" often get messages from people with “job offers” too. The work is vague and amorphous, the pay is implausibly high, and it’s usually a ‘remote position.’ Apparently a company wants to pay me $6,000 per month (and the pay is often denominated in awkward periods like this - ‘per month’ or ‘per week’) to send out some packages! It sounds like a pretty good deal. Of course these jobs don’t exist. It’s yet another attempt (I believe) to gather one’s personal data."
Actually it is often an attempt to recruit mules (aka designated fall guys) to launder the proceeds of internet scams. Your job is to buy things (or receive things bought) with stolen credit card details and then pass them on to the crooks. Since you are the recipient when LEO is involved you are arrested for handling stolen goods. Oh and you probably won't get the $6000 promised. You'll maybe get $1,000 but probably not even that as there will be excuses made as to why they can't pay you
Glad to hear you have something lined up. You obviously have much to offer, and I hope your students will understand and appreciate that. Also, given that you will be teaching in Desantis' FLA perhaps you will have the support of the administrative structure.
I am hopeful that going forward credentialism will matter less and everyday skills will matter more because we more than ever need the latter and no longer can fully afford the former.
Another common idiocy in modern day job applications is the computerized questionnaire. Among an overly long multiple-choice test of boring, should-be-common-sense questions, it will ask two or three times, "Do you steal?"
Huh? What?! Do they really think this is effective at weeding out thieving employees?
All i can do is think of the well-paid, credentialed consultant who designed this test, and the bureaucratic stupidity that stands behind him or her (probably her), and despair...
For what it's worth, take a look at the websites of major railroads. The union jobs are demanding but well paid. I believe some start at 75% of full pay for some period of time. But there's a livelihood in running trains. You don't want to go into Maintenance of Way, that is REALLY railroading, but train service is doable. My husband was a switchman, conductor and engineer for decades. The road from which I retired used to hold hiring symposiums all over the country. Honest to God, 75% of the men who showed up left when they found they would be drug tested as one of the initial requirements to continue. And, the only privilege I've seen my entire life is American privilege.
Thank you for so clearly describing the job search mess! I have watched with wonder (not the good type) as my high school-attending or recently graduated children look for jobs. When I grew up, you walked into a business, said "I'm looking for a job" and you could often talk to a person who made hiring decisions. Now, I've watched my kids do exactly what you describe. Spend hours filling out websites, finding lots of jobs that don't exist (I also wonder what these people get out of making fake job websites, but they seem to be more common than real ones), submitting applications through poorly designed web pages, getting no responses, never talking to a person, etc. It truly is a labyrinth with no apparent reason. They literally want to find some manual labor job (flipping hamburgers would be fine!), that does not require skills, to earn a little money and gain some experience. Why is this so hard?
Very, very true. I've had a lot less life experience than you, but I've only had success finding jobs in ways that avoid the bureaucratic job search process, that is, only through knowing other people who already work there and being invited to apply.
I wonder what alternate method, compared to our current system, could actually work. Is our society too large for anything other than a filtering layer of professional scammers to run the bureaucracy that matches bodies to jobs?
I think people getting jobs through family/friend/religious/ethnic connections is the norm throughout history, and leaning more and more back into this is our only path forward.
" often get messages from people with “job offers” too. The work is vague and amorphous, the pay is implausibly high, and it’s usually a ‘remote position.’ Apparently a company wants to pay me $6,000 per month (and the pay is often denominated in awkward periods like this - ‘per month’ or ‘per week’) to send out some packages! It sounds like a pretty good deal. Of course these jobs don’t exist. It’s yet another attempt (I believe) to gather one’s personal data."
Actually it is often an attempt to recruit mules (aka designated fall guys) to launder the proceeds of internet scams. Your job is to buy things (or receive things bought) with stolen credit card details and then pass them on to the crooks. Since you are the recipient when LEO is involved you are arrested for handling stolen goods. Oh and you probably won't get the $6000 promised. You'll maybe get $1,000 but probably not even that as there will be excuses made as to why they can't pay you
Glad to hear you have something lined up. You obviously have much to offer, and I hope your students will understand and appreciate that. Also, given that you will be teaching in Desantis' FLA perhaps you will have the support of the administrative structure.
I am hopeful that going forward credentialism will matter less and everyday skills will matter more because we more than ever need the latter and no longer can fully afford the former.
Another common idiocy in modern day job applications is the computerized questionnaire. Among an overly long multiple-choice test of boring, should-be-common-sense questions, it will ask two or three times, "Do you steal?"
Huh? What?! Do they really think this is effective at weeding out thieving employees?
All i can do is think of the well-paid, credentialed consultant who designed this test, and the bureaucratic stupidity that stands behind him or her (probably her), and despair...
For what it's worth, take a look at the websites of major railroads. The union jobs are demanding but well paid. I believe some start at 75% of full pay for some period of time. But there's a livelihood in running trains. You don't want to go into Maintenance of Way, that is REALLY railroading, but train service is doable. My husband was a switchman, conductor and engineer for decades. The road from which I retired used to hold hiring symposiums all over the country. Honest to God, 75% of the men who showed up left when they found they would be drug tested as one of the initial requirements to continue. And, the only privilege I've seen my entire life is American privilege.
Thank you for so clearly describing the job search mess! I have watched with wonder (not the good type) as my high school-attending or recently graduated children look for jobs. When I grew up, you walked into a business, said "I'm looking for a job" and you could often talk to a person who made hiring decisions. Now, I've watched my kids do exactly what you describe. Spend hours filling out websites, finding lots of jobs that don't exist (I also wonder what these people get out of making fake job websites, but they seem to be more common than real ones), submitting applications through poorly designed web pages, getting no responses, never talking to a person, etc. It truly is a labyrinth with no apparent reason. They literally want to find some manual labor job (flipping hamburgers would be fine!), that does not require skills, to earn a little money and gain some experience. Why is this so hard?
What a horrifying mess, you describe. There are few things so soul-sucking and miserable than dealing with the bureaucratic blob.
Very, very true. I've had a lot less life experience than you, but I've only had success finding jobs in ways that avoid the bureaucratic job search process, that is, only through knowing other people who already work there and being invited to apply.
I wonder what alternate method, compared to our current system, could actually work. Is our society too large for anything other than a filtering layer of professional scammers to run the bureaucracy that matches bodies to jobs?
I think people getting jobs through family/friend/religious/ethnic connections is the norm throughout history, and leaning more and more back into this is our only path forward.
"I babysit computers."