As much as I'd like to believe that next year will be better than this one, I can't. This past year, I did everything I could to become employed. Hell, I even managed to impress a few people at my county's school board, but even then I still found myself hitting the glass floor.
To those folks who say hard work pays off, I say bullshit. Maybe at some point in time that may have been true, but for most of the country's history, you had to be at the top or close to it to make any semblance of a decent living. That's especially true today, where we have more STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) educated unemployed than anyone knows what to do with, yet no one wants to hire any of us. Here's a tip: When an employer says they can't afford to do so, they're lying their asses off and laughing all the way to the bank with their ludicrous bonuses.
Do I sound angry and cynical? You're damned right. This is due to years of underemployment and unemployment getting me nowhere very quickly.
"Get a degree" they said. "You'll have no trouble finding a job" they said. If I got a nickel for every time I heard people say that I'd have enough money to move to a country that might actually appreciate my ability to learn things quickly. Lord knows I have no desire to live in a country where the obscenely wealthy commit organized theft while telling their workers they don't give a shit about them.
Everywhere I have gone in the past two years, I've done all I can to show people what I can do and yet the glass floor still remains. It doesn't matter how qualified I seem to be for any job posting, how many times I follow up, there always seems to be a 'better prospect' for the employers.
Maybe I'll just accept my lot of chronic unemployment and say 'to hell with it' and let the people who voted for this nightmare for the past 30 years from Reagan to Dubya live with it. At least then I won't have any unnecessary stress.
See you around,
Homer