How to get a job (or not)

Throw on the g’s I didn’t learn to pronounce at the trailer park I grew up in
I would love to know what words you drop a "g" from. I am trying to imagine dropping a g from the words on this page and I cannot figure it out.
 
I would love to know what words you drop a "g" from. I am trying to imagine dropping a g from the words on this page and I cannot figure it out.
Maybe it's the "g" at the end of words ending in "...ing". :dunno:
 
I would love to know what words you drop a "g" from. I am trying to imagine dropping a g from the words on this page and I cannot figure it out.

Maybe it's the "g" at the end of words ending in "...ing". :dunno:
Yeah, it’s dropping the g’s off of “ing”. Instead of dropping, there’s a habit of saying droppin’.

There are some other Appalachian Ohioisms, too. Instead of hello, people frequently answer “Hhhhyellow.”. Washer is pronounced worscher, and flat ee sounds replace ay sounds, so instead of Monday, it’s said Mundee.

Class differences come into it a little, too. Insofar as I can tell, middle class and above are less likely than working class to have the accent.

Edit: ain’t is used more frequently, too. There’s a lot in common with the verbiage of the southern US, but with little to no drawl. If you’re using the accent amongst working class people, it’s accepted. It’s less accepted amongst the middle class(who are generally the people conducting job interviews).

Suppose it’s just one of those things there’s a little bias against.
 
Local and regional accents are quite common in the US and can have an influence on work and employment like many other things we are less likely to control. In some places accents are an expression of regional pride. Kennedy's Boston accent didn't keep him from being elected president.
 
I don't suppose anybody can recommend a sector with easier application and interview processes? Ideally, based on previous experience, I'd get an abstract, public sector, desk job, but that didn't work out in the long run. I live by London for what that's worth; I don't have a lot of ties keeping here, but my current home is nicer than any flatshare I've had, I do like how easy it is to socialise in the city and not having to drive. Speaking of which, I imagine that driving jobs have rather simple interviews, but I'm so absent minded that I don't trust myself on the road, especially in the beginning and end of the day.

I think I need to change my occupation title to get a job and I imagine that the best way to do this is with some sort of training course.
 
Calling all Brits! ^^^^
 
Any big Corp with customer service. Easy entry level, and if you have half a brain you rapidly raise up the ranks.

I, along with my best friends started at Amex about 8 years ago. Call centre. Honestly I quite enjoyed it. Now they are distributed across the business, all earning £40-50k in management roles.
 
It is difficult to advise @ Kaushad without knowing anything about him/her.
That's fair. I don't want to lead responses by summarising my CV here, because I've made some dreadful career decisions and I could probably do with different trajectory. What's more important than what I want or even what I'm good at is what's available to me.

Still's Aiken's response prompts me to describe one of my limitations. I've done email customer service work before and I couldn't use it in interviews, because I don't know what customer service "above and beyond" is or what the customers thought. I did what they asked and moved on to the next customer. I don't have much capacity for reflecting on people's feelings or recognising excellence without clear, measurable standards. This holds me back from getting into work where interpersonal conflict is expected; people in the work I did before (public sector, entry level bureaucracy), within and without the organisation, were so professional that I couldn't describe any conflict that I resolved in interviews, which make offices sound like Game of Thrones.

I'm guessing that something with computers or machines would suit me better. I studied STEM subjects in school, followed by biochemistry, then flood engineering at university. That sort of schoolwork was only thing that I was good at as I grew up. I'm happy to communicate with people at work, but it becomes a problem if I have to negotiate or tell a story about it. And yet for more technical roles, I was asked to explain how I've made intelligent, data-informed decisions, and I've simply never had that kind of responsibility outside my personal life.

One advantage I do have now is money, partly because I treated each contract like it could be last ever job. I could invest this into training, but after two dud degrees, I'm feeling cautious.

As for what I'm good at, I tend to be a bit familiar than the rest of my team in the use Microsoft Office or ArcGIS, probably because I used to end up in teams with more social than technical functions. I'm not very curious or as interested in created things as I aspired to be, but I'm pedantic and understand the value of a methodology. The work I used care about most was figuring out ways to process data, usually for purposes that nobody cared about, myself included. I imagine any technical work that I can learn continuously as and when I need to do work out how to do new things would be fulfilling, but I'm veering towards what I want now as opposed to the pressing question of what employers.
 
It is really hard to recommend anything, as it sounds quite different to everything I have done. My first thought is that flood engineering must be an in demand skill set at the moment, a quick google seems to bring up a lot of jobs. Even if you do not feel confident going for the jobs with the skills you have, perhaps you could approach the companies and see what they could offer. When you have Assistant Flood Risk Engineer paying only £29,000- £33,000 in London I find it hard to believe they can be that picky at the moment.
 
