Dead End Jobs

[frugal50]

All my life I have worked in dead end jobs and currently in one now, my only saving grace is that I managed to build myself a decent nestegg.

At my age... I should be more accomplished in a career, but here I am working at a dead end job which I'm not really suited for

I'm not here looking for advice or pity... just wanted to vent

For anyone reading this... stay in school and get a good education, I was never given that choice under my circumstances... it's too late for me now.

[BananaHunter]

All my life I have worked in dead end jobs and currently in one now, my only saving grace is that I managed to build myself a decent nestegg.

At my age... I should be more accomplished in a career, but here I am working at a dead end job which I'm not really suited for

I'm not here looking for advice or pity... just wanted to vent

For anyone reading this... stay in school and get a good education, I was never given that choice under my circumstances... it's too late for me now.

I disagree with your advice. Your advice would have been good maybe 20 years ago. There are plenty of people who graduate who don't even land a decent job. Some are at the point where any job will be better than nothing, including dead end jobs. There is such an oversupply of educated young adults that staying in school will not guarantee you a decent job. And then there are people who have a degree but aren't "street smart" and get nowhere in their career.

You should feel proud. You have a nest egg. Some people who went to school are still combating their debt.

[d5486]

All my life I have worked in dead end jobs and currently in one now, my only saving grace is that I managed to build myself a decent nestegg.

At my age... I should be more accomplished in a career, but here I am working at a dead end job which I'm not really suited for

I'm not here looking for advice or pity... just wanted to vent

For anyone reading this... stay in school and get a good education, I was never given that choice under my circumstances... it's too late for me now.

i'm in the same boat.. however when I hear(see) the same words coming from someone else I realize how this is not a big deal... there are so many like you and I...

this is what the economy has pushed us into.. and just a small percentage..very small percentage has real, meaningful, fulfilling, good jobs.. and those are disappearing too... doctors and lawyers are still safe, but i know even doctors are having a hard time finding jobs (no funding etc)


i dont know.. this is the system.. this is where we are.. and i guess we live one day at a time..


something I've heard recently(depressing): this is the first generation that will live SHORTER than the generation before.. ina looooong time...
so obviously this economy, and the inequality is starting to have a toll on people's lives...

sad... we can only hope for strenght.. and maybe for change? but that doesnt seem very likely.
wow i'm depressed

oh well

[world25]

All my life I have worked in dead end jobs and currently in one now, my only saving grace is that I managed to build myself a decent nestegg.

At my age... I should be more accomplished in a career, but here I am working at a dead end job which I'm not really suited for

I'm not here looking for advice or pity... just wanted to vent

For anyone reading this... stay in school and get a good education, I was never given that choice under my circumstances... it's too late for me now.

There is no such thing as dead-end. It's up to you to control things in life. All you need to do is stay positive and job-hop more often to get what you want.

What do you want to get into? There are a lot of certificates out there. Find a specific one. Self-study by reading a book. Obtain the certificate. Send out your resume and see what happens.

[VERYLEMON]

I agree with world25, to a point.

There's obviously something systemically wrong right now, but there only thing you can do is look after yourself. Occupy protests will probably start again this year, and they'll be a continued non-success that nonetheless still have some weight to it, but that's tangential to the point. The point being what an individual can do for themselves. Take whatever job you can and make the most of it, and always hope for something better to come along. And always seek out that something better, it won't come out on its own. People have to make sacrifices to even keep their head above the water nowadays, but that's something we'll all have to acclimatize ourselves to..

I do think this 'stay in school and get a real job' is outdated advice that people need to start sort of.. stamping out, probably at a high school level. It's folksy advice and it's society implicitly making a promise it cannot fulfill. Youth need to get ready to learn hard work won't necessarily pay off, and older people need to realize the same avenues for success available to them aren't available to youth today. We're in a mess and people need to be made aware of it so they can prepare more appropriate outlooks and adjustments to their lives, etc.

I'm rambling as well.

