So last friday was my last day at Toys R Us as a seasonal employee, they had us seasonals come in for a whole 2 hours last week to prepare for inventory and then let us go. I knew it was coming, but it still sucks because now I get to do the tedious process of finding a new job again. Unfortunately I don't even know what I should be applying for right now. Obvious its the worst time of the year to find retail work, but my job experience is all over the place and unfortunately none of it has been for longer than 6 months.
My first job was back in 2004 working as a security guard, that lasted for 3 months before I got sick of the schedule they had me doing getting off work at Midnight on Sunday, and going back to work 24 hours later for a Midnight-8am shift(Which often had someone after me call in sick, resulting in many Midnight-Noon shifts). Doing that every week with a horrible sleep schedule was just awful.
After that I went to work security at an amusement park, which they had me working the Water Park gate during the summer which was boring but not too bad, but that ended when the summer did. I was still technically an employee but had no hours, so I went to get a job elsewhere and found another security job elsewhere that resulted in only one weekend of work watching a vacant building with no fire alarm system. I was basically there just to be able to call 911 in case it caught on fire and sat in my car alone reading and got paid. For some reason they stopped scheduling me after that one weekend, possibly due to me leaving both nights before the person relieving me showed up. I was not informed that their was a person coming after my shift, and I did wait 15 minutes after each day just incase before I left but they were late and I got chewed out for it. So I went back to the amusement park where I never quit or was let go to see what they had available, and worked as a ride operator for a couple months, which I ended up quitting due to getting very few hours at the end because they closed the outdoor attractions when it rained.
Following that job I took a job with a company doing inventory at places. Went through training, and quit... They didn't schedule me the hours I was told I would get in the interview process, and it was a job I really didn't want to do after going through the training process anyways. I was getting too stressed out and was the slowest person at scanning things in the training group because I kept counting everything exactly before inputting it. They kept telling me to just estimate to make it go faster since it didn't need to be 100% accurate, but for whatever reason I was deadset on doing everything accurately since why estimate when everything is right in front of you anyways? But doing that I noticed how much slower I was than everyone else in training and I was just getting too stressed out.
2005 and 2006 sucked, as I was broke and mostly jobless. For the most part I made my money driving around my Grandma's friend and helping them at the grocery store and taking them to the bank and getting $20 for a hour or twos work. I worked at Denny's for one day in 2006 as a dishwasher, and didn't know why I took the job at all since I hate the feeling of slimy stuff on my hands. Ended up quitting and walking out midshift. Tried to go back to the amusement park in 2006 and get a job since they had a jobfair for the grand reopening. Went through the hassle of getting my food handlers permit so they could have me doing food prep, which consisted of putting chicken strips and burgers in paper baskets. I wasn't even cooking any of it. Worked on their reopening day, was told my supervisor would call me with my schedule, and they never called. They never scheduled me, and never returned my calls. I still don't know what the deal there was.
2007 I finally got around to getting a decent job again, Got a job delivering auto parts that I rather liked as most of the time I was alone and listening to music. Unfortunately I kept nodding off at the wheel despite getting 8-10 hours of sleep most nights and loaded with caffeine. After a month and a half of it and way too many close calls I called and had to have them take me off the schedule and got a doctor's appointment about it and finally got my Sleep Apnea diagnosed, which my Mom had suspected I had for quite a while from the way I snore, she has it as well. I was nodding off at the wheel so much that it was only a matter of time before I had an accident. After many doctor's appointments and a couple months I finally got a CPAP machine to use while sleeping and it was working so I called my work and informed them that I could work again. It was fine again for a month and then I had a week where I got 2 tickets and an accident and quit. The job had me driving my own car, and I could not afford to fix it and didn't trust it to the 150 miles a day I was doing.
So I was jobless again for a few months while I had the money to pay my bills, but ended up getting an interview over at Toys R Us because a friend of mine works there and worked seasonal there as a cashier in electronics for a couple months.
And now here I am jobless again and in desperate need of an income with bills to pay. My job experience is inconsistent. I don't have any kind of college degree or formal training. And I really don't know where to look right now. But I need to find something, I just don't even know what to look for right now. The job I enjoyed the most was a driving job which with my record now I probably wouldn't get hired at most places, and I'm still driving around my totalled car that runs but not very well. Is there anything out there that requires little contact with other people that doesn't take experience or schooling? Preferably that still has me actually doing something(Unlike Security, which from what I did was mostly standing/walking around) so its not completely boring. Just need to get some ideas here of anything I could look into because I'm just clueless right now.
Sorry for the long post...
12 Jan 2008, 7:10 am
