I need a job!!!
Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 6:42 pm
Ok...new site, new rant/bitch.
-spent 19 years on the PD, got busted up at work, left me with a damaged spine L3-S1 are fubar'd. I get around ok, take pain meds when I have to, get epidurals every so often, will need surgery when I can't take it anymore.
PD showed me the door last October; I left with a medical retirement, so I get about half what I was making. Not enough.
The kicker is that I had gone back to school to finish my BA in Anthropology and graduated last Spring from UL, with the intent of working in Archaeology as a field tech. Field-Tech is fancy talk for shovel bum; spending 9-10 hour days digging 1x1 meter units with a shovel, filling 5 gallon buckets with the dirt and sifting through it.
I got hired buy a global firm that has a contract archaeology office here- I worked Oct-Nov for them as long as I could do it. The job was just too hard on me; I couldn't take enough meds to cope and it was wrecking me.
Soooooo....here I am with a degree I can't use- with a BA in Archaeology, FT is the only job you can do.
I also can't fall back on my PD experience because my pension has me by the balls. the retirement system has to approve any job I take, hence no security, etc, where there is any potential I'd have to put my hands on someone; no jobs with lifting, etc...so all the good paying, hiring warehouse jobs or anything with 'labor' is out. Heck, I couldn't even take a job at Lowe's as a cashier because the job description mentioned 'standing, sitting, lifting weights to 70 pounds...'
I've turned over every rock I can; talked to everyone- 'networked' my ass off. I've had three people tell me 'I'll hire you- call you in a week, etc' including the owner of a local gun range, and a supervisor at GE. Then they vaporized.
To say I'm bitter is an understatement. I spent two decades protecting the sheep, working nights, weekends, holidays, missing family events...I never went to any Derby events, never got to take my kids to a parade, Thunder Over Louisville, etc, because I was working it to ensure that everyone else was safe there.
I knew this when I signed up, but now that I'm on the other side, I feel like the guys coming home from the war- no respect and no job.
I've had suggestions, etc...but nothing has panned out.
As a last resort, I do have a job paying $7.25 an hour starting next weekend, but on the weekends only.
If anyone has ANY leads, suggestions, wanna tell me to stop whining...please contact me!!