[frugal50]

I disagree with your advice. Your advice would have been good maybe 20 years ago. There are plenty of people who graduate who don't even land a decent job. Some are at the point where any job will be better than nothing, including dead end jobs. There is such an oversupply of educated young adults that staying in school will not guarantee you a decent job. And then there are people who have a degree but aren't "street smart" and get nowhere in their career.

You should feel proud. You have a nest egg. Some people who went to school are still combating their debt.

You're still better off to stay in school and getting a higher education than just highschool, it doesn't have to be a PHD program... I'm talking about a trade or something that you're good at and like.

Yes... I'm very fortunate to have a good nest egg with ZERO debts to my name, but that was from saving and living well below my means.
But being Canadian born... I find it unacceptable that I'm in the same job market with new immigrants and highschool kids, I should of had a professional career for myself, but because of fate and the poor choices I made in life... I'm now suffering the consequences.

That said... I'm just going to stop feeling sorry for myself and just be thankful I have a job

[Starkicker]

To the poster who said that medicine and law are still good careers, I have friends and relatives in both fields who are struggling to find work, or stable work. My understanding is that lots of legal paperwork and back office functions are being farmed out overseas, and medicine has become very competitive.

Seems like skilled labour is where the current job market is.

[C_C]

VeryLemon, I definitely agree with you about older people needing to realize that things have changed and acknowledge some facts about the job market. I keep reading this things where boomers call my generation lazy and that we need to 'work hard' and 'prove our worth by doing any job out there' but they don't understand that affects how employers view us and that it is much more complicated these days. Nor do they get that we can't just go somewhere and drop off resumes anymore, that it's all automated only. In the olden days there wasn't any of this 'personal branding' bullsh*t or staying with one company for your entire life. Things are very different and realizing how tough its become might change some perspectives.

I feel like I should be so much further along them I am, I'm not even making a wage that is livable if I was to live on my own and I have a job that would be considered full time. It's pathetic, I'm seriously biding my time and keeping an eye out, if companies want loyalty and people who don't job hop then stop acting so dense and pay your employees a living wage! I am in the 'pay your dues' mindset right now, I have to keep pushing and I know something better will come out of it, it has too. I'm not giving myself a choice in the matter, in the meantime I'm frustrated and want some independence, this requires making some money! For any clueless older people on this board with warped perceptions of younger folk, we don't want to live in our parents basements! we want a life and many of us are working to get there.

[august10]

It's never too late, never say never. I actually know plenty of people who graduated from Masters or PhD who are unemployed now, and wish they were out in the job market earlier when the economy was better. Lots of people who graduates from colleges earn more than those in the top schools. Lots of people doing technical work, which really just requires lots of training, are well in demand. Everyone has their own path, and there's always a way out!

[squagles]

It's up to you to control things in life. All you need to do is stay positive

Most people's lot in life is affected by things outside their control.

"Stay Positive" is nothing but a cruel taunt.

[dibksbgon]

I disagree with your advice. Your advice would have been good maybe 20 years ago. There are plenty of people who graduate who don't even land a decent job. Some are at the point where any job will be better than nothing, including dead end jobs. There is such an oversupply of educated young adults that staying in school will not guarantee you a decent job. And then there are people who have a degree but aren't "street smart" and get nowhere in their career.

You should feel proud. You have a nest egg. Some people who went to school are still combating their debt.

This. So this.

The push for university university university is ridiculous. I know tonnes of people who are sticking in school doing Masters just as a safety net (not all that safe but in their cases their education is paid for so it is not as though they are incurring debt) and are working at Starbucks or unemployed.

[Le Loon]

All my life I have worked in dead end jobs and currently in one now, my only saving grace is that I managed to build myself a decent nestegg.

At my age... I should be more accomplished in a career, but here I am working at a dead end job which I'm not really suited for

I'm not here looking for advice or pity... just wanted to vent

For anyone reading this... stay in school and get a good education, I was never given that choice under my circumstances... it's too late for me now.

As long as your children love you, and you have a loving family, at this point I don't think any of that matters.

