Personal - I Finally Am Getting Some Good News!

[Intrepid_Chef]

John, praise God indeed that things are working out for you!Let me tell you a little story about when I graduated from college ... I lost my 1st job and could not find another one in the area to save my life! Imagine that your skill was working for a Widget Factory, and that there is only one Widget Factory in a large town .... and one per county for smaller communities! So when you're committed to staying in an area ... the job prospects are slimmer. And this was the recession of 92, that ushered Clinton into office.So I was determined to go to work at restaurants, since this at least paid the credit card bills during college. I was deemed "overqualified" by every place I applied. Finally got a job, but "office politics" kept me to one day per week. Finally got a job at another restaurant that was full-time after explaining to said interviewer that the economy had tanked and I had been job hunting for SIX MONTHS. It was another six months until I "bloomed where I was planted." I contacted a weekly paper that I'd done an internship for in college. A month later, they were hiring. So I would work a restaurant by day, a newspaper by night. This kept up for quite some time until said weekly sold to the publishing company that employs me to this day. All in all, it was a process of more than two years between the time I lost my job and the time I landed back on my feet, nearly three by the time I transferred from the weekly to the daily. I have no advice for anyone considering a career in my field (other than "change your major") but I thank God that He has led you to a growing career field that will bless you.

 

[pampered1224]

Intrepid - that is a very good message. Your message of persistence and perseverance is exactly what needs to be said. I was about to give up. I decided I did have a job though and that was to keep applying for jobs and finding out how to fix the problem of not having one. I too know that schooling will take some time and that well, I may have a bit of a struggle afterward. I too have gotten the overqualified thing and absolutely believe that is so unfair! In Milwaukee, every one with a job gripes because those people sit on their butts and like being out of work with state funded support. NO WE DON'T! But how the heck do you work when everyone thinks you are going to fly to coup the minute something else comes along and deem you not worth the training time?! I could not even get hired for the seasonal work I applied for. It is a vicious circle. You work your butt off applying for all sorts of jobs because you do not want to be out of work but the employers who are griping because they can't hire people for low paying jobs won't hire you because you are over qualified. Either shut up and hire me or stop complaining about the fact that I am getting free money, which I worked 33 years to earn the right to, to stop that! So... But yes, Itrepid, persistence is the key!

 

[pampered1224]

Well it is official. I got the grant and I signed the registration papers yesterday! I start on November 30th and Jeff, the counselor at the school, said I would probably be done with the first class, a basics class, before Christmas and that I would go on to the A+ training. He thinks, from what he has gotten from me, that I should be done by the end of January at the latest and should be able to take the A+ Certification test shortly there after. I can officially change my resume at that point. Whew! Thanks everyone for the votes of confidence and the nudges!

 

[pamperedlinda]

great news John!

 

[sherri lynn]

This is great news for you, I'm so happy that things are going in the right direction!!

 

[pampered1224]

I got a little help from my friends, (out here more so than anywhere else), I got high with a little help from my friends, (out here again - you all made me feel like I could do anything if I wanted it and that was such a high knowing people believed in me when I did not), I got by with a little help from my friends, (when I was down you all lifted my spirits!). I think the Beetles had something very profound to say about friends in a very simplistic way. Friends, even if you never have any personal contact with them, care enough to tell you things will be OK or will give you crap you do not want to hear in a means to help. (We all need to listen to the negative things about us that we really do not want to hear sometimes), but I am SO GLAD CHEF SUCCESS EXISTS AND ALL OF YOU ARE A PART OF IT - THANK YOU SO MUCH AND HUGE HUGS TO EVERYONE WHO KEPT ME GOING!!!!!

 

[heat123]

Yeay John!