I must have been absent

The day that they passed out the forms that said "we guarantee you will be able to get a job after you graduate from our school". Oh, wait, that's right, they don't have those forms! But apparently, a woman in NY is under the impression that there is a guarantee that comes with her diploma. She is suing the private college she attended because she doesn't think they did enough to help her find a job when she graduated in April. It's some sort of business degree, but any FOOL knows that a degree does not come with the promise of a job. Hell, I have NEVER worked in the field of my degree. A Bachelor of Arts in History is not a particularly career friendly sheepskin, unless you want to teach, go to law school, or live somewhere with an abundance of rich history museums. I think that my degree has gotten me 1 temp-to-hire position, and that was not even in my field, not that the company cared. I think that the only thing that mattered to the company was that I would actually finish something that I started, and the degree shows that. Do I wish sometimes that I'd taken more business classes, or majored in something with stronger marketability? Sure. In retrospect, I should have taken some accounting, some HR, some more in depth computer classes. Even with those I wouldn't expect a guaranteed job.

I am consistently astounded at the sense of entitlement that people have these days. I've been unemployed for 11 weeks now, and do I think I SHOULD still have my old job? Yep, I absolutely do, however I don't, and I have spent well over 40 hours a week for the last 11 weeks trying to find something new. I've managed to secure my SECOND interview tomorrow morning. The first didn't pan out into a position for me, and I'm ok with that, because I was honest about my experience and abilities, and while I honestly believe I could have done what they were looking for a candidate to do, they wanted someone who already had the experience of doing it, and I don't. Do I believe that I DESERVE a response to the resumes I have sent, especially those that I specifically followed up with more than once? You betcha. Am I ENTITLED to know why they won't answer me, or give me the courtesy of an interview? Nope. For whatever reason, my resume didn't meet their criteria. Or they've called someone who is NOT on my reference list and the "Good Ole Boys" network rides again. There is a degree plan, actually a couple of options in my current field, and come the end of the month, hopefully I'll be enrolled in night classes at one of the community colleges in the area to work toward getting some certification under my belt. I have paid back my student loans, which, granted, didn't fund a $70K education, but that's mostly because I didn't go to a PRIVATE institution. I am sure that there are those who believe that a private school provides a better education and therefore an easier time finding a job, but I don't think that's necessarily true. It seems to me that it would benefit EVERY STUDENT to have to do some sort of residency or internship, just like doctors, nurses, teachers, and some other fields require. The bottom line is that a Bachelor's degree doesn't prepare a person for the real world any more than a standardized test prepares a high school student for college. (and THAT is a whole other rant that I will save for another day) The bottom line is that with my nearly 9 years experience in my field, with progressively more responsibility, I have applied for 15-20 different positions WITHIN MY FIELD (and fifty or so others in other industries for which I'm also qualified), and I've managed to score 1 interview.

If you ask me, little miss priss needs to get a grip on the real world and realize that she's looking for an entry-level position, and there are thousands of other people competing for that same position, despite the fact that I would venture to guess that at least half of the people competing for that same job have become victims of the recession and have a proven record of their successes IN THE REAL WORLD, and frankly, are a much better risk than the fresh-faced young thing with no experience.

Rant over.

Quote for the Day: "Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn't can never know what it is." –Lucy Maud Montgomery

Friday's adventure.

Ok, yeah, I should have written a little each night, but since I was offline all weekend, it wouldn’t have gotten posted anyway, so here we go. Friday I left for the airport around 2-ish, because I had a couple of stops I needed to make on my way over. First stop was this great little shoe store because Dawn, whose blog I follow, convinced me that I NEED a pair of these THAT DAY. Unfortunately since my EU shoe size is like 37/38, and not 41 or bigger (that’s 10-10.5 US), yeah, I was SOL. I did, however go ahead and buy a pair that are not limited edition or with a really cool print. Second stop was at Chase to make my car payment. Now, my November payment was about 2 weeks late, but my December payment was like 3 weeks early. I had 2 checks written. Each had my loan number on them, and either November or December payment written on them, along with “apply overage to principal”. They were not in the same amount, because I’m paying some extra in an effort to pay it off sooner. So the drive thru teller gets them, and I guess does some weird voodoo ritual with them for 8 minutes or so before the following conversation ensues: Her: “ma’am, are these payments?” Me: “yes, my account number is on there, in the memo section.” Her: “ok, and you want to apply the overage to the principal?” Me: *SIGH* “yes.” Her: “ok, how much is the overage?” (clearly it was too hard for the BANK employee to look in her handydandy computer and see how much my payment is supposed to be, then deduct that from the amount of the check and apply the difference to the principal) Me: “I don’t know, because I haven’t gotten this month’s bill in the mail, and I don’t have last month’s with me.” (Ok, since they are idiots and usually apply at least part of the overage to the NEXT PAYMENT DUE, instead of to the principal, my payment amounts change my several dollars every month) Her: “Well, I’m going to send you out a form to fill out with the amounts and then I can apply it properly.” WTF??? I’ve just told you I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH IS OVERAGE! UGH! In the end, I estimated , based on what I think was roughly the payment due on the last bill I saw (November’s), how much my payment was and how much was overage for each check. Next stop, Love Field, for my 5:30 flight to Hobby Airport. I get all checked in, like an hour and a half early, in the hopes of getting on an earlier flight as stand-by. Yeah, the upgrade to full fare for the 1 flight cost almost what my round-trip ticket cost when I bought it over a month ago! AND then my flight was delayed. *sigh* We were scheduled to depart at 5:30, and at 5:32 the inbound flight on our plane pulled up to the gate to unload. I think we finally took off right about 6:47. The flight was uneventful, and we made it to Houston, at which point I realized that I’d left my full itinerary at home, so I had to go get in line in order to get a copy of it from an agent. I had to have a copy of it to rent my car. I got to the rental car location, got processed, and by now it’s close to 8, and I was supposed to be in Galveston, at the restaurant for dinner at 7:30. I’m walking out the door with the guy, who says to me “you’ve reserved an economy, what would you like to drive today?” I looked at him and said, “you know, NOTHING has gone right since I left work this afternoon, I should have been in Galveston ½ hour ago, and I don’t much care what I’m driving, so long as I’m driving SOMETHING.” God bless him, he looked at me, and the cars that were available and said “how about a free upgrade to this Nissan Rogue?” Well, now, I may do some crazy things, and I may be weird, but I’m not an idiot, so of course I took him up on the free upgrade. Brand new car, had like 241 miles on it when I hit the road. OMG, if I was in the market for a new car, I would SO look at one! It is spacious inside, more in the passenger area than my Escape is, though you give up a little of the cargo space. It drives beautifully, and virtually no road noise as I was pushing 80 mph to get to Galveston before dinner was done! In the end, I’d had them order for me, and I walked in literally seconds after they put my plate on the table! I was quite definitely ready to be in for the night by the time we got to the house a little after 9! I’ll eventually get photos uploaded and included in the post, but for now, I’ll stop blathering one and actually do a little work.