arse I needed to actually make the difference.
As WiseOwl said "Don't get angry or go looking for someone else to blame." I wasted too much time and effort doing exactly that. I blamed the job market, my family, life, you name it. Non of which did jack to help my chances of gaining a job.
My dad came close to death and had two choices. He either gave up and died or he went through hell to get back to fitness. We couldn't mend his heart, we couldn't make him fit and healthy again. Only he could do that and go through the pain and suffering to make it happen. He is now, touchwood, in pretty good health. He alone got his body back to that state. We supported him emotionally, but physically it was his own work. It made me realise that if I couldn't get a job then I had to do what dad did. Fight, push myself, give my best as waiting for someone else to help me was going no where. I couldn't help my family through absolute hell yet expect them to support me finding a job. Ive learned to become more self reliant AND have others become reliant on me. Something a few years ago was unimaginable. Im proud of that.
"Do what you think is necessary to find that job you want and go all in on it. Don’t get down every time you receive a rejection, find the positives and go forward. Learn from your mistakes and continue to make them."
Absolutely!!! Its only by enduring bad times that we grow strong. You hit the nail on the head with never give up. In love, life and my career I have had set backs, rejections and mistakes. Learning to move on and is a great message to give.
As for the job you declined, I can understand you wanting to be respectful of your brother and work a notice period. That's to be commended and it shows you have good values, but having said that, sometimes in life we have to make difficult decisions. We are often faced with tough choices, whether that be in relationships, work, family or friendships. There are times when we have to do what is right for us, especially where jobs are concerned. You say you turned the job down after a year of looking, which suggests that the job you currently have with your brother is not what you are looking for. If your current role was worthy of your talents, and paid well, then you wouldn't be looking for other positions and your family wouldn't be pushing you to take an alternative. Perhaps your family felt you were missing a potential opportunity out of loyalty to your brother? You hate the job, its part time, so why not take the chance on what was presumably a better job? If it didn't work out im sure your brother could have offered something. It sounds like it couldn't have been much worse to be fair.
"I felt that not giving any notice to my current employer was irresponsible and unethical"
In the current job market its bloody hard to get a job, even harder to keep it. We don't have to be vile or unethical to survive in that sense, but it is a survival of the fittest. Sometimes we have to take a chance, take a risk and be willing to do what is right for us.
You don't state what the current job is or what you are doing but maybe your girlfriend feels you are being too gracious and too willing to accept a family position which is not what your talents, qualifications and ambitions deserve. Maybe she feels the two of you are missing out because you don't have the money to do things together as much as she would like? Sometimes we can slip into a comfort zone of doing something that is easy, rather than pushing for something tougher but with greater reward and respect. For sure your job choices are your business and your the only one who can make those decisions, but if your girlfriend is hoping to settle down and start a family one day, she may want you to show you have got what it takes to get out there and be a bit more ruthless and more willing to make tough calls or take risks to provide for yourself and your family. Did your family pay for your college, and do they pay anything towards you at present? If you are entirely self sufficient then that's one thing, but if, for instance, you are reliant on others for financial support or your parents have paid (or are paying) for your college fees, then they do have the right to push you and question you on your career moves.
"My thought process is fairly simple, a supporting person is one who doesn’t question the decision you have made."
I agree with that to some extent, but sometimes people can make poor choices that others cannot bring themselves to support. Sometimes we have to respect the fact that others have more experience than us and allow ourselves to benefit from advice and guidance, even if its not always offered in a vary courteous way. A friend of mine a few years back invested a lot of money in a ridiculous money making scheme that he felt was a real winner. He had been ripped off something rotten and couldn't see it. At first he hated me and his other friends for hitting him where it hurt in his time of need. To hear us basically telling him he was a fool and had made a drastic error of judgement almost cost us our relationship. But I couldn't let him carry on throwing money at something that, quite frankly, was a joke. He was loosing money by the thousand. It was a tough thing for him to accept and deal with, and he didn't feel we were in any way supporting him, but in the end he realised we were right and cut his losses on the deal.
"Believe in you and ignore everyone else who doesn’t fully support your decisions."
Absolutely believe in your self and learn to be self sufficient and self reliant. However I don't believe its a good thing to always ignore, dismiss or feel rejected by those who are opposed to our choices. Often, especially when we are young, we do not have the life experience, maturity or world view of our peers. In life, work and love there will be plenty of opinions on the decisions we make, from both the knowledgeable and the ignorant alike, but to ignore good advice from those more experienced than ourselves is to deny ourselves the chance to learn from others mistakes and experiences. Some of the best advice I have ever had has come from my enemies in back handed form, some of the most positive experiences I have had have come from trying, and failing, to prove others wrong and its often the frustration of hearing someone tell me "I told you so" that has made me take stock of my own decision making for the better.