[Kohanz]

There is no such thing as dead-end. It's up to you to control things in life. All you need to do is stay positive and job-hop more often to get what you want.

What do you want to get into? There are a lot of certificates out there. Find a specific one. Self-study by reading a book. Obtain the certificate. Send out your resume and see what happens.

This is such an individualistic view and does not look at our population as a whole. Not everyone can benefit from "staying positive". It's just an idealistic way to shrug off the undesirable parts of our system.

There are "bad" or "dead-end" jobs out there. I'm sure that the lady who cleans the offices I work in at night wishes she had a different job. You would just tell her (a middle aged recent immigrant mother with several kids to support) to get an education or job-hop her way to something better. Not only is this very unrealistic, it completely ignores the big picture. Even if she were somehow able to move on to something else, that position of office cleaner still has to be filled. There will always be custodians and secretaries and parking enforcers and what-have-you that we need and you willl never convince me that the people in these jobs are doing what they've always wanted. They are working to live, paying the bills.

These jobs will always exist and people will always fill them. Just because there is a path to get out of those jobs, doesn't mean that that is some kind of solution - it just means the job is vacated for someone else.

I wish I could paint things with a positive brush, but it is what it is. The positive part of the story as that this lady will probably put her kids in a position to have better opportunities than she did, but this doesn't mean that in the meantime, someone else's life path will bring them into her place.

What you're espousing is commonly referred to as the "American Dream" and it's no coincidence that an American concept is very self-centered and individualistic (everyone worry about themselves and not others).

[vero95]

This is such an individualistic view and does not look at our population as a whole. Not everyone can benefit from "staying positive". It's just an idealistic way to shrug off the undesirable parts of our system.

There are "bad" or "dead-end" jobs out there. I'm sure that the lady who cleans the offices I work in at night wishes she had a different job. You would just tell her (a middle aged recent immigrant mother with several kids to support) to get an education or job-hop her way to something better. Not only is this very unrealistic, it completely ignores the big picture. Even if she were somehow able to move on to something else, that position of office cleaner still has to be filled. There will always be custodians and secretaries and parking enforcers and what-have-you that we need and you willl never convince me that the people in these jobs are doing what they've always wanted. They are working to live, paying the bills.

These jobs will always exist and people will always fill them. Just because there is a path to get out of those jobs, doesn't mean that that is some kind of solution - it just means the job is vacated for someone else.

I wish I could paint things with a positive brush, but it is what it is. The positive part of the story as that this lady will probably put her kids in a position to have better opportunities than she did, but this doesn't mean that in the meantime, someone else's life path will bring them into her place.

What you're espousing is commonly referred to as the "American Dream" and it's no coincidence that an American concept is very self-centered and individualistic (everyone worry about themselves and not others).

I disagree. first of all there is nothing worse than killing people's dreams and that's what you did
secondly, it's not really a dream. if you want, you will get it. Canada is a great country to accomplish something if you really want it

[Kohanz]

I disagree. first of all there is nothing worse than killing people's dreams and that's what you did
secondly, it's not really a dream. if you want, you will get it. Canada is a great country to accomplish something if you really want it

How can you disagree with something when it's clear you don't really understand what I said?

Again, the whole "if you want, you will get it" view is extremely individualistic and self-centered. If I am stuck in a dead-end job and I work hard to get something better, does that mean that dead-end job ceases to exist? No, it just gets filled by somebody else. What do you tell them? "If you want, you will get it"? So then they move onto something else, and someone else gets hired into the dead-end job. Understand? You are basically focusing on one individual's situation without stepping back and seeing the big picture. Just because a person can move up, doesn't mean there aren't people working in jobs they don't like every single day and there is no permanent solution to that.

There are jobs out there that nobody wants, but somebody has to do. Not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, scientist, or whatever else...

I don't think I'm killing anyone's dreams. This is just the reality of how our system is set up. Is there a better way? I don't know, I doubt it.

I just don't like to paint a rosy picture just so that I don't have to think about some undesirable things that go on in our world.