Monetary and job worries and things
Oct. 9th, 2003 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterKinda funny...for several years past the time it began fading away from "super-fast dream machine" to "oversized paperweight," I've still been largely satisfied with my old Celeron box...but now that a reasonable plan for upgrading to a faster, better computer is forming, I'm suddenly impatient to have it in my grasp. 1.8 gigahertz...I can't even conceive of how lightning-fast that's going to be. Of course, I felt the same way before I got my 450 MHz machine, too...
Of course, if I want this thing, I'm going to have to buckle down and start taking better care of my finances. I had been taking a lot of days of undertime just so I'd have a few more hours to spend online with my friends...and since I was regularly hitting the $200-per-paycheck payout, I could afford it, right? But it's funny how those hours add up...if I just skip two hours a day, that's 1/5 of my pre-payout check...$64 a week. No more of that, for the foreseeable future. It's not like the last two hours of the shift are terribly taxing, anyway...and what with my student loans about to go into repayment at long last, I need all the extra money I can get.
At a time like this, I look over at my brothers with a lot of envy. Alex has a high-paying technical job at a university in Chicago. Aaron's working for a local ISP...but taking scripting jobs on the side. He was telling me just the other day how he's getting webpage commissions at $1,000, $4,000, or $8,000 a pop for writing PHP scripts. Paying off debts, buying fancy new toys...while I'm stuck here getting $8/hr plus incentive and with all these debts I need to repay. Am going to be repaying for a long time.
Getting paid for programming like that. It's something I should be able to do...but I'm just too damn lazy to learn how to program and stick with it. I've almost understood Java a couple of times from taking classes in it, for instance...but now I doubt I could even sit down and write "Hello World" in it without having to do some serious reconstructive research. If you don't use it, it vanishes from your head. I never took the time or effort to keep it in my head. I don't even know if I'm capable of that kind of effort.
My folks say I need to find a better job. And I have to admit, they're right. A better job would be great. This job isn't what I want to be doing five years from now...or even necessarily two years from now. If nothing else, because my student loan payments are going to go up in a few years. I took the pay-less-now, pay-more-later option as a bit of a gamble that I'll be able to find a better position somewhere down the road and start pumping money into the debt at exhorbitant rates until it's all paid off.
But I have to admit, I'm having trouble seeing just how I'm going to go about it...I just don't have the experience for anything in either of the fields that I went to school to learn. Fields that should, in a just world, be lucrative. But how am I going to apply for a web developer's position, say, if I can't script? I've heard the aphorism that you go to college to learn how to learn, and that you can pick up the requisite skills on the job if you show your employer you have the ability to learn them...but in practice, it usually works out that given the choice between someone who knows how to do XYZ already and someone who knows how to learn how to do XYZ, they're usually going to go with the former candidate.
I'm glad I'm not ordinarily prone to panic attacks. Because if I were, and I let myself think about the sort of situation I'm in, I'd probably be having one. It's not anywhere near as bad as it was while I was entirely unemployed, of course...at least I do have "Money Coming In" and won't starve to death or have to leech off my parents. I guess that having secured that plateau I should stop resting on my laurels (or my big fat butt) and get back to the job hunt in earnest...at least my top rep award will look good on my resume.
But...for all that I took a job hunting seminar, and that I've been doing it for a long time, I still don't know very much about looking for work. I only got this job at MCI because they were all but throwing out drag nets to slurp up willing workers. It hardly involved anything at all in the way of pre-screening or interviewing because they were taking practically anything that could come through the door on two legs. When it comes to applying for something more lucrative...I just don't know. Every time I make up a resume according to one set of specifications, someone else tells me I did it all wrong. It's all very discouraging.
When you get right down to it, my problem is that I'm lazy and I procrastinate a lot, if left to my own devices. (Hmm, maybe I shouldn't be saying this here in case some prospective employer finds his way to this journal. Nah, better to be honest...besides, I can always delete it later.) For the last several weeks, I've been telling myself I should update my resume, I should start finding people to send it, I should be lookin for work again. But I haven't started yet. I suppose at some level I'm wanting someone to knock on my door and hand me a job...or at least offer to write my resume for me and submit it to prospective employers. But that's not likely to happen.
