Quest for employment: The hunt begins.

If life were a video game I could just go outside and take a sword to small wild creatures I find while walking along... money, hides, and random bits of protective clothing would fall out of the small animal's corpse and i could go to an auction house and sell it for little pieces of gold. That would be awesome.

Unfortunately, real life doesn't work that way, and even if it did it wouldn't add anything to my Social Security. Bummer.


Now in the past I have found my jobs mostly through friends and family members. I get hired out of pity or as a favor and then i prove myself through hard work, dedication and a commitment to doing the best job for my employer that i possibly can.

OR I got my job through people who knew me at one of my jobs and proceeded to brag me up big time until someone else tried to steal me away.

The problem is that I am now a decade out of the work force and I have no connections. My network, locally, is almost non-existent. The folks I knew who owned businesses and employed me in the past are mostly out of business (booo bad economy) or retired. The folks who had good jobs and could pull strings are also retired. Yay for hitting an age where a lot of your friends and family are retired, haha!!

Now in the past when I didn't pull strings to get a job I had a pretty good resume of entry level jobs to hold up and show off (Look! I will do anything legal that I am physically capable of doing for almost no money! How can you beat that deal??), as well as some glowing references that were pretty current. Several of THOSE references are now, sadly, deceased.

Wow, if they aren't retired they are.... yikes.

And the ones remaining haven't seen or heard from me in 10 to 20 years and knew me under my previous married name.

This leaves me in a quandary. I don't want to work in a deli, that is what ruined my arms in the first place. I'll do anything I am physically capable of doing, though I would prefer to not handle money (so no cashier jobs, unless it is in a small business type environment which is NOT fast paced in any way) and I absolutely will not under any circumstances ever accept a job in childcare ever ever ever no matter how well it pays ever. So how do I sell myself as a good employee to people in careers where i have no professional experience OR have no living references to back up that experience?


Well, as soon as I have a full tank of gas again I am going to make an appointment to go to MichiganWorks.


My Mother-In-Law found her job through them, they helped her get a decent resume and might be able to hook me up with career training to get me into a new career.

So, my friends, wish me luck. And if you hear of someone close to me looking to hire someone, let me know. *grin*