WAYT: Call me, maybe!

In life, you are your own advocate.  There’s no one else looking out for you except for you, and when you want something, you alone are responsible for whether or not you achieve your goals. 

I bring this up because I am spending a lot of time these days looking for a new job.  I’m ready to move on to a new challenge, something with greater responsibility, something where I feel… promoted from my current status. 

In “job search mode,” I am constantly defending my supreme employability, which begs the question, what are you thinking if you aren’t calling me for an interview??

When a hiring professional reads my resume, they see the basics: I have a college education, I’ve been steadily employed, I am capable of using strong descriptive words to highlight my past work experiences.  But I believe the reader needs to go a bit farther and think about what each line means.  I didn’t painstakingly choose what I said to dupe you into hiring me!  It’s all critically important and verifiable!

For example, when an HR rep reads that I have a degree from Illinois College, they should Google that.  They should find out what type of college it is and evaluate what that means about me.  If you Googled my alma mater, you’d find out that it’s a liberal arts college.  This means that I had a lot of education on a lot of topics.  You’d also find out that it’s a college with a small student population.  This means that graduating with magna cum laude honors is really something.  (Not as good as summa cum laude, but still, pretty darn good!)

When a hiring professional reads my list of previous employers, they should think about what that says about me.  In my first position out of college, I was the only person who worked in the office.  I was solely responsible for the day-to-day operations and the complete support of my boss, who was a pretty important guy.  In my second position, I was the office manager for a very small business.  My job performance was critical to the continued existence of the company.  In my current position, I support seven staff members out of twenty-four total.  That means that I do a great job at doing a lot. 

Also, I was accepted as an intern into two very competitive internship programs during my college years.  Someone considering me for employment should evaluate the programs that allowed me into their hallowed halls.  I started out strong and I continued on an upwards trajectory.  Furthermore, my work experience began back in my intern years.  At this point, I can boast over seven years of accumulated experience, all with increasing levels of responsibility, all of which helped to educate me on various industries and allowed me to broaden my reach among other professionals. 

Which leads me to my next point: I do not know a single person who could say anything damningly negative about me as a professional.  On the job, I am the most committed and responsible person that I know among my peers.  This is why I maintain a reference page and include it with my applications.  I dare you to call my references!

So, in summary and in the interest of being my own advocate, I have to ask, why am I not employable?  (How many other people like me are out there in the world lamenting the same fate right now?)  I know that I’m capable of doing just about anything and I wouldn’t apply for a job if I didn’t know that I could do it. 

Yes, there are hundreds of people out there looking for work who each believe that they are perfectly perfect in every way.  But at some point, a person needs to be recognized (read: that person is me!!).  At some point, something about me should stand out.  What are you thinking if you don’t call me?! 

Just call me, please.  I’m not too proud to beg!

WAYT: Pay the piper

I just read this article about student loan debt.  Unlike Rick Santorum, I don’t think it’s snobbish for President Obama to want everyone to have a college education.  I think the President is being pragmatic.  In the United States today, those who aren’t unemployed are likely underemployed.  If you’re not experienced, educated and well-connected, you probably aren’t doing very well right now.  And President Obama wants to see us, as a nation and as individuals, succeed.  I can’t blame him for that. 

Obama has a few ideas about how to improve the government’s involvement in student loans.  I can’t tell him how to fix it or even if he’s on the right track.  But I can tell you, my readers, about the real dangers of student loan debt.  I don’t know about the effects of this debt on our economy and whether it truly is a threat to our overall recovery, but I can tell you about the effects of this debt on my economy and my family’s recovery. 

Frank and I attended Illinois College, a four-year, liberal arts institution.  It cost more to go there than Heartland Community College or Illinois State University and maybe even more than Illinois Wesleyan.  It wasn’t just the tuition – it never is!  It was also the housing, the meal plan, the travel back and forth (if you want to see your family) and the books.  In the end, we walked away with over $45,000 in debt.  Ouch.  What were we thinking??  (But we are geniuses.  At least we walked away with that too!) 

We are given ten years to pay this debt back.  We had three choices for repayment.  One was to pay the equally divided amount, to spread the payments out over ten years.  The next form of repayment was based on income.  Since we were unemployed at the time, that wasn’t going to work.  The last option was to pay gradually.  The payments would start low and then increase over ten years, operating under the assumption that we would make more money over time to afford the higher payments. 

My first job out of college paid a pittance.  But I owed what I owed so I made the decision to pay the equal amount and we set Frank’s up to be paid back in the same fashion.  I felt that was the most responsible philosophy. 

