Fighting against both race and age discrimination

I was on the trolley coming home this afternoon when two thirty year old (I think) black men starting talking about how all the white people are either pedophiles or drug addicts. I was saddened because they were stereotyping white people just as surely as white people are said to stereotype black people. Not all white people are pedophiles and/or drug addicts, neither are all black people pedophiles and/or drug addicts. When we get to the point where we say...."When we were in our all black neighborhood, things didn't happen like they're happening now...We had discipline, and children respected their parents...or when we were in our all white neighborhood, things didn't happen like they're happening now...We had discipline, and children respected their parents. I got a news flash for you. It's not because the neighborhoods have integrated just like the schools have, that we have the problems we have now. It's because we as a nation have turned our collective backs from God. We took him out of our schools in 1963, and have been filling our children and for some of us our grandchildren with garbage.

Yes, I am showing my age when I say that I long for the times when you could walk safely down the street without worrying about being attacked. I long for the days when everyone who wanted a job could get one and be able to contribute something to society. Part of the reason why things are so messed up is that there are no viable jobs out there that a person can do and feel that they accomplished something with their life. I know there are jobs out there, but I long for the jobs that are no longer there because automation has taken over them. I long for those jobs that showed a person's skill, and that a person could be an apprentice for and have that job for life. Maybe I am old fashioned to yearn for the days when the computer didn't rule our lives...even though it has created tremendous opportunity as well.

I do fight both against race and age discrimination daily as most business have to meet a quota of people of a certain race and age. It just doesn't seem fair.

Struggling against the twin forces of time and space

 You may think that this is a strange title for a post. Yet we all do struggle against time and space in some way or another. For everyone that has been following my saga of struggling to find gainful employment, time is a huge factor. I have been trying to work past my introvert tenancy of keeping to myself and not reaching out to others. It is difficult to expose yourself to the World Wide Web hoping that no one will steal your identity and defame your good name. It is also difficult to find the space you need to work.

Recently I decided to work on starting my own business. One of the biggest obstacles I have is finding space to work in. The space has to be quiet and free of distraction. It has to have the resources I need to do the work. Then there is the factor of time. You have to schedule your time or else you get caught up in stuff you really shouldn't be doing. Anyone who has thought about starting their own business runs across this. How do you find the time?

Research does take a lot of time. You have to decide what services you are going to provide, your target audience and how you are going to provide those services. Setting rates for various services and building clients is all part of growing a business. I know this. I also know that I am a long way from learning all the "ins and outs" of starting a business. I am still looking for someone to help me out here.

Facing fears of being homeless and unemployable is my first step out of the quagmire I find myself in. I have to tell myself daily that the Lord will provide shelter for me, and that I'm not unemployable. I am admittedly impatient to find the right position for my skills and experience that will utilize the skills I've acquired over the years. I am not, like the media would like people to believe, willing to take handouts from the government and not work for them. I am not a bum. I want to work. I just have to get the right person's ear that is willing to give me a chance.

Letting Go and Listening to Others

It is definitely hard to let go of things once you have had your mind set on them. You tell yourself that it will be okay, that you need to let some things go....but it's not easy. For instance I started this week to sign up for work that I can do remotely from my computer. I'm realizing that it may not happen that I get one of those 9 to 5 jobs anymore. I'm also realizing that I'm not comfortable anymore with the corporate life...and I probably never really was. I still would take one if offered, but my last and most recent experience has soured me.

I know I need at least one revenue stream soon. I can't keep going the way I am, fruitlessly searching the Internet for work. I need to be proactive and reach out to others if I'm going to get any revenue coming in. I need to find someone who knows what I'm going through and can direct me to where I should go from here.

Listening to what others have gone through would help me immensely to see what my goals are for this year and how I can tap revenue streams for both the society I'm running and for myself.

The first thing I need to do is stop listening to the negative press about how hard it is for someone like me to find work. I know what my obstacles are to gainful employment and I am currently researching other opportunities to gain revenue by either starting my own business or contracting myself out to companies in the area during what I do best which is document management.

My hardest struggle is trying not to resist advice that I don't want to follow but need to follow. It is very difficult at times for me to expose myself to the world. Yet this is the one thing I need to do in order to promote my services to the outside world.

Have I given up or am I just too tired to fight anymore?

