myrichuncle has "paused" taking new applications

shit. And yet another shoe drops for me. The last of my "retirement savings" is going fast. Tuition is rising. My stafford loans cover tuition, books and a tiny bit extra for "living" expenses. Private loans to cover living expenses was my last best plan.

My last, last, last fallback plan is to sell my home to finish school. In this market.

The fallback plan after that is to stop eating. If I can hold out til next winter, I can freeze to death. That's probably less miserable than starving. Once hypothermia sets in, you just get very sleepy and drop off.

that's how most people pay their bills

If this person lives in Michigan, it'll be damn near impossible.

We're somewhat lucky, where I live. We never had much of a bubble here, so we're muddling along like we always do.

Maybe they will have to sell their house and move to Wyoming where the jobs are plentiful.

At least there's lots of clean air there.

Depending on where they live.

My rich uncle, btw, is apparently a source-site for student loans. Obviously the OP was thinking of going back to school. Going in debt is not a good choice for the average people imo, unless they are choosing a job-rich field, like nursing.

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when my 20+ year career in high tech crashed following the dot-com bust, 911 and the sale of the company where I worked, first to Compaq and then to HP.

I sent out hundreds of resumes in 2002 and got 3 replies -- all rejections. In the meantime, a registered sex offender and his gang of thugs in Massachusetts started harrassing me 24x7. Due to the laws in Mass and the fact that he was related to the condominium manager where I lived, who destroyed and lied about the physical evidence, the cops were unable to do anything except advise me to get out of town.

I fled to Maine, where they are tough on sex offenders, and where there is not a lot of work. My plan was to spend 6-12 months or so fixing up the farm I bought and resting/recuperating from that ordeal (and it was an ordeal) and then go back to work at something and try to rebuild my life. Unfortunately, the 1st contractor I hired took advantage of my overstressed state of mind and trashed my land with his bulldozer. Plus I got injured repairing his damage. So instead of 12 months out of work, it was 24 months.

In the meantime, I was contacted by a colleague now at HP with a large freeland project. I though my ship had finally come in. INstead, it turned out that he and his wife, a VP at Fidelity Investments, were part of an identity theft ring. And my identity was stolen.

I managed to get a job at a local family-owned company. I busted my ass for them for 17 months, saved their company thousands of dollars while enabling them to meet contractual commitments that they weren't able to meet, and even garnered letters of praise from their client's customers. In return, they literally and deliberately poisoned me with their contaminated well, harrassed me in my home with early saturday hangup calls, and visited my farm and assaulted my animals. So I quit and went back to school for health care.

I payed for my first year of school from my retirement fund. I started on stafford loans this year. There is a worldwide shortage of lab technologists, the starting pay with an associates degree is pretty good and after 2 years work, you can sit for the 4 year exam and double your income. So long term, this will work. It's getting through the next year that is turning into a nightmare. I have 1 year of coursework and 4-5 months of clinicals. The clinicals are 40+ hours on-the-job training for no pay. Oh, and the courses I've been taking are pre-medical sciences. Not for the feint of heart and not easy.

My plan was to work part time and be in school part time. I've been rejected repeatedly (2-3 times each) by Home Depot, Lowes and the grocery store. I was offered a job scrubbing toilets for minimum wage at the convenience store/gas station. Then they never called me to start. I still have their stupid manual, cap, shirt and apron -- they didn't even call to ask for those back. I also applied for work/study and was rejected.

If I'd sold my house last year, I'd probably pay as much in rent in the interim (plus 2 sets of moving costs) as I will lose by holding onto the house through the downturn. I figured at least by staying here I wouldn't be disrupting my studies with a move. Please don't say I should plan the move during the summer. School is year round and nearly nonstop. I'm on winter break now and then start the next year.

Oh, and Citizen #9 and all you other smug fuckheads who think everything out there is just hunky dory and those of us who are being sacrificed by society deserve it because we're just stupid lazy deadbeats, you'd better hope I never learn your real names. For all you know, some day I MAY be the lab tech drawing your blood. If I am, I swear to god I will use the biggest, fattest needle I can find and I will be the clumsiest me I am able to while searching in vain for a vein. Prepare to be pin cushions, all of you.

Sorta sounds like real life.

You don't think you're the only one who has had setbacks, do you? :)

And I hope this isn't offered as reasons for why you feel you have a right to be rude to DU posters.

In the spirit of helpful advice, I just wouldn't recommend taking out your anger on people who fall under your needle, whoever you see them as. They are called "patients" and in Medicine, you have a certain obligation to take care of them. At least this could explain, in part, some of those past issues you've had.

Did you consider Radiology Technology? You know, like x-ray techs and whatnot. They make about twice as much as lab techs, but you will have OT On-Call periods.

I don't think any of us here need to hear any more from you.

In real life, it is sort of hard to turn off relatives or co-workers or even someone who curbsides you at the coffee stand. But here, on the web, you can turn on the ignore function or just walk away from the PC. Besides, the Internet is so full of sketchy things now, it seems that it doesn't hurt to hear some straight talk.

This particular forum is about the 'Economy', and as such requires an exchange of ideas. There are other ones where you can go to hear how everything/you are OK.

slaves or trying to get their work weeks reduced to 35 hours, (presumably for the same money).

There's another group that wants to number people as unemployed if they are working a job they don't like.

There is also a group which is angry and antagonistic towards employers.