I have been guilty in the past of seeing my support network as almost an enemy. I have felt unsupported, unloved and that they were only interested in criticizing and being judgemental. Now, with age and experience, I see it differently. I appreciate that others were frustrated by my cynicism and my excuses. Yes its bloody hard to find a job but my complaining about it wasn't going to help.
"Jobs don’t grow on fucking trees. I work my ass off every day to apply for at least four jobs a day."
To true, jobs are very scares and the number of, and quality of, applicants is incredibly high. What it took me far too long to learn however is that its one thing to work hard, apply for many jobs and go for interviews, another to actively seek out different ways of doing things. I was defensive of my CV of instance and also felt embarrassed and self conscious at letting others in my family see it for fear that they would be disappointed with my acheivements. By swallowing my pride I let my brother, who has the gift of the gab and can blag jobs with ease, rejig my CV that has lead to many more interviews and interest. It was hard having someone give negative feedback on something I had put so much effort into, and laughing at my career history compared to his, but it was the best thing I have done. I recently helped a younger family member with his CV and, having learned how to do a CV better, found myself slipping into a slightly self righteous tone. I found it amusing how I was frustrated at HIS complaints that I didn't care, didn't understand, etc. - another role reversal.
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Good luck with your job hunting and thanks for posting a great article. Im sorry if my response to it is very long, I guess its a sign of how thought provoking your article was. Keep fighting for your goals and you will achieve them!
Mark
A
reader, anonymous, writes (29 May 2014): I agree with you. Sometimes you must do what "you" believe is right for you. People often can only see things from a judgmental-standpoint. It's easy to stand in judgement with the opinion..."if I were you." But they're not. They don't have to live with your conscience; or deal with the consequences.
If you chose to stick it out with your brother and your part-time job, that's your choice to make. However; don't be too quick to pass-up opportunities. Furthermore, your reasons for doing so are your business. No one has a right to weigh-in and insult you; because they may have done it differently.
I do find it very odd that a company would hire you the same day of an interview. Sounds a bit unorthodox business-wise; if not totally desperate, or shady. They have to at least check out your education and credentials. If they weren't offering you much more than you already have, that was your call to make. You've made your decision, stand by it. Politely change the subject; if people insist on pressing the issue.
Your girlfriend is in a different position from everyone else. She is affected by your decisions to some degree.
She deals with you more on an emotional-level, and knows your feelings intimately. Her opinions count; but I don't like the suggestion that working for family is a bad idea.
People build dynasties on working with family.
Entrepreneurship is most successful when the family is willing to lend a hand through a fledgeling business.
It is often how many family or ethnically-owned businesses thrive. I think that her off-the-wall advice should be politely considered; but not taken into advisement.
To get back about "support systems." I agree with everything you've said. Support systems are to support your decisions and offer you constructive criticism and advice. They are not there to make your decisions for you. They do have a moral-obligation to warn you or intervene; when your actions may result in harm to yourself, or to someone else.
Not chide you, when you have to make your own judgement calls; and it doesn't suit their ideology. I often have said; "I might have done that differently; but I'm here if and when you need me." That allows you to see your own mistakes, and leaves the door open for you to seek advice when the choice you have made is unsuccessful. It's better than kicking a man when he's down, with a self-righteous
"I told you so" attitude.
I can't stand it when people do that. It is counterproductive. However; parents maintain that right. They gave you life, so often we have to bite the bullet to allow for their tough-love. It isn't always offered properly, and it isn't always right. They sometimes discourage, more than they encourage. You have the right to tell them so; but do so respectfully and lovingly.
Sometimes you do have to rely on your own resources. This also means you have to be ready to accept the consequences.
Don't get angry or go looking for someone else to blame.
Keep looking. Don't give-up. You have a great attitude.
It is tough, and I know quite a lot of young people going through what you are. Also people in their 40's, and older, with degrees and experience. Yet they have had great difficulty getting full-time work due to age-discrimination; or unethical employers who don't want to pay a fair-wage for their work experience.
Please accept wise advice when it comes your way. Don't let "cynicism" disguise itself as "self-reliance." Pride-fulness will often make us resentful; when people only mean well. What they meant to convey to you just may not have come out the right-way. Being hardheaded and scornful can backfire. So don't burn any bridges.
If you become jaded toward the opinions of others; you will become resistant to beneficial advice. I'm sure that is not the message you're trying to get across. You are wise for your years; and we can all use what you've said. It gives us all a better understanding, and will change the approach we might use that is not fair, or can be truly hurtful to someone's feelings.
I appreciate your article.
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