Job Red Alert!

Post Reply New Topic

i thought vermont had universal health care? for a few years now. so you will be able to live your dream as long as your old bones will allow. if you didn't have internet, then we would not be able to talk together

The biggest obstacle to finding and maintaining decent work for me is location, location, location. Virtually every career path in my region [which includes two other nearby U.S. states, aside from my current state] pays far below the national average. I would love to go back to school and get into civil engineering, but honestly I can make more money as a bartender around here, and avoid hefty student loans in the process. I'm not working right now, though bars are open locally, due to the pandemic. Since I live with an older relative, my expenses are covered for now and I'm still serving, cooking, and cleaning much of the day with no commute! lol

Whelp I'd buy the updated Mars Dome, two of them, and get somebody to rig them up to utilities on an acre or ten. Then you could come live in your own Dome. We'd be far enough away we couldn't hear each other but we could have a wifi network and use it to game and text. Perfect Aspie arrangement! I'd be high all the time and not much help with anything though I'm afraid.

*Mars Dome is a real 320' living space, a dome, with 12 hours set-up time. It costs $20k and includes bathroom and enough space to live. We might start like a commune for Aspies with more domes popping up all the time. They would have to be 420-friendly and have some kind of dough to afford dome life.

That is an ideal arrangement if you can avoid drinking, that is where most bartenders lose it. I think the occupation sounds fine and the money is good, the only niggle is can you avoid the temptation of free booze. I have never known a bartender that is not an alcoholic. However if it is just a stepping stone type of situation then save your dough and eventually you may find another arrangement. One thing for sure you meet a lot of people, and I guess the right one might hook you up with another job in return for, I dunno, information or just friendship.

that sounds like a splendid idea

Yea, that's the beauty of it, I rarely drink, it's not my D.O.C. I'd smoke cannabis if it was legal down here, but since it isn't yet, I'd just been saving about half of my tips. The cool thing is that I do have a fairly well stocked bar at home, so when I take a drink [maybe 20-25 times a year], I can make fine mixed drinks and not have to worry about designating a driver [I have twice had DD's who got drunk after they said they would remain sober and drove us to a concert/restaurant/bar]. I make very good tips because I work very hard, and make guests feel as if they're taken care of, so they take care of me. It makes it easy to save up money for times like this, where I'm not working. I rarely meet any good connections for anything, but I do meet some very nice, hardworking blue collar folks who are usually fun people to talk to.

Allrighty, give me a year or so to settle affairs, and I'll get the land + a Dome for me. You have to be BYOD. (Bring Your Own Dome).

Yep cannabis is my lifelong fave, I miss the total relaxation, deep vibe, in the mother's womb feeling of wake-n-bake, keeping a baseline buzz going all day long.

Bartending does seem an unusual occupation for an aspie, but I guess before jumping to conclusions I should ask if you even are one, because this forum does have all kinds. Maybe it is just the type of thing you get used to doing it and after a while it becomes really easy even for an aspie.

A-men, brother.



More or less, and yes I am. I am a social butterfly, but rarely make long lasting friendships. Bartending was a great way to meet people and to give in to the love of repetitive tasks [and forced eye contact only when necessary]. From there, I moved on to learning how to cook and how to run a kitchen. I can hear my uncle even now, "That's such a waste of your intelligence," but aside from my mother, they never were supportive of any of my endeavors. I would have preferred something more suited to academic pursuits like civil engineering or meteorology, but it just wasn't meant to be in this time, in this part of the country, in this lifetime. I'd be pretty damned close to complete if I could get a good burn once or twice a day, but I think that even these crooked conservative southerners will eventually give in to the cannabis economy. Tourism's all we got, and that's drying up like a mud puddle in the hot August sun, and Tennessee and Georgia are two of the best suited climates for growing hemp.