It is really hard to recommend anything, as it sounds quite different to everything I have done. My first thought is that flood engineering must be an in demand skill set at the moment, a quick google seems to bring up a lot of jobs. Even if you do not feel confident going for the jobs with the skills you have, perhaps you could approach the companies and see what they could offer. When you have Assistant Flood Risk Engineer paying only £29,000- £33,000 in London I find it hard to believe they can be that picky at the moment.
That's higher than any salary I've had. I was on ~£26,000-27,000 in 2016-2017 and £23,000 in 2018 (that one was more demanding of course). I assume that people at at my earlier pay grade with London weighting are paid about as much as in that advert. I've missed the recent inflation, but I don't expect anything above £30,000; my CV has a job on it between 2018 and now, but I'm not prepared to talk about it, because I get very little work from that company and what I do get is door to door deliveries and the occasional document reformating. I honestly think I could have better chances if I ditched flood risk, planning and developer PR for something new. I think have a plausible motive. Remember Graeber's bullfeathers jobs? I'm in the "goon" sector. That sounds like justification for a career change to me (as opposed the real reason, which is that my career ended four years ago).

The trouble with those jobs is that I've never done a flood risk assessment, I had about three hours to use Microdrainage* and I worked for the Environment Agency, which deals with river and coastal flooding rather than surface water flooding (that's the local authorities). The types of jobs for which they paid my tuition fees involved reviewing flood risk assessments, but they didn't give a toss about that in the interviews, so I did very little flood risk work of any kind. I signed up with a small agency that specialises in that field and was recommended by my university (Penguin) and they weren't interested. At least the planning consultancy keeps in touch, even if the jobs they me tell about are too senior.

I should say that I chose to study flood risk engineering specifically because the degree was sponsored and attached to an internship. Now that I have money, I could pay for myself which broadens my options. Perhaps a tertiary college course would be more suitable, but don't hear of "mature students" attending those (I'm 31 and I studied for GCSEs, A-Levels, a BSc, then an FdSc [that's two years of a BSc]).

*The university didn't have a licence to install it on computers in the usual way. Instead, an employee of company that made Microdrainage led a couple of classes in which we used a demo to produce some data, which we then wrote up into a surface water drainage scheme in our free time. Whereas we could actually practise using ArcGIS and AutoCAD on campus desktops or using student's licences on our own computers.
 
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The trouble with those jobs is that I've never done a flood risk assessment,
Does that prevent you from inquiring or from contacting the company about openings and asking to talk with managers?
 
Does that prevent you from inquiring or from contacting the company about openings and asking to talk with managers?
Only by the usual humiliation of self promotion above my weight. It looks like the expected legitimate way to learn Microdrainage is in the workplace. So perhaps what I need to ask of them is an internship to do that. Initially, they wouldn't have to actively teach me; I need their software not their attention. I'd just sit there doing tutorials and trying things out until I'm ready to practise on a real scenario that the company had. The question is what I can offer them in return.
 
Only by the usual humiliation of self promotion above my weight. It looks like the expected legitimate way to learn Microdrainage is in the workplace. So perhaps what I need to ask of them is an internship to do that. Initially, they wouldn't have to actively teach me; I need their software not their attention. I'd just sit there doing tutorials and trying things out until I'm ready to practise on a real scenario that the company had. The question is what I can offer them in return.
Nose around the company a bit and try to identify a manager who might qualify as a boss for what you are interested in doing. Invite him/her for coffee and tell him you are exploring his company as a place to work and want learn about the company and the best path to get involved (intern, apply, more education). You have nothing to lose in doing that a much to gain. If nothing else it is practice at doing such a thing. You can even test your conversation skills with a less desirable company so you are in top form when you talk to a company you are really interested in.
 
For whatever reason, all the chat support jobs I'm finding have ludicrous hours. These are the jobs that should be most accommodating to the disabled, and yet every single one I've found that I could apply for as a Canadian have 45-hour minimums per week (all coincidentally without overtime, as well).

The effort to find something small that is reliable is thus far a big failure.
 
For whatever reason, all the chat support jobs I'm finding have ludicrous hours. These are the jobs that should be most accommodating to the disabled, and yet every single one I've found that I could apply for as a Canadian have 45-hour minimums per week (all coincidentally without overtime, as well).

The effort to find something small that is reliable is thus far a big failure.
I am surprised at that. I would have thought companies would be more flexible and using lots of part timers to get full coverage.
 
Many companies in various sectors (telesales, care, taxi driving etc.) have learnt that if you employ someone 20 hours a week,
they go and get a second job for another 20 hours a week and sometimes even a third job for another perhaps 20 hours a week.

So they have a tired employee who underperforms and that can backfire in a bad way on the company's reputation.

And they may be competing with the other company or even two companies regarding the availability for work of their employee;
with the company being most flexible normally losing out, and having its more committed workers annoyed by being inconvenienced.

So they tend to specify 40 hours (and often 40 hours of their choosing) to block book the person as their employee.
 
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