2006: A Cruel Joke!

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I don't want to sound like I'm whining. Hope that's clear in your minds.
Laid off in March of this year, I exhausted my unemployment benefits as I continued to search for work fruitlessly. I am thankful for my support system, though. I couldn't have made it without them. I would have ended up living in a basement somewhere, doing odd jobs. I found a job delivering flowers full time, and I found out how poor my night vision is, and didn't think I could drive in Detroit's inner city at night. That job lasted four days. Now I'm working in a sign shop 30 miles away from home, and they are getting frustrated with me because they are foreign and I can't follow their accents to follow instructions. I ask them to repeat themselves, and they blow up at me. I ride with a few of them to a far-away site to install graphics, I ask them not to smoke until we get to the site, and it's "Who the **** are you?!" only to get picked on by them for the remaining five hours...not getting home till almost 11:30 at night...only to wake up the next day to be at work at 6:00 am, expected to function! Everybody's mad at me! What did I do? The big boss called me into his office yesterday, to warn me that if I don't shape up, he will let me go. He told me at the outset that everybody smokes, they all speak their native language, run around fighting and screaming at each other and customers, and it's raucous and noisy there. I can't get the smell of smoke out of my clothes, and my back problems (I have 2 herniated discs) are aggravated by being on my feet for 9+ hours a day, and leaning over a 3-1/2 foot table to weed lettering, which they are telling me they can do in 2 minutes what takes me 20 minutes!
But this is MICHIGAN. The economy is awful here, and I can't just quit! HELP ME!

Pack up yer bags, and come on out to sunny Arizona ! !!

Everywhere I go, there's a sign saying "Now Hiring." Even the contractors, who usually have all the help they need, have signs on their trucks. I sympathiaize with the back problem thing, only mine is a curvature that hurts when I try to do too much. The cost of living out here is reasonable, but don't count on belonging to any union. AZ only has three unions that they allow to negoiate wages. Oh, and you'll need some remedial Spanglish, just to know what yer fellow employees really think of you...

It IS cheaper to live here in Phoenix than New York or L.A.
Work is easy to find but pay is actually low, housing is higher than you would imagine it should be [1bdrm apts are hard to find at $500 (but can be done) and can go as high as $1500] Houses start at $200,000 unless you like the ghetto or get really lucky.
Gas today is $2.19
Milk is $3
Insurance rates are obscene.
You WILL have things stolen.
Anyone over the age of 21 with a valid drivers liscence can OPENLY carry a handgun.
The drivers here suck!
Methlab explosions don't even make the news.
I have seen so many job listings state "no experience necessary,send resume, starting pay $8/hr." and you WILL be drug tested.
In Jan. the minimum wage will be $6.75/hr (welcome to the new Los Angeles)
Benifits are almost non-exestint.
It's hard here, but not like Detroit at all.
Believe it or not I actually really like it here.

Oh by the way, it's a little cold out today, Like 75f !
There are lots of good things here too.
I just wanted you to be more informed.
Didn't want to sound like a total as*hole.

Consider packing your bags and moving to Alabama, ShirtPuppet. I am not joking--if you think Alabama is filled with just a bunch of backwater hicks dressed in overalls strumming "Dixie" on a banjo while shouting racist epithets, think again. Tens of thousands of Mexicans and Guatemalans certainly didn't worry too much about that when they emigrated to Alabama en masse to work in construction and factories. The truth is that there are more jobs available here in Alabama than can be filled, and at all levels of skill and ability and areas of personal interest. Everything is so inexpensive here that even though your salary may be low, your salary will go a very long way. Unlike in Phoenix, AZ, nice houses, cars, and simple household items are much more affordable. Except for property taxes, taxes are low. If you are interested, Birmingham has a great arts and entertainment scene (Ruben Studdard, Bo Bice, and Taylor Hicks are from there.) In northwest Alabama there are mountains available for hiking and along the coast you have pristine beaches and inexpensive lodging. I know someone who recently moved here from Chicago. In Chicago, he could barely afford an apartment making $40,000 a year. Now he is making $12,000 a year in Alabama and is renting a family-size house all to himself. As for me, I am 19 and with my current job, I could quit school and live comfortably, though I don't want to (quit school).

And if you were ever in the auto business, let me let you in on a little secret, Shirtpuppet: the auto industry is leaving Detroit but it's not leaving the United States!

Ever heard anybody say America can't build a good car? Well forget about that. Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Hyundai? They're all manufacturing vehicles right here in Alabama. Check out these links:

http://www.toyota.com/about/operations/ ... index.html
http://www.mbusi.com/
http://es.dir.alabama.gov/local/Hyundai/index.html
http://www.hondaalabama.com/

That's clever!

2006 has been a cruel joke for me, as well. It's been that way for a different reason. I've had to deal with the loss of my First Dream, which was to ride the Routemasters all through London. I've felt dead inside, everytime I've read the numbers, 2006 in that exact order. It's gotten better, since I've started on my Second Dream. I've been wanting my own place, and now I live on my own. I know that you can't really relate to this, but 2006 has been a joke for me, for a different reason than it's been a joke for you. I think we've both had a very rough year.

I wonder how many more people had a rough year.

This has been a good year for me!

Shirtpuppet - The same thing as Phoenix in Salt Lake City, UT. People are desperate to find employees. The unemployment rate here is seriously like 2% (it was on the news the other night). Cost of living is reasonable, too.