I have been asking myself this question while lying in bed suffering from a cold. Sometimes I think it's that I've just given up. Other times I think it's that I'm too tired to fight anymore. I have struggled to make sense of things, weighing the options and trying to see the big picture. I could give myself an "out" now. I have been pushing myself lately trying to fit in and not succeeding. Then I punish myself when I feel I can't do it anymore.

Is it wrong to want to walk away from it all? I do want to walk away, but I don't. Instead I continue to dream. I know God has something planned for me. I want to be ready to receive what he has for me. Yet I'm also frightened by the unknown. What if I fail again? Would I be willing to pick myself up and start over? I know that is what I really need to start thinking about now. Holding a pity party is not going to help me or anyone else. I need to emphasize my strengths, not my weaknesses. I need to grab opportunities and not wait for them to come to me. I need to deal with threats head on....even when I feel I can't move on.

I don't have time to wallow. I don't have time to get depressed and not do anything. I do have to fight the time wasters in my life...those things that suck the life out of me. I need a plan of action. I need to get back in there and fight.

Stepping forward to face the New Year....a few weeks late

I've had some time over the past few weeks to reassess where my career is going.as I regroup after the loss of yet another job. I know that I need to step forward and face my dwindling finances due to the limited opportunities I've had to work. I also know that I have to stop this "pity party" that I've allowed myself to have. It's not helping. It's actually hurting me and no one else.

I took a brave step today and signed on to a freelance site. I don't know what will happen with it. I just know that I'm not getting anywhere "spinning my wheels" hoping for that elusive administrative assistant job. They are just not out there for me, and the fact is that I'm not sure I want to go back to the corporate "rat race" either.

Pressure is on me to do something...yet I've already made two bad choices in regards to my current job search. I am finding that I really do have to find out about the company culture before accepting the job. This is key...because if you hate where you're working....you're not going to last long. I didn't.

So what do I do now? Continue to press forward with my research....finding both for profit and non-profit companies I can work with...and try out this freelancing stuff. Who knows? Maybe I'll find my niche with it.

Pushing Forward and Researching Prospects

First week of moving forward with two projects that may or may not pan out. As I may have mentioned in this blog, I am finding that my tendency now is to look at what I call "time wasters" and not at the whole picture. When I do weigh in the human factor, I find that most organizations have a tendency to either overwork the poor souls left in the company or give them meaningless work just to keep them on the payroll. Most organizations also are fiercely protective of their brand, their processes and the bottom line. Even though the people within the organization pride themselves in their workers, some don't really value them.

Analyzing workflow often reveals the importance an organization places on their workers. Do they allow them breaks? What are the time restraints and what tools does a person have to meet deadlines? Time wasters are those tasks done to no one's benefit. They could be printing and storing reports that no one reads or re scanning material that should already be in the system. One of the things that I noticed that I can do is analyze workflow, particularly document management workflow, to see if there are any flaws, improvements and/or breaches in the current workflow. I am now researching prospects to see if there are companies interested in an outsider analysis of their current processes-specifically document management processes with an emphasis on cost containment and productivity analysis.

Resolving issues with connecting one group to another group in regards to both historical resources and sites is the second project. I am finding that there are connection issues that are now being resolved, but more needs to be done. Time is unfortunately running out with this project as the one group's members are disappearing and the other group's members are becoming more and more alienated from the core due to a number of factors. There has to be a "marriage" of sorts between the old and new technology to reach the latter group before its too late. So I'm pushing forward and researching what I can do, what resources I'll have available and reaching out to others.

A New Year, A New Challenge

Yes, I finally "bit the bullet" and let my supervisor know what was going on. The result was very predictable. I was told that there was nothing they could do and offered to "let me go." I accepted. There was nothing else I could do. So now my challenge is to find that elusive job that utilizes the skills and abilities that I have acquired over the past almost two years that I haven't had gainful employment. The very first thing is to stop the negative "I just wasn't good enough" charade right now. I did an adequate job, but it just wasn't something I wanted to do for a long period of time.

I also know now what industries I don't want to get involved with any longer. Insurance and telemarketing companies...both bad news as far as I'm concerned. This still leaves quite a few industries I might want to try my hand in. There is the sad but true fact that I'm still in a financial crisis with no money coming in. I can't dwell on it though. I must take up the challenge of exploring my options and praying for something to come along that will engage me enough to want to work full time.

I can't believe that there are only part time jobs available for someone like me. I refuse to believe that, even though this is what I've been getting the past two times.