I Hate My Job..I'm Going Back To College This Fall

[I Used To Grow]

I actually have two jobs now and the one I work the most hours at is a horrible job.The job I work at the most hours is just a temp job and I'm on a probation period to see if they like my work and at the end they can hire me or let me go.

The hardware store is not paying me either, I'm working through a program and I get paid minimum wage$5.15/hr.

I work at a hardware store in the yard. I don't work with the lumber like the other people though. I do whatever the yard guys want me to do...like pick up trash, lumber ties, tarps and other random junk..I empty big trash cans into dumpsters...I spray down the yard to keep dust down. I mow lawns and weed eat around the yard and store. I walk around with Round Up and kill weeds. This is what I do for 8 hours 3 days a week and I've been working there for almost 2 months. It's summer and it's damn hot outside in the afternoon and you get totally drenched in sweat.

I guess it's been okay though since I've lost a few lbs since I started working there. I got my first paycheck at the end of may and it was only for two days but it was more than I expected. You see, I get paid once a month for both jobs..the same people pay me. For my June check I expected like $415 because I had worked 87.5 hours for both jobs combined from the end of May to the end of June...74 for the hardware store and 13.5 for the cleaning job. I get my check and it's $379..I was like, wow I make like $4.50/hr after taxes.

I feel like I'm just cheap labor doing what nobody wants to do and getting little in return. I know it's not a hard job but this is not what I want to do for a living for very much longer.

It's a very boring job and offers no satisfaction whatsoever. I feel like I do a good job doing what they ask but this is not what I am here to do at all.

So I've made a decision to go back to college and get my degree this fall. I only need 20 more credits and I can graduate. I've been taking college clasees on and off since 1999 and I find it very satisfying to go to school and expand your mind and learn different things. I will be working for my Associates degree which is like 65 credits or so and then I can transfer to Ft Collins and work on a degree in horticulture. I want to eventually open up my own greenhouse somewhere with some plants..plants of all kinds. I don't really know what a degree in horticulture will get me job wise but all I know is I like plants. It's either horticulutre or communications. Communications would be fun because I could do what I always wanted to do and be a DJ at a cool radio station. I was a DJ at a college radio station back in 2000 while I was going to Mesa State in Grand Junction. I had a blast doing that too because my shift was Fridays from 4 to 7 PM. I would get a lot of young ladies calling in and asking me out and asking about my personal life..I loved it. I want that feeling again.

 

[sproutco]

I have a 4 year degree in horticulture from a major university. You will find that with this degree you might make more money working for yourself somehow than having to work for others. I also love plants. Good luck!

 

[Closet Funk]

I'm thinking of the college thing too. Horticulture, Botany, or Culinary. I'm not going to work some bullshit job that I don't like all my life. Good luck bro!

 

[I Used To Grow]

Yeah, I don't even want to go to work tomorrow. I don't really have the balls to tell them I don't like working there though.

I can keep my other job though cuz it's not that bad.

I just don't like the thought of getting up to do something I hate doing. I don't even know why I got myself into this situation.

I might just call up in the morning and tell them they don't need to hire me cuz I quit.

 

[legalizekindtok]

man!! no one should earn below 15.00 hour in this country

 

[Hitman]

Listen, don't quit yet. Keep your wonderful plan in your head and work as hard as you can no matter what they tell you or how much you hate it. As long as you don't lose focus your dreams will come true. Hard work = Success. It took me a while to see that there ain't no other way. You have time so go to it. Bake out!

 

[Closet Funk]

man!! no one should earn below 15.00 hour in this country

Mimimum wage should be at least $10 per hour.

 

[naga_sadu]

man!! no one should earn below 15.00 hour in this country

Tell that to the corporates and they'll have a heart attack. The entire point of this corporate capitalism thing is inequality. Because apparently most of the people don't deserve the money or whatever horse crap they spill. It sucks ass, I know but sadly (for some) this is the way most of the world seems to be heading nowadays.

