This job search of mine has led me to some interesting places. There was the office that looked like it was straight out of 1986, with dusty-rose-colored walls and a phone that might have well have had a rotary dial (I believe the phone in this dingy, industrial office was the very first touch-tone model ever). There was the interviewer who made it clear that she didn’t like me before I even sat down (she thought I wanted a more “creative” job; I just wanted any job). And there was the part-time college test proctor position that I couldn’t even get a callback on (I’m pretty sure a trained monkey could have performed that job).
And after all of the resumes I’ve sent out, the place that really seems to want me now is 40 minutes from my house and offers zero benefits. Yep, I’d be a temporary-but-permanent employee. I’d wear one of the company’s uniform shirts in an office position but I wouldn’t really be an employee of the company itself; I’d be a contractor. And did I mention that the company had three employees killed on the job in the past two years due to the firm’s own negligence?
This is what it’s like to search for a job in America now. It’s depressing, it’s demoralizing, and it makes you wonder why you even went to college. Right now, I’m also half-contemplating going back to school for even more time and money, but I’m wondering what field to even get a master’s degree in. I can easily picture myself with a master’s degree and the same slim prospects that I have now. On an interview several years ago, I found out that one of my prospective co-workers had her master’s, and the job was barely paying double-digits per hour.
I looked up contract jobs today and I found an article from 2014 that said that many workers, especially older ones, are getting trapped in these temporary positions. Some of them are permanently temporary and others have a set end date. More and more companies are willing to add “jobs” but they’re not willing to offer 401(k)s, paid time off or health insurance. And that means that workers’ savings are being wiped out and that many people are also going to have to work until they’re about 80 years old.
I’d tell people not to accept these poor excuses for jobs, but I know that people need to eat. They have families to support. It’s not easy to find a job to begin with, so if someone offers you a chance, you might feel like you have to take it.
But as for me, I have to hope that there’s something else out there. Even if that hope is quickly running out.
It’s easy for many hiring managers and recruiters to think that these people and these jobs don’t matter when the managers themselves are making a good income and have benefits, but I just wish companies would step back and look at the toll these contract positions are taking on their lowest-level (and often hardest-working) employees.
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