My biggest issue with our debt is the fact that no one warned me.  No one said, “If you borrow that much money, you will have to pay this much every month.”  What were they thinking – my mom, my high school counselors, the FAFSA people?  I could have gotten the same education anywhere.  Don’t get me wrong, Illinois College did a lot for me and I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but if I had known this would be my reality, I would have chosen differently. 

Furthermore, no one warned me that we would pay ridiculous interest on these loans.  I pay less interest on my two cars and my house COMBINED than I do on these loans.  And I can’t refinance them.  Trust me, I’ve asked a lot of people.  We’re stuck with over six percent interest for the life of these loans. 

And now Frank is going back to school.  He’s a great teacher and I’m so proud of his drive and determination to make the most impact and do the most good that he possibly can.  But now that the government is changing the rules, he can only receive the loans that charge you interest every single day you own them.  That makes the cost even higher. 

My baby sister, who at 18 is no longer a baby (I know, alright!), is getting ready to graduate high school and start college.  She considered Heartland but decided on ISU.  I am terrified for her.  I don’t want to tell her not to pursue her dreams but I can’t live with myself if I don’t warn her of how this debt will change her life.  I speak from experience when I say that our student loan debt is holding us back.  If we could keep that money that we pay every month, we would be different people. 

It’s not responsible these days to say that kids shouldn’t go to college.  Kids need to, they have to!  I’m looking at you, Rick Santorum.  What are you thinking?  Every kid isn’t cut out for college, that’s true, but to say that we should all skip college is snobbish of you!  My cousin is living a great life having learned a trade and I would never begrudge him of the choice he made.  I’m proud of him for knowing himself enough to make the right choice.  But there are so many things that hold us back and this student loan problem is a big obstacle when it shouldn’t be.  It’s really sad that some kids out there will have to choose between an education or a life of poverty – or an education with a life of poverty. 

So rather than calling names, Rick, Barack and Mitt – and every other politician – put yourself in my shoes, my sister’s, my husband’s.  One day I’ll have to have this talk with my son and give him the reality check I never got.  Please don’t make me break his heart.  Please find a way to help us succeed at life. 

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I just read this article.  What are these people thinking??  What is the world coming to?? 

This article, as circulated by the Associated Press, absolutely horrifies me.  It says that some employers, while interviewing prospective employees, turn to the person they are interviewing and ask them either to give over their Facebook password or log in to the site at that moment so that the interviewer can view the interviewee’s Facebook activities. 

I don’t know about you, but I feel that Facebook is private.  I understand if your employer doesn’t want you complaining about how much you hate your job or how incompetent your boss is, but that’s your right as provided by the United States Constitution.  If your employer wants you not to name them by name in any way on your page or in your posts, they can ask you to do that, and I don’t object to that.  A simple “my job sucks” will update your friends about how your life is going without implicating the culprits regardless of any non-disclosure agreements. 

But for an employer to expect to receive your password or to have access to your private messages to your friends and family is a violation of your rights!  I love that the gentleman who is the focus of this article said NO.  He should say no, and lawyers and constitutional rights activists everywhere should fight for the answer to be no nationwide. 

Is there nothing that is sacred anymore?

I use Facebook to post my status, follow causes, track celebrities and to keep up with my friends.  Granted, I hardly ever see any of my Facebook friends in real life, but I still feel that they are my friends.  I talk about Facebook happenings around the dinner table.  Facebook helps me share pictures and videos of Auggie.  Bragging about my kid is one of my main interests and Facebook helps me do that 24-7-365.  None of this is earth-shattering.  None of this should affect my potential employability. 

I think what bothers me the most here is someone asking for your password.  If you want to give away the keys to the kingdom, give out your Facebook password.  I would estimate that 95% of all Facebook users have the same password for their email and Facebook accounts, and probably their online banking and credit card statements, etc., etc.  (Why don’t you just make your password “hellohackers” and call it a day?)  Anyway, the point is, giving someone your password is something you should never do.  I’ll be honest, I may be married to the guy, but I don’t know any of Frank’s passwords.  I’ll be damned if his boss gets to know it and I don’t!

There are plenty of people out there who conduct themselves in ways that are wholly inappropriate and that carries over into their life on Facebook.  There are also just as many people out there who are boring – I’m one of them.  I’m not doing anything on Facebook that would shock or scandalize anyone.  But that doesn’t mean that I want anyone logging into my Facebook account.  And you shouldn’t either. 

You should read that article up there and speak up about it.  This practice is wrong and these employers need to be taken to task!  What better way to call them out than to raise a big fuss about it on Facebook?  Since they don’t have our passwords, they’ll never see the tide coming back in on them!