And the crappiest part of this all is when the corpos start oursourcing shit to other countries. This is bogus when it's done without limits. For the locals (like the Americans) it kills jobs and pushes local wages down even further. For the countries they're outsourcing to- the industries become stagnant and there is no longer an incentive to develop and ppl start living on handouts. It's not like the corpos pay exceptionally well in the places they're oursourcing to either...ok, maybe a .5% in the places they're outsourcing to get benefitted, but that's about it. The corpos pay well on paper but they fuck you over on credit terms - like promising 30 days and giving the payment after 180. They can't do bull crap like this in their countries of origin. And also you can't benefit in any way realistically when u take up an outsourced project (job/biz).

What the fuck kind of skill is a call center job going to give you? And they drain the eight shades of shit through you from morning to midnight. If ppl work that hard for themselves, they'd prolly be alot better off anyways. I've dealt with many call center employees here and all of them have 0 skills. The only way you can survive is by working in another call center, pretty much. And they serve no real purpose for us here even. It's also poisonous to have ppls. from productive fields such as engineering etc switch to such menial 0 skill jobs. The whole deal looks awesomely packaged- but once you open it...Imagine having a parcel made of silver and decorative ornaments, but once you open it, there's dog shit. That's how it is.

Seriously, I was much happier before all this outsourcing bull crap from MNCs started cursing our shores. Believe me, other than a few misguided souls, the majority- at least in my home state- believe that this entire outsourcing gala is eyewash shit. Now, if it was a joint technological research like jointly launching a space satellite or researching a medicine which will cure brain hemorages, it's cool, but stupid crap job work outsourcing like transcriptions and call centers are completely redundant.

Call centers etc are prolly needed but they're better off in the States. THese are the kinda jobs which gives young people a chance to earn some side income. It's important there because there's simply no joint family syste in 90% of the cases. By outsourcing it, not only do the dudes lose out (less jobs, less wages), but the economy in the countries they outsource to start getting filled with non productive work. Seriously- what the FUCK good is a bunch of call centers going to do?

Either ways, coming back to the topic...write to your senators to put more controls on outsourcing. It's crap and it helps nobody.

 

[TokeMaster-J]

Outsourcing helps developing countries because a bad job is better than no job. If they were forced to pay third-world workers the same as first-world workers then there would be no reason to outsource and they would be back to no job.

Example of positive outsourcing: http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=571

Is outsourcing bad for you? Probably the same way that Apple is bad for Microsoft or Coca-Cola is bad for Pepsi. Competition lowers prices. So to summarize outsourcing is bad for specific groups of people while good for everybody else. So it would be bad for shirt manufacturing workers in the US but good for the consumers who can now buy shirts really cheap (good for the poor third-worlders who now have jobs) and spend their money elsewhere (which is good for the people that get the money).

So ideally everyone in the world ends up doing what they can do the cheapest and as a result there is more for everyone. Of course there are ethical issues of working conditions that must be resolved (as always) and change is hard and painful on the people who lose their jobs. But good luck to you if you want to stand in the way of progress; the world will continue to change as it always does and competition from the third-world is only a problem if we can't compete.

 

[Alex-F]

What kind of music did you play whilst DJing?

 

[naga_sadu]

Progress huh? I'll believe it when I see it...and call centres drain skilled work force from other sectors such as Engineering and not from the general population. And as far as I've seen, it's rare to find someone after completing 5-6 yrs. of working in a call center give any solid positive feedback.

Also resettling them in any other sector, work or biz, is extremely difficult once they get onto that mechanical routine. It sux to have the state subsidize education hardcore only to have the byproducts enter into unproductive fields. Also, traditionally, the local industries here have had job guarantee schemes. As in you just can't fire people once a project is done. The corpos tend to negate the rule and it's impossible to take any action against them also. Being educated but unskilled doesn't help either. I'd love to see more nuclear power plants, more MiG factories, more ganja gardens etc. Not call centers and shit...

I've personally resettled about 12 of them and at times it's harder than resettling a farmer w/ only 5th grade education.

