No one said you were lazy or unmotivated. But I don’t want to subsidize the mortgage of anyone. Owning a home and having an affordable mortgage are neither constitutional nor fundamental human rights. Being down on your luck does not alter that. Is that so hard to understand?

Because you asked, I live in PA and I worked in the hospitality industry in a financial capacity for about 15 years before being cut loose.

Also the USPS does not pay $17/hr to start anything.

2nd and 3rd shift sorting and distribution jobs start at $11.
And temp letter carrier gigs start at $12 for rural and $13 for urban all with no bennies.
(I only know because I tested for both and tons will come out for one temp. position for $13/hr with no bennies and no guarantee of schedule or how many hours a week)

I will continue to lurk but I doubt I will post as clearly TML has his own agenda that is not open to other opinions and has offered nothing but rhetoric on this topic.
I still fully believe only someone who has gone through these issues or who is going through them can understand the mindset and frustration.

Obviously he cannot seem to grasp the issue that needing assistance or help does not make someone a “Fool of Finance” or a system milker. But that is how he portrays people in these situations regularly. And it’s incorrect, biased, and bigoted.

MasterPo thanks for you point of view.

I too have gotten the “what can you do to prove you won’t leave us for a better job” question (and that was when the ecomony was roaring!”.

IMO, you have two choices to answer that:

1) Say “If and when the economy does turn around significantly, and if I do choose to leave at that time, it will be no problem for you to hire a wewll qualified person to replace me. In the mean time, you know I need this job so you know I’m going to do all I can to keep it when I get it.”

2) Say “What guarantees can YOU give ME that you won’t let me go in a couple of weeks? Or merge with some one else? Or relocate out of town? Or out source my function? It works both ways.”

Yea, #2 is a bit more combative but if you don’t think you’re going to ge the job why not try it?

pps- If going from $8 trillion to $14+ trillion in debt and rising with no signifincant results (unemp is STILL at 9.7% even though Obama PROMISED if stimulus was passed it wouldn’t go over 8%! I have the link to the Washington Post editorial – can you imagine an American President writing a Post editorial?!?! – where he says it) is a good move, get a job teaching economics.

Actually no they don’t.

First of all the USPS has a moratorium on F/T hiring for carriers. All they are for hiring for is P/T fill-ins that will get you two days a week, or three tops.

I’ve sat for the last two tests that were somewhat close to me, 22 and 29 miles away respectively, and each had over 100+ people sitting for test for the P/T two or three day a week position.

They start you off by telling you that this job will never go F/T and that once the USPS gets permission to drop Saturday delivery they will start cutting the P/T fill in carriers by seniority from the least experienced on up.

At my local post office they have not hired a F/T carrier since 1998.

It’s like any job, no F/T work and a few P/T or temp things are out their if you test with crazy amounts of people. Needless to say I didn’t get either job.

“BTW, taking a pay cut to get back into your chosen line of work – well, if that’s what you need to do…”

I’ve tried that too with no success yet. I’ve gotten the you’re overqualified line a lot. Or my favorite came from a large regional hospital, “We require ROI from our new hires, Lefty what guarantees can you give us that when the economy turns around you won’t bolt for a better paying position. Because quite frankly no one with your experience would stay in a job like this”.

As for your PS, my point is still that TML is way off base in his thinking that the government has down enough to help people out of the situation that they helped to put us in with lax rules and regulations of the financial sector.

It’s like I tell my kids, “If you are old enough to make the mess, you are old enough to clean up your mess”.

As for your PPS, the ship had already sunk before Obama got to the scene. It would be more like the first captain fell asleep at the wheel and hit an iceberg that sank the ship.

When the captain of the rescue fleet got to the scene he opted to give tours of the wreckage and blame the first captain instead of helping.

Speaking of which, I only used that as an example. The point being to get your butt out there and start some sort of cash in flow to at least slow your financial down fall until you can find something more along the lines of what you want.

Right now based on your posts you have ZERO cash inflows. A little is better than none at all.

I repeat myself: If you have gone this long with out ANY job the problem is YOURS.