That sort of stuff.

especially for people with no experience and no work history.

And if you are too old to be able to stand on your feet for 8 hours a day, too bad for you.

Go get one of those McJobs that the "free" market has kindly left behind for American citizens. You know those jobs, cleaning the uber wealthy's toilets for $8 an hour, standing in McDonalds for minimum wage and no benefits for maybe 30 hours a week. Or better yet, go work for Wal-Mart so mangers can yell at you while the customers trample you to death, all for minimum wage and no health-care.

The wonders of the bush economy.

if you have no skills? Better get a marketable education or spend your free time building some instead of doing...whatever it is you do...to burn calories.

BTW, McDonalds pays better than minimum in order to attract workers from the other employers and it does offer benefits.

WalMart offers benefits, too. Might as well give credit where credit is due.

Yep we got some "smug fuckheads" around her who don't know how bad it really is.

You beat your head against the wall trying to get a job, and eventually you stop.

I decided that the Universe (or reality) was trying to tell me that looking for a job in my chosen field was not going to work, and I was going to have to do something else.

Of course I'm overqualified and over 50. Credentials and experience mean SHIT to employers. They live in the twilight zone of incompetence. I'm convinced that damn near every workplace in the U.S. is run by mediocre idiots. And they will thwart anyone who they think threatens them.

your attitude?

If employers aren't looking for credentials and experience (as you say) what do you think they are looking for?

For some unknown reason you seem to think that the neocon cabal that destroyed Iraq, New Orleans, justice, fair trade and the world economy has left behind millions and millions of jobs just waiting for hardworking American citizens. I guess you didn't see that U6 number for unemployment at 12.5% (that's over 17 million people out of work) or that half a million jobs a month are disappearing from America.

Corporations and most businesses today are looking to kill unions and pay starvation wages for slave labor but you think there are magically millions of good paying jobs waiting for anyone who asks. You think the guy who just finished training an HB1 visa worker to do their job and they've been told to clean out their desk, can walk next door and find the exact same job just waiting for them.

I guess the jobs that went to India, China and Mexico along with most of America's manufacturing industry are still here but no one can see them. These hidden, imaginary jobs are just waiting for some poor lazy slobs to get up off their duff and go get them.

Wishful thinking is not a good job search strategy.

Firstly, I don't know anything about any Neocon cabal. That exists in your own mind and I'm guessing that you don't hold any new or better evidence than has been widely disseminated on the Internet already. Because it is more a belief of yours than a reality we both share, we are going to have a very hard time discussing it.

And it doesn't get much better from there. You have misconceptions about many of the following;

2. The United States destroyed Iraq. As a Democracy, all the members share in the responsibility - that's all of us citizens whether you like it or not. Maybe you can't remember the fear and anger post-9/11, but I can. Thank goodness that we as a nation care enough about rebuilding it to get as far as we have. Those sentiments don't exist everywhere in the world.

3. Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans. If it's residents couldn't pull together enough substance to exist again, then I guess it will pass into history.

4. Justice only truly exists in the hearts of men. No one can destroy that on their own.

5. Fair Trade seems to be alive and growing. In fact, the very thing that so many people decry; loss of US jobs to abroad, seems to be powering the Fair Trade engine.

6. I don't think the World Economy is dead quite yet, but it may need to adjust to some new realities, including the loss of cheap oil.

You haven't made much effort to find out what I really believe, instead, you have chosen to assume a lot of things. A lot of what you assume is telling, however. Here is the thing that stand sout the most in your most recent post:

"you think there are magically millions of good paying jobs waiting for anyone who asks"

I certainly don't think that, but do you think there should be?

I think that there are jobs available for those who care to do more than ask, because that's sorta how life is.

Or do you do it for free so they can claim how uninformed DU is?

You should have used Giuliani's statement to better reflect your opinion of 9/11 -"Thank God that George Bush is our President".

And Oxycontin Rush made a much better (and laughable) argument about how New Orleans victims are the cause of their own destruction.

Tell your justice theory to Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman. He ended up in jail because he dared run against a friend of Rove and questioned the results of the vote count. That's justice for you.

Blaming all American for the disaster in Iraq is like blaming the anti-choice religious right for all the legal abortions in America.

Pretending that America is Not worst off after 8 years of the most disastrous Presidency in US history just doesn't get converts here.

Your notion that I come from Free Republic? More fantasy on your part.

I never said anything about Giuliani and I certainly didn't say anything about supporting Bush.

Nor did I mention Rush, and what I said VERY CLEARLY was that Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, NOT the residents did.

Siegelman was jailed because he was convicted of committing a crime by a jury. That's how it works. You may have an alternative explanation, but then again, your track record on reality is getting weaker by the moment. SO, unless you have evidence that hasn't been seen somewhere, this is just more of the same from you.

You support this Democracy by your status as a citizen. You are as culpable for what it does as anyone else. Abortions are an individual choice in this nation, there is no comparison between the two.

Please support your contention that I have claimed "America is Not worst off after 8 years of the most disastrous Presidency in US history". Please use facts. You are entitled to your opinions, but I tire of your unsupported fantasies about me. Use your energy on something constructive.

-is a pig-ignorant sociopathic shitstain. Six years later, there is still only intemittent electricity and hardly any water purificaction. The money appropriated for that went to US criminals who were tight with the Sociopath in Chief. Iraqis were not allowed to have a role in rebuilding.