Job-Hunting Advice

[rkade8583]

My wife is 35, has Graves disease (no thyroid and needs medication and blood tests to regulate what's missing,) is six feet tall, overweight (from the Graves disease. She doesn't eat a damn thing,) can't speak Spanish, hasn't worked in damn near a decade (it took her doctor awhile to figure out what she had,) and didn't graduate college.

How in god's name can she compete in the Northern California job market? She wants to get on at a bookstore because she's really passionate about books but she keeps having these mini-meltdowns about how she's too old and the longer she keeps looking and not finding, the less likely she'll be to find a job.

I'm WAY too disabled to work (according to the Dept. of Rehab. AND Pride Industries) so... this is what I thought of to do that is productive to the situation. Any ideas?

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Wasn't America the land of individual enterprise?

 

[rkade8583]

Not if you have lungs bad enough to scare companies into not hiring you due to a lawsuit should you have an asthma attack and die (me.) I have no clue why the wife's not getting any interviews. She's been here 6 years and she hasn't had one interview.

 

[Borachio]

Dear me. You and your wife are certainly having a difficult time!

My advice is not to think of having a job as the be all and end all of life. It really isn't. Even though wider society will often pressurize you into thinking you have no value without a job.

Still, 35 is a bit young to resign oneself to a life without employment of some kind, maybe.

I wish I had some better advice to offer.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

I mean, how about working for yourself and not for some other guy?

 

[rkade8583]

How? We live month-to-month on my disability. We're paying off credit cards at the tune of about $300 a month but we've still got around $5k to pay off between the two of us (short version: Arizona and a dishonest family member from eight years ago got my wife some traffic tickets we didn't know about until last year because bureaucracy.)

 

[Zelig]

I mean, how about working for yourself and not for some other guy?

Unless you're a subsistence farmer, you're always working for some other guy.

 

[rkade8583]

Don't care, need cash... well, except for illegal stuff. We have no desire to go to jail, thanks.

 

[Borachio]

Unless you're a subsistence farmer, you're always working for some other guy.

Isn't there a difference, though, between working for a customer, and working as an employee?

 

[Zelig]

Isn't there a difference, though, between working for a customer, and working as an employee?

Not in my experience.

 

[jackelgull]

Have you tried Uber? As far as I can make out, that seems to be your best shot. And even then, I don't know what they require from their employees.

 

[Antilogic]

That's a tough situation, I hope you and your wife's medical conditions are, uh, tamed.

It's good that she has figured out what she wants to do, being passionate about working in a place will help in the interview. What does her resume look like? Has she organized anything or done volunteer work in the last few years that could be used to replace the work experience, and is it in black and white on the resume? Even stuff like running a book club or a support group would help.

EDIT: And sharing economy services like Uber (mentioned above) might be a good place to look. I hate to recommend anyone to the service industry like in fast food, but... that's an option.

 

[rkade8583]

The reason she's sticking to bookstores is because when she tried fast food, she got guff and excuses about how she was "overqualified" (whatever that actually means,) and how she didn't speak spanish.

She knows how to do a resume and a cover letter and all that. It's just a matter of her feeling good enough to go to a kinkos to make copies and then run to the bookstores before she gets sick again (once she gets the job, she'll make them send her home before she misses a day. Part of why her Graves nailed her to the wall so hard back when she got it. She's got the work ethic.)

 

[JollyRoger]

Learning Spanish seems to be step one. That or broadening the scope of employees she is willing to work for.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Try looking for work at a library? Even if it's just volunteer work she can turn that into a job if she plays her cards right. Otherwise it's probably gotta be additional certification/education if she has a particular field in mind.

 

[downtown]

Kind of sounds like maybe she should be applying for disability too? If you can't move to area where being bilingual isn't a requirement for low-wage work, with that sort of work history, I think you're right, it'll be very difficult to get a job at all.

She's right, in that the longer she keeps looking, the harder it will be to find a job. Rather than focusing specifically on bookstores, the real focus ought to be to get anything, even a minimum wage, part time job, to demonstrate a work history again. And that's a volume game, which means lots and lots and lots of applications.

 

[caketastydelish]

You may or may not (I'm counting on not) like this, but one way to get a job is study computer books for certifications. A lot of computer jobs allow you to work from home, therefore problems with lungs and other physical illnesses aren't as relevant as things where you have to drive to work everyday... especially for physical-heavy jobs (lifting boxes and such) like so many near-minimum wage jobs are.

Particularly, get Cisco certifications, they kick ass. You'll end up easily making like 20 something an hour all from home and you didn't even have to go to college. I'd say you can have in it 3 months if you're focused, more like 6-9 months if you like fooling around/dedicating more of your time to other stuff throughout each day.

edit: What downtown said is also true. Although from the looks of it, it sounds like there's a legitimate reason why she hasn't been working and she isn't simply lazy. So maybe something like I'm suggesting where she works from home would actually be best? There are different "work from home" jobs, she should look more into them perhaps.

 

[rkade8583]

She just got on MediCal last month (after trying for six years) and the place she signed up with (anthem blue cross) just sent her a letter saying she can't get her meds at Wal-Greens anymore (chain store) but she's JUST on MediCal. No payments or anything. They didn't even send the handbook they're referring her to. Bureaucracy. Fun.

 

[The_J]

Depending on how much you are in need even for the smallest amount of money, you might want to try Amazon's mechanical turk.
The pay is really, really, really low though, of what I've heard, and it's not intereseting or recommendable work, but you don't need any qualification for it, you don't have a fixed time schedule, and you can do everything from behind your computer.

 

[Borachio]

I've looked into this. You're not kidding the rate is low! If you're really quick you can make up to $1 an hour. Yes, that's 1 whole shiny dollar an hour.