I'm at wit's end. I'm three months into a job search like the 30-month one I went through starting four years ago, and things proceed apace. I've gotten zero interviews despite 20 years of experience, and even finding things I think I could stand is a fucking tall ask.
I've always been of the mindset that if you have a good product, shockingly little marketing is required. And that investing in the product is going to have a far larger ROI than blowing money on trying to convince people your product is better than it is. Just fucking, you know, make it better.
Which is what I've always done. Whether it's a redesign or significantly better editing than the audience is used to, or infographics for stories that no one is going to comprehend from text analysis. Or, process improvement that makes employees lives better even though it may challenge the necessity of salaried positions.
I cannot and will not subscribe to this notion that lying to people for pay is an ethical career. During my one stint in marketing, I got to the point of feeling physically ill that I was making the best money in my life to write saccharine copy about products we internally mocked our customers for buying.
I honestly don't know how I can find a job that makes life worth living at this point, which is less than ideal when ideation is always on the menu (I last got out of a psych ward in late January, and all they had to offer is "you need to stop wanting what you want."). I don't understand why I would want to be alive to be able to pay off debt accrued because society has already discarded me as useless.
I swear to fucking god, I cannot handle being told again that I'm wrong to have the ethics and goals in life that I do. If these do not align with the positions advertised, then the logical choice is simply removing myself from this clusterfuck.
I have provable results from things I've done that did align, so why does saving companies six and seven figures several times by teaching myself what I needed to to accomplish my goals over the course of my career make me a bad hire? I've rarely worked for competent managers, so I'm generally needed to actually get improvements done. I don't care about my title, and I've topped out at $48K, so it's not like I'm looking for $150K ... but I don't like selling myself through insipid, meaningless prose just because it's what others want to hear.
What is the point of even being alive when everyone is telling me I'm wrong to want to accomplish things that improve the lives of people other than shareholders? They sure as fuck don't need the money. I do, but I don't count because I've not already rolled over and begged to suck at the teat of immoral people who care nothing for the rest of the world, let alone the people without whom they'd have no product in the first place.
Don't stress over debt to a faceless entity. Stress causes your body to age double time. Does that payment of double time lower you interest rate? Cut into your balance? No? Then stop spending currency they aren't taking.
Imo if they have no face, they're just make believe anyway. I could care about credit, but I don't think credit will still be around in 7 years, not in any way that would be meaningful to me at least.
I did what both y'all did. I got some undeveloped and bought a van. I buy tools and equipment used and fix it when it breaks. Or if I need or want something else, I make it myself.
I want a tattoo (one of the easier things one could want actually)? I make a tattoo gun, collect some lampblack and mix it into tincture and get going. If you don't know how to do any of that, you are aware of what you are holding in your hands, right?
Buying off Craigslist or marketplace means I pay as little to tax as humanly possible. Starve the beast. Grow your own food. You CAN still grow some spice walls and put em up behind yr windows. Fucking herbs cost a pretty penny. Do all the repairs on your van yourself. The learning is the point, not some resale value (which, if you've learnt well on good enough would prob increase). Self reliance today is rebellion. Independence in punk rock. Gardening is punk rock.
Besides stealth camping that van, you can always park on BLM land or off the side of the road in a national forest, just so you know you have that option. I've found stealth camping is easier street parking suburbia then attempting a business lot. You know your town so you make that call urself. But if the sheriff ges real harrass-y, just haul yr ass-y to Sherwood.
Life adrift in a van is an acquired skill all its own, and let me tell those of ya that don't know, those vanlife influencers on YouTube and tiktok? Yea almost all of them come from money. They've never known a day of actual financial distress in their lives. They can't. If you're able to make a call and get help from family, you don't know life on the outs. Pretending like they built their van off their wage as an orderly is so shameful, we all essentially have a free pot shot to their chin. "Slumming" with the poors for credibility. It's fucking stolen valor, is what it is. They should try stealing some valor in the military, see what that gets em.
It's impossible for a wealthy person to make quality art. Impossible. They are no longer relatable, and no matter how much Tay Tay or Selena might act "Normal", they aren't. They have teams if people who make their decisions for them. Decisions that are focused grouped on how relatable they are. Gross.
Keep on keeping on, my fellows, and for whatever it's worth, their definition of a good life doesn't leave them fulfilled, wise or happy, so what good does holding ourselves to their, basically lazy, measure do us?
Fuck em.
I at least have a parking spot where no one cares. The cops know I'm here, and as I don't cause an issue, they're on my side. Which is pretty amazing. I'm not traveling the country; this was a necessary choice.
I'm a vandweller, not a #vanlifer. I saw what was coming with the next round of rent hikes and made the call. I already knew I couldn't keep my cat, but the new rent meant no food, and at that point, you really have to think about things. So years of thinking tiny house turned into where I now live. Is it great? No. Is it worse than a $1,500 apartment? Well, I have to take a shit at the gym.