I 100% agree to keep looking for whatever job your really want (what do you do by the way??). But if you have nothing now surely you can get SOME kind of job. Maybe just a night warehouse thing that will let you go on interviews during the day?

BTW, taking a pay cut to get back into your chosen line of work – well, if that’s what you need to do…

Remember what the Ferengi say: “Pride and an empty purse is worth only the empty purse.”

ps- Let’s not get away from TML’s point either: If you’re sooooooooooooo deep in the hole then sell the house, move some place cheaper. Maybe even relocate to where better job prospects are. You can always buy a house again later. It’s not the end of the world. People have done far more for far less. I agree it isn’t pleasent. I’d hate to have to make that choice too. But I accept the reality of the situation.

pps- As for Obama: Suppose you’re in a sinking boat. The Captain jumps over and starts swimming away. Someone else climbs in. You say “We’re sinking! Something has to be done!” So the new person start making holes in the bottom of the boat. You say “WTF are you doing?!?!?” and he replies “*SOMETHING* has to be done and I’m doing it!”

Let’s not revise history. Everything tanked under the watch of The Shrub and neither he nor the GOP did anything either. Sort of a Nero with his fiddle on top of the White House while watching the economy burn.

I’m not saying that Obama has got it right, but please don’t start by mentioning Obama without bringing up The Shrub and his advisors who allowed things to slide.

“what about a car?”

Car is paid for. Don’t care about that.

“Lefty, if you’ve been unemployed totally for over a year and are in such desperate financial shape they fault is yours.”
“If you are THAT deep in a hole why haven’t you taken at a minimum a part time job? Or 2 or 3 part time jobs?”

First of all what blue collar jobs are you talking about?
The difference between now and ’01 is that now pretty much no one is hiring.

No USPS jobs, No UPS jobs, No Union jobs. All of those avenues have been tried and exhausted and I’ve got a family connection that is fairly high up the Teamster food chain and the answer is no one is hiring in the PA, NJ area. Either there is nothing or places are still letting people go.

I’ll give you an example of a current hiring scenario.

About two months ago I go through two phone screens and two interviews with a company for a good paying white collar gig.
Eventually on the third interview I’m seated with the hiring manager and the Director of HR. The HR guy explains that it’s me against another person and we are like two similar apples. And why would this company pay more for an apple than they have to.

He then says that they are going to have a bid for the job. Which ever person bids the lowest will get the job. He tells me that I should start at least 10% under what we talked about for compensation and 20% below what they posted the position pays on their website.

Needless to say, I didn’t get the gig. I guess I didn’t go low enough.

The company was Olympus.

So in the real world, not in TML land, companies are using shady hiring practices when they do hire and obviously most aren’t.
And by the way Master Po, be freaking serious working at Wendy’s isn’t paying the mortgage if you live in the NorthEast.

As tough as it is, if you are sitting around waiting and hoping for someone in Washington to wave their pen and *POOF* the salad days of great jobs magically re-appears you’re only fooling yourself. Get use to 9%-10% or more unemp for YEARS to come! Obama and his magic no-new-jobs recovery. (Certianly should make you stop and think: WHO is doing all this recovering if no one has a good new job?!)

Lefty – If you’re going that route with your house, what about a car? Surely someone in your position has a tough time making their car loan or lease payments, not to mention buying insurance and gas. Expect DC to help with that too?

Lefty, if you’ve been unemployed totally for over a year and are in such desperate financial shape they fault is yours.

I can say that because I’ve been there. I was one of the thousands of New Yorkers who lost their job shortly after 9/11. And IT was especially hit hard! I was out of work for 8 months. Longest period in my life. Even the Bush unemployment extension was about to run out for me. So I took a crappy blue collar labor job. Nearly killed me physically and emotionally. But it paid more than Wendy’s. Worked there for nearly 4 years while still trying to find an IT job. I even moved up the ranks a bit to being a supervisor (no great promotion, trust me on that!).

But the point is I didn’t just sit around waiting and hoping and mailing resumes.

If you are THAT deep in a hole why haven’t you taken at a minimum a part time job? Or 2 or 3 part time jobs?

It’s not fun I’m sure.

But is loosing your house better?!?!