What do you/did you do to earn your daily wage?

[Pat]

Sorry to hear it has been hard for your Shimus, keep working on your skills. there are plenty of videos on youtube that will help you expand your skill levels so that you can make more money.

 

[Rosyrain]

Shimus- there is something out there for everyone, you just have to keep plugging away at it. We all go through rough patches in our lives, but you have to take each day as it comes and make each day your day for progress. You will get there!

 

[Shimus]

I hope. It's been too long now without a proper job and no hopes of one, so it tends to make you quote unquote "A debbie downer"

I know I have to keep searching and looking and cutting through the BS. I've just begun; there's millions of internet pages to sift through for all the legit/vs scam sites out there. In the meanwhile I'll just keep harassing jobs around here until they get sick of seeing me or I get the job. Either way I'm not out anything.

 

[DrCase]

garden centers start looking for help this time of year

 

[Shimus]

Yeah, if we had a garden center in vicinity. The only one we have around here is in WalMart and their Garden section is already full. Unfortunately where I live it's so rural that jobs are few and far between and even to keep a 7.25$ minimum wage job here you have to bend over backwards and kiss the ass of the management. No lie. Cover their shifts. Come in when they call. Stay as long as they want you too. And all of this while you're not even a manager, just a crew member. Managers get shafted even harder.

I'm not a fan of the food business, but it's all we have. So back to the books looking for a good way to oddjob and make money.

Keep in mind I'm not depressed so much as angry over my situation, in any other town around the globe I'd have a shot at a job, but since I live in a college town where all the college jobs are already taken, and the kids take the rest of them - fighting them is like stomping on gnats. Kill one, a thousand more assail you.

*puts on his gardening gear*

Ready for Battle, Sir.

 

[CanadianLori]

Shimus, Even though we don't think it will happen, spring is not far away. Are you able to market yourself as a person willing to clean up home gardens? Yes, menial work but if you do it for cash on hand, it will give you a leg up to starting your own business perhaps?

Fingers crossed for you here..

 

[headfullofbees]

Tool setter, CNC-programmer blue-collar skilled engineering production before I gave it up to look after my poorly missus full-time, which I have done for the past ten years.

 

[CanadianLori]

Tool setter, CNC-programmer blue-collar skilled engineering production before I gave it up to look after my poorly missus full-time, which I have done for the past ten years.

I designed a software system for a machine shop so they could use it to qualify for ISO standards. Lots of interesting things learned there!

 

[Shimus]

Unfortunately, Americans are pessimistic towards one another and most of the general small town spirit is diminishing. You get some nice folk; you can't all lump em together. But where I live is in the "college" section full of ignorant kids who like to destroy everything. Everyone else just does personal gardens and tends them themselves. I'm sure I'll find something when the kids leave again for summer (usually do, seasonal at the very least)

Right now, I'm selling off things that aren't necessary and are just memorabilia from sports and card games. Things of the like. But, I'm not fretting it. I'm the type that moans and whines but I'll roll with the punches. All I ever do.

 

[Rand]

I was a paratrooper In the United states army. Now i work in construction. Ive found it very satisfying to got out side and harvest food I have grown myself. I really love my little garden I have started. It has been two years in now and I add to it little by little.. Its not much but it is mine.

 

[Bootsy]

This thread has made me realise how much I have done in a long life.

I was brought up in a poor area of London (England) and was taught that you need to work hard to get on in life. The area that I grew up in had been bombed a lot during the war but my family had been lucky to not have any deaths from it.

At the age of eight I started my own car washing round in the evenings and weekends. By the age of 11 I had a market stall, in a street market at the weekends, selling vegetables (they didn't have much in the way of laws about children working in those days).
After leaving school I qualified as an accountant but decided that I wanted to travel the world - but couldn't afford it. So I learnt to be a hairdresser and got myself a job on passenger liners (they weren't called cruise ships in those days) and got paid to travel - and work . As I had learnt men's and ladies hairdressing and wigmaking I started my own salon, working 72 hours a week to pay the overheads. To fill in the quiet times between clients I started a mail order business sell contraceptives (already had them on the premises) .

As I was, eventually able to reduce my long hours I then went to evening classes to study journalism, advertising, sociology, psychology and to get a teaching qualification.

As my business gradually became successful I realised that the advertising I was doing in the local papers was lacking in good photographs so I took a course in photography. In my spare time I used to do some analysis of reports for the Investigation Agency (private detective) who had the office above me.

I wanted to be able to do a lot of travelling but was tied to my businesses so aimed at earning what I could and studied how to do the best with any savings I had. This worked fairly well, as well. So I was then able to do voluntary and charity work. I was also able to follow my hobby as a bridge player and taught bridge evening classes at college, as well as specialist hairdressing course.

I was able to do all that studying as I only sleep two hours a night (always have done, and I'm not an insomniac). I've set up a number of self-help organisations that also give advice (all about setting up your own business) that work free of charge - got government grants to set them up.

I've now been retired nearly 20 years, have written three travel guides since retirement, still do a lot of charity work and running social organisation and my wife and I do a lot of travelling (she's busier than me!). We both still study a lot and enjoy working in our garden. The study keeps the mind active but the working in the garden keeps the back aching!

 

[Becky]

@Bootsy you have certainly had a very diverse life! Sounds great

 

[Bootsy]

Wait till I tell you what I do in my spare time!

 

[DeborahJane]

Bootsy, you make me feel slack and I'm teased about my energy. My husband asked me one day if I had been eating my vegemite again. There was an ad on tv years ago here in Australia promotong the energy giving qualities of vegemite. A gardening friend claimed it has to be cocaine I'm on. I love a project! .
I trained as a Secondary Art teacher, had my eldest son in the final year of study and walked into a classroom 27 years later. I just explained I'd been out of teaching for a while. Depends on your definition of "a while". In the mean time i did office work for our own business, worked in a framing shop for 10 years which I loved. It was very satisfying seeing art work, photos, embroideries etc all framed up to show them off. And tutored adults and kids at a community art centre for 10 years part time . Now retired although a recent project of getting our rental property ready for sale had me "back at work" full time for 2 months. Loving being able to take my time again. Relaxing cuppa in the morning before getting stuck into the garden which was sadly neglected over the past couple of months. Heading into winter so I really have to make hay while the sun shines so to speak.
Hope things turn around soon for you Shimus.

 

[Logan]

Hi, I'm 60 now, but when i left school at 15, I had a few jobs. The first was sewing overalls in a factory, I stayed there for 3 months. Past the test but couldn't stand the noise. Got a job in the Worcester royal porcelain putting on transfers on everything. It was piecework wasn't fast enough. A shoe shop, only lasted a week. Then i got one in the littlewoods store preparing food in the kitchen Upstairs for the cafeteria and the staff canteen. Stayed there for 5 years, then had a baby. Didn't go back, could have done, but they couldn't keep that position open. I remarried, didn't need to go back to work. I don't regret what i did, but if i could choose again, I'd like to be a singer. Got all the Carpenters CDs and i was in a band once.