#plus I'm 33 and my resume is scarce because I was never able to do a summer job

[greentrickster]

You want to know something wild? If it paid a proper, living wage and didn’t come with a ridiculous 12-hour workday and possibly swing-shift, and had proper breaks, my ideal job would probably be some sort of factory work. Swear to anything you care to name, I did a stint in a factory my dad used to work for one summer and I loved it. The people who were my bosses were friendly and polite, I liked the semi-mindless nature of the work and also that it gave me some decent physical exertion, and my creativity went through the roof that summer! I had to wear hearing and eye protection, a safety helmet, protective gloves, and a high-visibility vest, that was the kind of job it was, and I still enjoyed it so much! I was really sad when the summer was over and I had to leave it. I actually tried to get re-hired as a full-time worker (the program I’d been in was legit just a summer thing for employee’s kids), and I made it through the preliminary application, but then they had us do one of those computer survey/test things that everyone on this site knows are bad and I didn’t make it past that stage. Even though people already working for the company knew me and, if they’d been asked, would have been able to confirm I was a hard worker who would be a good hire. -_-*

Basically, what I’m saying is, there are people out there, people like me, who would actually very much love to be doing factory work. I even liked working the cash register for retail work when I first started doing it - it wasn’t the baseline job that made me quit, it was the pay, the way the customers treated me, and the way upper management treated me (I only had problems with one of our floor managers, and even our store manager was a pretty goof egg, I’m talking corporate). There are people like me who genuinely want to do those ‘low grade’ jobs. It’s not the baseline service that bad, there’s nothing inherently bad about working a cash register or semi-mindless factory work, those jobs only become bad when the pay and treatment you receive for doing them are bad.

#my thoughts #currently I'm unemployed for physical and mental health reasons #and have been since 2016 #some of them were pre-existing but my stint in retail pushed me to the breaking point with both #which upsets me because I seriously liked working the register when the customers were polite #currently counting my blessings that my parents can support me #while I get myself into a state where I can take another shot at this whole gainful employment thing #it doubly sucks because I really want to be self-sufficient and eventually move out #but that retail job left me genuinely scared I may never have the mental or physical fortitude to do that #plus I'm 33 and my resume is scarce because I was never able to do a summer job #school always left me too tired - I needed the recovery time and it was still barely enough #'the fear is real' may be a meme but it's also very true