 

[sproutco]

I would not quit the crappy job. Just get high before you go and before you know it 1/2 the day has gone by.

 

[radium-]

wow some people really like to get personal and discuss their financial situations on a marijuana growing forum... some shit should be kept to yourself....you sure your old enough to be taking college classes??

 

[Guest]

man!! no one should earn below 15.00 hour in this country

lol, tell me where i can find a job for 15.00 an hour??? that would be hard to find. most places around here pay between 5.15 - 7 dollars an hour. unless you get an absolutely horrible job at a call center, they start out at 9-10 an hour. it sucks ass

 

[kokua]

you get paid for what you know..and at 4.50 an hour, they are overpaying. Try walmart or Kmart, after 5 years they might make you a cashier...then after another 5 you could be in charge of the returns. You should be raking in the big bucks by then.

Just to be serious for one minute...IUTG. If you would spend half as much time working on your 'real life' issues as you do on making your bogus posts/threads than you would be ahead right now. You say you are 26(who knows if that is true or not), what have you been doing since you got out of high school? Did you learn anything in college? Do you have any worthwhile skills? If you are passionate about plants...go work at a local nursery or landscaping business. You will start back at the bottom of the totum pole...so you will be doing the grunt/busy work that you are doing now, but with a little bit of initiative and hard work, you should be promoted soon enough.

A college education is a tool. One of many tools that you have to work with. But if you are lazy and don't want to wear your toolbelt....then what good are your tools.

 

[I Used To Grow]

Well, I called my boss and told her that I wouldn't be in today and I had to get a hold of my other boss and we need to have a talk. I'm just gonna tell them how I feel and hold nothing back. I'm gonna tell them thanks for letting me work there for almost 2 months and letting me make some money but I need to finish my education and do something with my life.

I don't mind telling what I'm making. It's next to nothing but so what.

No, to answer your questions, I don't have any skills to speak of and the stuff I learned in college so far will not get me a job anywhere. It's not that easy to just get a job based on what you know from less than 65 credits in college.

If there were a nursery around here, you'd bet I'd be working there but there are no nurseries where I live. Well, there is one and it's ran by one woman..I've asked her if I could work for her but she couldn't afford to pay me anything. I told her I'd work for free just to learn more about plants and flowers and she still said no.

Kokua, to answer your questions..I have been working dead end jobs and taking college classes when I can afford it since I graduated high school. So no, I don't have any skills that will land me a job anywhere...that's why I'm going back to college. You didn't really have to turn your post into an attack on me by calling me out on my age and saying my posts are "bogus". That's just nonsense and you know it.

Alex F...I used to play a lot of alternative and a little rap during my DJ days. Sometimes I would get carried away and play a little too much rap when I was supposed to be playing the new Alternative music. Nowadays if I had a chance to play whatever I wanted as a DJ I'd play a lot of different stuff from Tom Petty to Red Hot Chili Peppers.

 

[treble]

wow ITUG you got such a mix of responses to that....

i stopped my education at the end of highschool.... I worked in supermarkets for about 4 years... I then worked in an office in the building industry.. worked in a laboratory mixing up cyanide and other shit... did some college .....worked in a foundry and a mill... worked in a liquor store...... then after ducking the umpteenth bottle and beng fed up with the crap... I decided to go to university... I was 25.... I had to go through a program for people who didn't go direct from highschool or college

I got in without knowing what I wanted to do.. I picked business....they give you a semester of each discipline... accounting, marketing, management...you get the drill....

I found 1 area I really liked... majored in it and by 28 I was done... met some great people.... 2 of which are my business partners... have been for 12 years now..... we all love what we do... and we help people to boot...

all things have their ups and downs... sometimes it takes those shitty experiences to get us to make real changes. Often its the thinking about it that makes it hard... once you commit to it, you often find it easier than you expected and find yourself asking what you were so worried about.. you dont' sound worried at all btw... just my own experiences

I say go for it, you never know what will happen and how you will comeout the other side... a couple things for sure, you'll learn and you will meet new people

good education gives you a thirst for more knowledge and gives you the skills to get it for yourself. That will last a life time. Well worth it in my case

all the best
treb

 

[naga_sadu]

IUTG:

I also don't have a college degree- kinda flushed it down the toilet (not advisable). I mean man, I was getting sweet amounts for writing research papers and exams as long as I could guarantee the paymaster a 90%+. You can kinda figure how I went on with that, especially considering it was US DOLLARS we're talking about. It was hell sweet- hard cash, no taxes...but my education got trashed in the process.

