why my empathy hurts me.

[d0nnivain]

She clams she has tapped all of her contacts but nobody is able to help her.  That part seems off to me.  

I think  was just freaked out about the depth of her tears.  I'm glad she had me as an outlet.  I just wasn't expecting to have to absorb all of that emotion

[preraph]

Any chance she's being blackballed by someone at her last job? If so, she needs to look outside her circle and change who she's putting down for a referral. Put down someone who likes her or just put down HR as a number. If they go to HR all they're going to get is the dates of employment.

[d0nnivain]

She's been self employed for the last 20 years so I doubt she's being back balled.  

I don't think it's the references because she's not getting the interviews.  Also employers have a hesitancy toward hiring previously self employed folks at least that is what a head hunter & job coach told me when I looked for a job last year. 

[preraph]

Oh, that sucks.  I think the job market now, though, should bear fruit for her.  I mean, at least in Texas, it's obvious that people who never worked before are now, so if they can get employed, anyone with talent out to be able to.  I hope she's not a bad interviewee, like maybe either self-deprecating OR self-aggrandizing or something like that.  Have you looked at her resume for her?  Maybe she even needs to add a photo or remove a photo depending what she's applying for.  

 

20 years ago, when I was about 50 and was looking for second jobs, I put a photo for the first time, and I did one outside sitting on the porch but kind of dressed up, just the waist up and I was just looking very approachable.  There's enough anxious people around that sometimes just taking that one step can make a difference, especially to private hirers as opposed to HR hirers.  

[Zapbasket]

The news keeps saying that jobs are aplenty, unemployment is the lowest it has ever been, etc. but if you follow that thread of news there also are reports that suggest the metrics are a bit off: yes, people are "employed" in record numbers, but at the same time fewer and fewer people can keep up with the rising cost of living, as wages have stagnated and the rise of the "gig economy" means a lot of so-called "employment" is nothing more than temp or contract jobs, fewer than 40 hours per week, with no benefits. 

There's quite a bit of lack of compassion on this thread (not from the OP). Sometimes people fall on hard times and it's not their fault. We put a lot of ego and stock into our work identities and so to lose that at middle age is one of the most trying things as well as a huge reason behind upticks in suicides in certain parts of the country. Contacts can be great, if you have them, but if your contacts don't have any opportunities or knowledge of opportunities, they're not much help. It may be a "great economy" (and I'd argue it's not so great for a lot of people), but if you're deemed overqualified, or too old, or not an exact replica of what they have in mind for a particular role in terms of skills and experiences exactly lining up, you're out of luck. 

To help your friend, just be there for her, like it sounds like you already are. You don't have to do her job search for her and I doubt she's expecting you to. There's nothing more insulting than when, months into your job search, someone chipperly tells you to "check out Monster.com! Or Indeed!" Duh, like you haven't been doing that along with every other job applicant. Just treat your friend like the competent adult she sounds like she always has been, and maybe next time anticipate that finding yourself middle-aged and jobless is so terrifying, isolating and depressing that it is sure to bring on a rush of tears. No doubt you'd feel the same if you suddenly found yourself unemployed--it's just that a lot of us know what a bunch of judge-y buggers people can be about being in employment and just don't say anything about their troubles to anyone until they end up going off and killing themselves or sinking into such a deep depression they just slowly disappear from their [not-so-good] friends' radars. I'm sure she doesn't want you or need you to "fix" her situation, or her; she just wants you to treat her with compassion and the recognition that it could be any one of us who could fall on hard times. Unemployment isn't necessarily a sign of weakness, laziness, stupidity, bad character, etc. and yet the tendency is to think that way because it's easier to believe that than to believe that even the best among us is vulnerable to misfortune. We're not really so different, and in our current state of world affairs the evidence suggests we've forgotten that. I've mostly stopped reading or responding on Loveshack, honestly, because of the shift I started to see in people's attitudes: it's a lot meaner than it was a decade ago. Just imo.  

[preraph]

Do you think it's possible that because she was running for office and may want to do so again, that she doesn't want to be seen taking a temporary "to get by" job and that that is why she'd rather be passing it off as just not working right now than it getting around that she's doing something more menial that might look weird on her resume?  And maybe as a couple, they can absolutely afford to go that route.  

[Ellener]

On 1/31/2020 at 2:21 PM, Happy Lemming said:

I had a friend in financial distress, I called up a grocery store in the area, explained the situation and they were able to sell me a "grocery gift card" over the phone and mail it to my friend.  That put a few meals in his stomach and he was grateful.

Good idea. Or just a postcard/encouragement card. I put stamps in one of mine to my son when he was mailing resumes.