Synobun
Deity
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2006
- Messages
- 24,884
Massive props for straight out, honest replies without justifications. The good news is that is an attribute that a employer would be looking for. To address a few of your points.
1. A very very risky way of approaching anything. Moods are extremely hard to control. Try to let your actions determine your mood and push on. Do positive stuff and watch your mood magically improve! It's win/win.
2. How does it depend on the day? One is far too few, period.
3. Fair enough. But boy, if you had a crack it and realized that your fears, while legitimate, are overstated, you'd come out the other side reinvigorated.
4. To restrict your search to fast food joints is selling yourself short. I've seen your stuff in DYOS and I'm not suggesting that you will instantly get a job in that field, I'm just saying that it's a minuscule percentage of the population that can do that, I'm sure you have other talents. Also I think that the fact that years later you can't get a job flipping burgers speaks volumes for your approach which just ain't working. Don't do the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
Truth be told, if you were dressed, coffeed up and ready to rock by 8.00am everyday, dedicated 8 hours a day to finding a job just in fast food, hit the pavement, hit the phones, sent out every app possible etc, I guarantee you you'll be employed, probably after two days. Sure, this regimen would be torture if you had to do it day in, day out for a year. I'm asking for a week, just one week. You will get a job, I'm certain. You would blow your competition out of the water. You have absolutely no idea what you are capable of until you try. You can walk around the base of Mt Everest for a thousand years but you ain't getting to the top.
5. 10am? 11am? No, just no.....your competition has made 5 applications already, 3 phone calls and is on their way to the new place just opening, resume in hand, ready to work.
1 week of giving your heart and soul and you won't fail. In the highly unlike case that you do, well heh, you've given your heart and soul to something, and that's never a fail.
Good luck champ. I for one would be absolutely pumped to hear how you go
Both of these are spot-on with what you should do, CG. I can't really put it as eloquently as these guys but I'll try my best to at least provide more options/possibilities.
1. Don't let your mood dictate your ethic. You need to be able to work your job even if you're a miserable sap that day. Not very comparable, but Wayne Brady had an AMA on Reddit a week ago, and one of the questions was "How does your mood influence your on-stage performances?"
His answer was, "It doesn't. When I am on-stage, it is my job." Frankly, you should abide by this viewpoint as well. I know all too well what it's like to be down. To be depressed. To have given up on the world and on life, to be looked down upon because you view yourself as a dead-beat and because of that, you act like it too. Something I have only recently discovered?
It doesn't matter. If you have the determination to improve your life, if you try your best every day, do something positive that will improve your outlook, improve your condition, or at least change your perspective, it does get better, even if you continue to feel like crap about yourself. I spent over two years moping around, doing nothing to achieve anything, to the point of dropping out of high-school simply because I couldn't be arsed to put in the effort to push through my health and still achieve something. For all intents and purposes, I considered myself dead and I acted accordingly to that.
I on purposely hampered my opportunities to excel, rejecting offers of assistance because "whatevs, I'm going to die mid-way through anyways". Then June, this year, came around, I turned eighteen, and something clicked inside of me. I began to question my doubts. I began to question the way I had been living. I began to question whether or not it was really worth it to just let my health win the battle.
I decided that it wasn't. I spent every day doing things that were excruciating and things that were way out of my comfort zone. Every day was a nightmare for my body and things repeatedly blew up in my face when I tried to achieve something due to my lack of education and lack of experience and willpower.
What did I do? I kept trying.
CG, it has been less than six months since I changed my mind about giving up and being a depressive sap and thinking that I was doing everything I could. I will give you a short grocery list of what has changed since then.
i. I now have my GED. I am ranked in the top 10% of Canada of senior graduates, and I'm in the top 1% of Canada for reading comprehension. This is after dropping out two years ago, losing a lot of my memory, and not giving a damn. I only gave a damn about the GED for about two weeks before going to the exam.
ii. I am now enrolled in Niagara College. I set to start in May. I got accepted to financial aid and the college within two weeks of applying because of how organized I was and how I timed everything. I did not wait to send them things, I went ahead and sent them everything at the same time so that they got all the material they needed at once.
iii. I have a girlfriend that, regardless of my healing process and her instability, provides me a lot of balance and perspective to life. I could have never had this if I let my mood dictate my actions.
And lastly,
iv. I now understand that it's okay to be miserable. It is entirely okay to feel bad about yourself, to pity yourself every now and then. It's fine to lay in bed in the morning, not looking forward to the following day. But I do understand that it's not okay to let that dictate what I do in that day.
"I don't feel very happy, I'm not in the mood to meet with managers." Too bad. Do it anyways.
"I feel groggy, I don't want to exercise." Too bad. Do it anyways.
"I'm feeling hopeless, I should just give up." Too bad. Continue on anyways.
Determination won't make you happy, but it gives you opportunities that allow you to be happy. I still wake up in excruciating pain due to an unsolvable illness. I still walk around hating myself and hating the people around me. I have no real hope for the future. I continue to try, though, so that maybe one day those things wouldn't be the case.
It's only through action that I'll be able to maybe feel happiness and health one day, and if that takes a year, two years, maybe even half a decade, for that to happen... It'll be worth it. A short time of happiness is infinitely better than a long time of misery, even if you're obsessed with the concept of thought like I am. If I finally become happy, and then my health engulfs me and I die after a matter of months, it'll be worth it. Happiness is worth the pain if you know that you're staying true to who you are and what you want.
2. Volunteer. This doesn't need to be a long-term commitment, though it helps. Find a place to volunteer in your local area, put in a few hours a week. It'll help with social anxiety, gives you something for your resume in terms of recent experience, and it gets you out of the house. Doing is the best way to develop confidence. There is no way you'll ever feel ready for a work-place by sauntering around putting in applications and then returning home to feel bad. Volunteer.
It is seriously a miracle for work ethic, reliability, and perspective. Find something you can do, and do it. Even if you start out with just helping people package in the food bank, it is something and it allows you to get access to other volunteering possibilities. There are a few options out there that have restrictive screening processes, and previous volunteer experience helps immensely with being considered first rather than last. I've had to say no too many times to people applying for the charity I'm a part of simply because they are, essentially, ghosts. They had nothing on their name, and the charity needed people who were previously proven.
3. Follow up. Like Owen said, you need to follow up. I used to never follow up, like you, to not come across as desperate. One day I was curious about the effectiveness of call-backs, and I found it to be reassuring for me. Most if not all contacted me back to inform me of my application's status. A lot of companies choose to not respond if you're rejected, or your application simply gets lost in the crowd. Following up brings that to the top of the list since they need to go find it, or, if you've already been rejected, they'll tell you.
It's my opinion that it's better to be told directly that you don't have the job than to sit in your room wondering why they aren't calling. I've also, at times, asked why I didn't have the job and that was also helpful. The reasons ranged from, "You're too young.", "We found someone with more experience.", "This isn't entry-level.", etc. Any reason is worth knowing because it provides a little bit of perspective on where you're going wrong and what you can change.
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This ended up being much longer than expected. Three points is enough, considering.