I don't wanna boast or anything but I'm still better off than 90% of my counterparts who even went on to finish PG w/ full honours in the US. In the end, what REALLY helped me was a trade school. Just 6 months and 1.5 years of practice got me set. And they're practical, down to earth too. And trade schools also encourage that entrepreneural spirit so you can actually be your own bloody boss rather than #489 in some large scale corpo sitting in a cramped ass cubicle w/ overtime etc. Fuck that shit.

I did my trade schooling in a government run institution in India- I'm sure the ones in the US are far superior in terms of teaching quality, pupil: Instructor ratio etc.

Have you looked into this option? And they're cheaper than a regular college, that's for sure. I see college as a tool for those who like to do white collar jobs only. IF you're more into doing your own thing: Whether it's raising plants or breeding donkeys, trade school is the better...and cheaper option. As in, if I wanted to become a tanner, I don't have to take a plethora of unrelated courses like The History of Food Ethics, Physics for Poets and what not.

College only HELPS you get a jump start in your professional career. And many of the Ivy league schools have biz tie ups w/ corpos (corporations). Other than that, it really doesn't do more- in my view.

Either ways, the most popular trades in the US are leather tanning and automobile repair. For tanning, you can get raw skins and hides from almost any hunter out there. YOu'll have to deflesh it, and prepare it for garment use. Many botiques making jackets and shit source from such independent ppls. Cost of doing large scale tanning in terms of effluents etc in the US is way too high. Better yet, if you can also learn how to run a Singer/ Pfaff industrial sewing machine, you can make your own garment and jack up the prices even more.

You can make quite a killing if you get a hang of restoring and customizing classic cars. Engine rebuilding is a nice little niche also. But of course, there are loads of other trades also. Think of this idea as well. Basically, there's lotsa skills to learn and a practical skill in my view earns u much more $$$ than a degree- as long as you believe in yourself, that is.

I did a basic trade school in leather tanning. No bullshit 6 month diploma. After that, I bought a series of DIY manuals and started getting into classic car repair and restoration...and I found a niche market on the side. No bullshit, no orders, no boss...it's really not that hard. And besides, you're living in the world's largest gold mine in terms of opportunity to rack the bucks.

EDIT: A good solid 6 months should get you familiarised w/ almost any blue collar trade out there. It's REALLY straightforward, seriously. No trix. No nothing. As long as u're not a corpse I don't see why you shouldn't be able to pick up a skill or 2...

 

[I Used To Grow]

Thanks for the info nagu sadu. I will look into some trade schools that are in my area and see what they offer.

 

[naga_sadu]

No probs man, anytime. A blue collar hand skill will ensure you never go scrambling for money, that's for sure. You may not have a Continental GT but you'll have shelter, a 2nd hand HM Contessa car w/ a working A/C (WTF is the US equivalent?) and enough smoke to keep yourself lifted at all times.

And more importantly- you get peace of mind. As in, you can sleep w/o worrying about sales targets, multiple deadlines, some saddistic donkey fuckers calling u to a meeting room and giving you those "you fucked up, if you hand't..." sermons when it's just not your day and so on and so forth. You can do shit at your own pace. This is something those corpos can never offer you even if they pay you $1000 per hour.

GOod luck on your career again and don't hesitate to PM if you need any more help. Whatever you do, NEVER make the blunder of working for another person as a blue collar worker. It will drain you beyond limit and also defeats the entire purpose of acquiring a hand skill. Again, on a final note- good luck in your future, man.