Times are changing, I live in a red state where Prohibition is very much alive and kicking, and I spoke with a cop that said he thought there was nothing wrong with weed, and if he saw it he would look the other way unless they were doing something else that was bad. Also, he said he planned to grow weed when he retired. That really blew my mind. not only his opinion but that he would tell me, but then again, people know nowadays, many of them, that weed is not physically addictive or even very harmful to the body. The negatives you can bring up are on the mental functioning side, short-term memory decay everyone agrees on, and I would also say less functioning in general. I don't recommend it per se for people working in a serious job with stress and the need for high performance. I find that it really makes me less sharp even for weeks after a single use. But if you are retired, or have an easy job, then I guess light up?

The meterology, civil engineering, I guess those require a four-year degree at a minimum, that can be expensive I imagine. I don't know much about that but I sure am glad I don't have to go to college again.

I have no source even if I wanted to risk the criminal activity, which I don't. As I've said, even slinging drinks for a living, I've never made any good connections for anything around here.



Same here. I don't mind the learning, but I could never afford to pay back any student loans. Virtually every job requiring a four year degree around here [I have an associates degree in media which is also useless around here since I'm not related to anyone by blood or marriage who works in media locally] makes half of the national average, or less. Now the cost of living is about 75-80% of the national average, but you do the math, it's an affordable place to live but I can quite literally make more as a bartender than I could as a civil engineer. I would make more as a meteorologist or even a geologist, but I'd have student loans which make the idea of going back to school cost prohibitive. Not to mention that neither of those careers has much of a future locally, and I'm just too discouraged by the way the working poor are treated in America to want to become nomadic just to pay back my student loans. Most of my problems could be solved if our government would man up and start making the rich work for the poor again. That concept gave America the best economy for the middle class that we ever will have, but even a tiny iota of that could give most of us a reason to keep trying. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I'd been born in another country....

I am the same, I don't know anyone. I have dope sitting around in my freezer that I don't plan to use, I will probably give it to my brother when he comes visit. He can light up any old time, but me, I earn with my mind and have to keep that mind sharp. I fantasize about one day revising my old love Cannabis but that day is not now!



Whelp I know times are tough, you probably have the right idea, again if you can avoid the central pitfall of alcoholism unlike all the other bartenders I have ever known, then you could save up enough dough to really be prepared for anything. Maybe just buy a house of your own and start a business of some kind.

I have a little bit better situation than many and am grateful for it, however I too am going through a painful divorce, painful emotionally and financially, it is going to be all me paying and not getting anything, and my husband already stole the maximum he could get his hands on while I was away at work. Yet another victim story.

And on here I read Aspies complaining, saying oh I'm so lonely, I want to find a girl, guy, whatever the case may be. Be careful what you wish for is all I'm sayin'.

I know you're serious, but this gave me a real belly laugh. I'll never even be able to save up enough cash to pay for a used car without a loan. Not having healthcare and/or being your own doctor and dentist is pretty expensive. I've literally had to buy OTC pet antibiotics in the past because the ones from a pharmacist were just too expensive for me. That's 21st century America, I guess... I'm not concerned about alcoholism, I don't enjoy being drunk, and certainly not the hangovers which accompany overindulgence [to say nothing of the empty calories! I like desserts than beverages.]. It's easier to avoid nipping on the job in this part of the southeast, because where I live one can be given a breathalyzer by overzealous police officers at any given time [this does actually happen, even during business hours while working at a bar] and immediately taken to jail, and lose one's state bartending license.