Of course, if I want this thing, I'm going to have to buckle down and start taking better care of my finances. I had been taking a lot of days of undertime just so I'd have a few more hours to spend online with my friends...and since I was regularly hitting the $200-per-paycheck payout, I could afford it, right? But it's funny how those hours add up...if I just skip two hours a day, that's 1/5 of my pre-payout check...$64 a week. No more of that, for the foreseeable future. It's not like the last two hours of the shift are terribly taxing, anyway...and what with my student loans about to go into repayment at long last, I need all the extra money I can get.
At a time like this, I look over at my brothers with a lot of envy. Alex has a high-paying technical job at a university in Chicago. Aaron's working for a local ISP...but taking scripting jobs on the side. He was telling me just the other day how he's getting webpage commissions at $1,000, $4,000, or $8,000 a pop for writing PHP scripts. Paying off debts, buying fancy new toys...while I'm stuck here getting $8/hr plus incentive and with all these debts I need to repay. Am going to be repaying for a long time.
Getting paid for programming like that. It's something I should be able to do...but I'm just too damn lazy to learn how to program and stick with it. I've almost understood Java a couple of times from taking classes in it, for instance...but now I doubt I could even sit down and write "Hello World" in it without having to do some serious reconstructive research. If you don't use it, it vanishes from your head. I never took the time or effort to keep it in my head. I don't even know if I'm capable of that kind of effort.
My folks say I need to find a better job. And I have to admit, they're right. A better job would be great. This job isn't what I want to be doing five years from now...or even necessarily two years from now. If nothing else, because my student loan payments are going to go up in a few years. I took the pay-less-now, pay-more-later option as a bit of a gamble that I'll be able to find a better position somewhere down the road and start pumping money into the debt at exhorbitant rates until it's all paid off.
But I have to admit, I'm having trouble seeing just how I'm going to go about it...I just don't have the experience for anything in either of the fields that I went to school to learn. Fields that should, in a just world, be lucrative. But how am I going to apply for a web developer's position, say, if I can't script? I've heard the aphorism that you go to college to learn how to learn, and that you can pick up the requisite skills on the job if you show your employer you have the ability to learn them...but in practice, it usually works out that given the choice between someone who knows how to do XYZ already and someone who knows how to learn how to do XYZ, they're usually going to go with the former candidate.
I'm glad I'm not ordinarily prone to panic attacks. Because if I were, and I let myself think about the sort of situation I'm in, I'd probably be having one. It's not anywhere near as bad as it was while I was entirely unemployed, of course...at least I do have "Money Coming In" and won't starve to death or have to leech off my parents. I guess that having secured that plateau I should stop resting on my laurels (or my big fat butt) and get back to the job hunt in earnest...at least my top rep award will look good on my resume.
But...for all that I took a job hunting seminar, and that I've been doing it for a long time, I still don't know very much about looking for work. I only got this job at MCI because they were all but throwing out drag nets to slurp up willing workers. It hardly involved anything at all in the way of pre-screening or interviewing because they were taking practically anything that could come through the door on two legs. When it comes to applying for something more lucrative...I just don't know. Every time I make up a resume according to one set of specifications, someone else tells me I did it all wrong. It's all very discouraging.
When you get right down to it, my problem is that I'm lazy and I procrastinate a lot, if left to my own devices. (Hmm, maybe I shouldn't be saying this here in case some prospective employer finds his way to this journal. Nah, better to be honest...besides, I can always delete it later.) For the last several weeks, I've been telling myself I should update my resume, I should start finding people to send it, I should be lookin for work again. But I haven't started yet. I suppose at some level I'm wanting someone to knock on my door and hand me a job...or at least offer to write my resume for me and submit it to prospective employers. But that's not likely to happen.
