EDUCATION: What is it good For?

Posted on May 17, 2007 by Susan

Well that’s it then.  I’m done banging my head against their ivy-covered walls.  Wasted time, wasted money when I can’t even land a freakin’ clerk typist job.

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6 Responses to EDUCATION: What is it good For?

  1. Creechman says:
    May 17, 2007 at 7:49 pm

    You’re kidding.

  3. creechman says:
    May 18, 2007 at 7:02 am

    I’d like to see the clerk typist you would be.

  4. susan says:
    May 18, 2007 at 10:09 am

    Do you mean that in a good way or a bad way? I’ve been–admittedly a long time ago–administrative asst. to three corporate vice presidents and a president.

  5. Barbara says:
    May 18, 2007 at 9:23 pm

    I know exactly how that feels! I took early retirement from a second-level supervisory job, after twenty-five years in various jobs related to technical documentation, fifteen as a technical writer and editor. I thought it would be a cinch to find a halfway decent, if much lower paying, part time job near home to supplement my pension.

    Nearly every available job nearby pays minimum wage AND requires experience in sales and with a cash register. I tried at a nearby school district where I figured I had a chance, since I started my prior career in clerical jobs. I had to take a test that included a lot of math — which I’ve used a calculator to do for the past 30+ years. No calculators were allowed. After using up lots of scratch paper, and exhausting my brain remembering how to do things I hadn’t done in 30+ years, I wondered why all the math was required, since I wouldn’t be teaching math, and I’m sure atttendance clerks aren’t required to do long division and multiplication of large numbers by hand. I used to submit and defend budgets, but for some strange reason my former employer allowed calculators and spreadsheets rather than scratch paper.

    At one place I was asked, in the interview, if I would be willing to look after the business owner’s baby now and then while I manned the reception desk. I love kids, but I’m 50 with no children, and haven’t babysat since I was 18. I think the look of shock on my face was all the answer she needed.

    I know I’m not an idiot, but apparently the would-be employers think I am some kind of idiot, or are put off by my age, and therefore I’m unemployable, at least — I like to comfort myself by adding — anywhere near home. But the whole experience searching for a job nearby has made me feel old and been incredibly humiliating — much more humiliating than searching for my first job at 18.

  6. susan says:
    May 20, 2007 at 5:15 am

    ” But the whole experience searching for a job nearby has made me feel old and been incredibly humiliating — much more humiliating than searching for my first job at 18.”

    That’s it right there. I don’t feel there was age discrimination in place in this recent instance, except perhaps on my own part, in trying to overcome the conflicting feelings of being overqualified and yet out of the system for so long it’s like starting from scratch.

    But the humiliation is there and it forces you to take a good long look inside your head. Then you need to look at the world as it is and see if you can adjust to it. Evidently, I can’t.

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