I am honestly sorry for hearing about your divorce. I hope that things get a bit better for you, if you ever need someone to talk to, I don't mind private messages. Relationship pains are a greater burden to bear than almost any physiological pain [except for tooth pain and a ruptured appendix, those two beat all in my experiences]. I have never seen a relationship in my 36 years of life work extremely well for anyone [without a lot of totally unnecessary suffering and self-sacrifice], I don't know why we even do it to ourselves anymore. Some friendships indeed last forever, but I think that's because friendships give us some time to ourselves, or at least downtime from the friend, no matter how much we care for them. I'm not a relationship guy [marriage or otherwise] so the warning is well heeded and received loud and clear. Sometimes I wish I had the companionship and trust that most relationships offer, but sex and romance just really isn't my cup of tea. I also hated paying for the bad behaviour of a lady friend's exes back when I dated in my 20's.... I do miss the grind of working a bar and/or a kitchen, but it isn't forever, besides taking care of my mother, her house and car, cooking/cleaning and all of our pets is a full-time job in and of itself! Thanks for the kind words of encouragement.

I've read about situations like that, it stinks, I am for health care like they have over in Canada, I think we should hire the Canadians to just come in and fix the health care system, just give them carte blanche. But you know, I also hear from Americans that insist Canadian health care is bad, because they heard something on Fox News or read something somewhere, Then people from Canada don't know any better and fuss about something minor they have to deal with.

If I were you once you are ready family-wise I would move on to a state where weed is legal and maybe you can improve your lifestyle. But you know what is best for you, I love giving advice but half the time there is no point or people take it the wrong way. I just have a practical and pragmatic mindset and want to solve problems, so there I go. But some problems, not necessarily yours, can't be solved and also some people just have to deal or learn on their own. I'm thinking specifically of a case where I gave advice to someone about a sexual practice. They probably took offense.



I'm not into PM's per se, I keep most of my communications out in the public eye, I don't feel a need to get too personal and don't share with others other than the stuff that you see here. I try not to offend others but I'm afraid I don't always succeed due to my fear of being boring...

My guess is your Mom is pleased to have you around. I was on good terms with my parents. We treated each other pretty well even to the end. I misunderstood and thought you were still working but obviously bartending is heavily impacted by the pandemic. I dunno what the solution to employment for you and many others may be, don't have any brainstorms for you on that score, it seems to me that our country and the West in general is devolving into a dangerous and unique phase where labor is no longer valued, and maybe lifestyles are going to subside to where they were through much of human history, back to the 1600s, say, before the labor movements ever came into existence, before workers had any benefits.

If that is the case then what people did back then was pin their hopes upon marriage and upon inheritance, I reckon that little glimmer of opportunity survives in the new world we have. Also, it makes no sense to procreate, but you can't tell that to anyone, they do it anyway because they're programmed. I don't mean to be depressing but yeah.

Amen, I'm given to understand that there are almost as many ignorant conservatives in Canada as there are here... ALMOST!



Again, I couldn't afford to start out anywhere on my own, and this is the only place in the USA where my mother can afford to pay off a house before she retires [she'd wanted to smoke cannabis again after she retired, and she may be racially insensitive, but she's anything but conservative]. I couldn't ever make enough to afford a mortgage or rent on my own, maybe after I'd gotten established somewhere or had about $10,000 saved up before I go. I have a friend my age who has a masters degree in computer engineering [and a great job], he had to cosign to afford a mortgage with his college roommate, and they live in rural Mississippi. Everywhere above the Mason-Dixon line and west of the Rockies, land values [and rent] are 2-3 times what they are here. The upside of this is that many young and old folks from up North and out West are moving down here, and as the Southerners keep sharing COVID by refusing to wear masks and social distance, there'll be even more room for outsiders like me to take their places in the coming years! I wish I could have empathy for them, but they hate me, they've ruined any hope I ever had for a career, and after people literally terrorize you for a decade, you just stop caring what they do, as long as they leave you out of it. Basically, you can lead a person to reason... you can't make them think....



I can respect that. Just remember, we do only what we're meant to do, we are only whom we're meant to be. I'm not exactly James Bond myself, or... a more topical action hero, meaning exciting basically.



It's great to have someone else around who treats me as an equal. Most people have either treated me as if they are better than me, or as if I was better than them. That rarely makes for a workable relationship for friendship or otherwise.



