What was your dream growing up before life kicked you in the nuts/vag?

My life is a strange one. I've always had this idea in my head of being a boss. The reason probably boils down to my family owning a sheet metal fabrication company in PA. (I've worked there for 20 years). Aside from that general idea of being a boss, I've never really had any dreams about a career. I was an intelligent kid that breezed through school, so things were never really hard for me to do. That held until I finally encountered trigonometry in high school. I bombed miserably. Unfortunately, having things always be easy in my life, I didn't like that I naturally did badly at trig, so I just refused to ever learn it. I wish I had the mentality to take it as a challenge and persevere.

Anyway, I was a dutiful employee at my family business. I rose through the ranks until eventually becoming the Vice President of the company. It was a title in name only, and I never really had any power to make any positive changes in the company. That lasted until this month when my wife, daughter and I moved from PA to Hawaii. I haven't even started looking for a job yet, and have no idea at all what I want to do. I've thought about working at the post office or UPS being a driver. Walking around in this beautiful area all day sounds fun, plus it will be like working out while getting paid to do it. Getting in to better shape as a direct result of working seems like a great idea. I've never been the type of person that has many friends but I have no fear speaking to anyone. Not really sure how those two things go hand in hand, but they do none the less.

Anyway, my neighbor runs a TV station out here. I'm thinking about asking him if there's any entry level positions available. I've never thought about working in the entertainment market, but that could be fun as well. At the same time, maybe I should go to a career councilor. I really have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life.

If you do look for a job with the USPS know that as of a couple years ago they started really fucking new people.

My wife started a couple years ago there as a letter carrier (forget the title) with a starting pay of like $22.50/hr. After a month or two, they got rid of that position and created a new one called CCA. Exact same job, new title... and new wages, now it was $16.50/hr. They bumped her down to that, which was shitty.

After about a year and a half they "promoted" her to full-time regular, which used to start out at $22.50/hr so she thought she'd get a raise. Nope, they lowered the base pay of that to $16.50/hr as well. It would've taken her something like 8 years working there just to get up to the old base pay of $22.50 that she originally started at.

If I sound bitter about the USPS, I am. They did some really shitty things to her.

They're also bleeding money and have been for some time so it's no surprise.

Khane_sl said:

They're also bleeding money and have been for some time so it's no surprise.

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They arent really bleeding money. The issue is that they have to make really unreasonable payments into its retirement system now to make it viable for like 70 years. That is why they are fucking new people out of the retirement system/pay scale The Postal service moves a TON of packages they still make a ton of money. The two real problem exist in the aformentioned retirement system payments and the continued maintainence of the stupid little LLVs that they bought 15 ish years ago, that were supposed to last 15 years.


Source: My Wife's parents are pretty high on the USPS totem pole, they love to dredge on and on about the financials of the USPS system.

Yep. Unfortunately for my wife, even though she was hired at the right time ($22.50/hr) she was bumped down because LOL WHO CARES ABOUT NEW PEOPLE.

It would've been fine if they didn't screw her after she had already been working for awhile. It seemed shady as fuck the way they did it.

A lot of career people ended up just flat-out quitting when that happened to.

Also, the USPS has a very high turnover rate.

I had to deal with them over a package problem, it was worse than a cable company. There's like no way to reach anyone who will do anything.

USPS reports $586 million net loss in Q3

They've slowed the bleeding, but uh... yea.

I remember my wife's LLV breaking down every other day, and it was a different vehicle everyday too

Noodleface_sl said:

Yep. Unfortunately for my wife, even though she was hired at the right time ($22.50/hr) she was bumped down because LOL WHO CARES ABOUT NEW PEOPLE.

It would've been fine if they didn't screw her after she had already been working for awhile. It seemed shady as fuck the way they did it.

A lot of career people ended up just flat-out quitting when that happened to.

Also, the USPS has a very high turnover rate.

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Would you just prefer if they went immediately bankrupt instead of cutting the pay for the work?

Tenks_sl said:

Would you just prefer if they went immediately bankrupt instead of cutting the pay for the work?

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It was a brand new job, we had no investment in the USPS at that point so it didn't really matter to me.

An organization that the tracking only tells you when you already have the package. Going bankrupt...no can't be.

Mist_sl said:

I really just wanted to run a gaming store, maybe build some PCs. Maybe get a job in software development if I could find a company doing something I was interested in.

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Sigh,

Use to money from the job to do the things you love. Quit trying to make work a thing you love. Work ruins hobbies.

radditsu_sl said:

Work ruins hobbies.

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This is the only reason I'm not in the adult film biz

Khane_sl said:

This is the only reason I'm not in the adult film biz

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You could make millions with a coat-hanger dick.

Mist_sl said:

The problem is I don't switch modes. Even though I hate my job, if I know that there's work left that needs to get done, I will just think about it constantly until I go do it.

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I had that problem for a long time. Then I had a divorce, and another marriage, and then Kids. Three things that actively wreck you if you can't mode switch. I COULD be at a higher pay grade/ responsibility in my field..but ehh, fuck it. I do my job well enough to still like it. I got the absolute luck of having a boss who does not bother me about anything, so I get to post on a 3rd rate video game forum most of the day.

That may seem like a blessing but it really isn't. I've been getting paid to basically play video games and post here for the better part of 6 months, I'm starting to lose all ambition AND my skillset because I'm just not doing anything. If this contract ends abruptly I'm going to have to almost completely retrain myself before I feel comfortable interviewing again.

Luckily this contract has also given me a 2-3 year expenses covered savings cushion.