Not down here, everything is wide open. Most locals don't believe there really is a pandemic, to most of them, it's just a liberal/commie plot to stop everyone from going to church, or something. Some folks we know have verbally attacked, and/or threatened local coroners for listing their family member's deaths as COVID. They're under testing and misreporting COVID deaths as the underlying conditions people have in order to deflate the actual numbers. For instance, we're having 10-20x the normal number of local deaths from heart attacks, strokes, etc. The reasonable explanation for these fall under Ockham's razor, the most likely explanation is likely the correct one.... Basically, since I have almost no expenses, and no desire to see what COVID is like, I'm temporarily on sabbatical.



I've called most of what's happened to me, and the USA, since I was a kid. I knew people would become more self righteous and ignorant, I knew racism would become mainstream again, I knew we would have an idiot bully for a president [as I said back then, like Biff from Back to the Future]... but the actual future will be paved by folks who voted for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.



Preach, brother. Some friends once tried to hook me up with a literal heiress, she's in her 20's, her parents were millionaires, she gets about 16-20k a month from an inheritance annuity. Trouble is, she has four kids and most women I've been around mistake my kindness and easygoing attitude for submissiveness. I can usually see where a relationship will go before I get into one, so I just don't anymore. I think about someday getting a small place in a Northern city [I hate hot weather, the colder the better], but if cannabis is ever legal down here [it will be, they want that cannabis tourism $$], I'ma just stay put. I've spent 36 years trying to get along with NT's, I've come to find that I'm usually in better company alone then when around other people who treat me as if I weren't human. People were so nice to me in Oregon, but I'd never have space for my furniture or anything else I've collected up there. If I could get legal medicinal, a nice model railroad layout, a good sound system, and some peace and quiet [when the sound system is turned off]... the rest is just gravy.

I don't get how you express all this fear and animosity from the locals, yet were working as a bartender and doing all right? Does not add up. Maybe not so all right? Or are you talking about the past? In this message you come across as having social problems, but working as a bartender is very social, I can't even think of a more social job than that, it is definitely more social than mine.

I had a horrid past as a teenager but now do all right. I just don't interact with others much at all beyond work. Work is 100% of my social.

I dig what you say about Oregon, guess what, when I was your age, I used to fantasize about moving to the West Coast. Then pot became legal in all these New England states, and I fantasized about them. I still dream of Vermont, perhaps you should review real estate prices up there, you are mistaken in thinking them very much higher than the South, Maine and Vermont are both strong contenders for you and me.

I browsed the real estate prices on the West Coast...and just forget it. Then I heard about the homeless problem, electricity problem, and now BLM protesters tearing up businesses and telling homeowners they need to cough up reparations for gentrification. Basically West Coast sucks in my view. I wouldn't go there for anything, way too many problems.

The more I look, the more I like the South. Sure, red states, but they don't have the problems. Peaceful, quiet, orderly. Weed is illegal, but that never stopped me before. Hell, I am not compromising myself in any way by revealing that I usedta grow, because I stopped long ago, and have been living straight-edge for years. It is not like a big secret that marijuana is the least harmful of the drugs, it is certainly not harmless and you shouldn't ever fool yourself on that score, but it didn't harm me too much, and I was wake-n-bake for years.

Well, maybe it opened my mind to spiritual things, maybe that is why I converted from atheism, because I started perceiving stuff I never did before, almost like... communication? I don't want to sound too weird, it was not a voice, but just like intuition.

I dunno, just seems too petty and one-dimensional to move a thousand, two thousand miles just for legal weed. There has to be a better reason than that. It is not like cops are bringing drug dogs to everybody's front door and arresting all the pot smokers. Plenty of people burn down South. You can score, just hang around places that you think pot smokers would like to go and... mingle. Concerts for one...

But, I have eyeballed the prices for legal weed, and I'm amazed how cheap it is, it even beats the street price according to one web site. What, $200 for an OZ of high quality? That is amazing. I never got so lucky as that.