Time for a new job?

jeffbr

radiohead33 wrote:

3 months of any job is gonna look decent on my resume because I have nothing else on it.

You are certainly entitled to choose your own path, and I say go for it.

But you did ask opinions, and while most of them weren't what you wanted to hear, most offered sound advise for someone on the typical path.

To be clear, I'd like to know more about why you care what your resume looks like if you aren't travelling the typical road. A 3 month job will not look decent on any resume I've ever reviewed. Having left after 3 months shows an unwillingness to commit on your end. Most employers figure they spend the first 3 to 6 months training you to be productive. They are not going to want to hire someone that leaves just when they can finally carry their weight.

It sounds like the best advice in this thread was the advice about working restaurants or bartending. You get flexibility, staff comes and goes, once you get hired at one bar you can usually find work at other bars no matter where you end up. The requirement to finish by 9pm might make things tough, but lots of places look for daytime help, because the experienced bartenders want to work nights when the drinks are flowing and the tips are better.

CityMouse

radiohead33 wrote:

More detailed writings on my feelings on this subject can be found elsewhere. But ultimately, its about this. I spent my high school/college years, being studious, being a book worm, being worried about tests and grades. .

me too. part of that experience for me, personally, was assisting professors and tutoring other students. those weren't jobs I did for money- it paid almost nothing. I did it to learn more about my major (and to accumulate a CV).

CityMouse

jeffbr wrote:

It sounds like the best advice in this thread was the advice about working restaurants or bartending. You get flexibility, staff comes and goes, once you get hired at one bar you can usually find work at other bars no matter where you end up. The requirement to finish by 9pm might make things tough, but lots of places look for daytime help, because the experienced bartenders want to work nights when the drinks are flowing and the tips are better.

I just remembered what she said about the 9pm requirement!

PUT THAT VOLUNTEER WORK YOU DO AT 9 PM ON YOUR RESUME!!!!!!!

libragirl

radiohead33 wrote:

graduated college, my field is sociology, not the most employable degree.

the point being, how do you know when its time to move on?

Well I do think you should move on..but having another job is always a good bet. If you are constantly having "voices" telling you something's not right..then you got all the signs you need.

_

You should follow your heart.

That said, given your concern about your resume and schedule, there are some practical things you may want to consider:

1. As someone who has been responsible in the past for reviewing resumes and hiring, I would say that it almost looks worse to have a job on your resume for only 3 months than to have no job at all. As someone else has already mentioned, future potential employers will very likely see that as a sign that they can't count on you to stick around after they've put money into training you. I can't blame you for not wanting to be committed - who does? - but you can't blame people who won't interview you after they see that you bailed on your first job after only 3 months. And if they do decide to give you an interview, they're going to be expecting a pretty damn good reason for you having left so soon.

I would suggest you stick it out with this job until you've been there longer or are able to get a much better job - preferably one that utilizes your degree. "Moving up" for a job more in your field would come across as a good excuse to leave your grocery store job. Plus, any gap in employment will look bad on your resume as well - and may (if your finances are like most people's) weaken your financial security. Bottom line is this though: Wanting to move on to something more exciting or to avoid commitment does not make you a bad person, but it does make you less employable.

2. It can be pretty hard to find jobs that will be accommodating of people's personal schedules. Unless you get a regular 8 AM - 5 PM job, you're not likely to easily find another job that won't ever make you work past 9 PM.

know1

radiohead33 wrote:

Got my first ever job (grocery store) a little less than three months ago. The important thing is I have something on my resume now. I have SOMETHING. But its been three months, and I am getting that voice, in my head, in my heart, that says maybe its time to move on.

Complicating matters, is the fact this job has been relatively understanding in my wish to not work past 9pm (as I volunteer at a music venue, which is the most important thing to me).

How do you know when its time to move on?

Will the voice get louder, as it did in my decisions to get the job and to move out of my grandfathers house?

What if I start looking for a new job and no one is accomadating to my wish to not work past 9pm?

3 months isnt a long time to have a job, but to be honest, I am 24. I cant be loyal to anything at this point, frankly. Who could?

Your first job at 24? All I can say is wow.

know1

radiohead33 wrote:

More detailed writings on my feelings on this subject can be found elsewhere. But ultimately, its about this. I spent my high school/college years, being studious, being a book worm, being worried about tests and grades. The last term of college, I had a rough time. For the first time in my academic life I couldnt study. I didnt want to spend my life in books and in classrooms. I didnt want to study for tests. I found out I need to be living life, experiencing things. Being studious and stuff, doesnt interest me now. I want to live life. I dont think going to graduate school would interest me.

Its a problem no matter what I do. Even if I spend 2 years at this job, the employer in the future will say "you have a college degree yet you worked at a grocery store for 2 years why" and if I leave now, they say the opposite.

I cant change my past. I didnt get a job until now. it is what it is. My life isnt ruined. Why should I spend more time at a job I know intuitively isnt my calling? 3 months of any job is gonna look decent on my resume because I have nothing else on it.

If you spent all that time studying, why didn't you graduate college at about age 20?

blackredyellow

If you've been somehow getting others to support you and pay your way through life so far, then why stop now?

PJSerf

radiohead33 wrote:

I am assuming you all arent familiar with me, and as this is a forum and we have all never met, I assume you dont know my past. I never got a job in high school or college. I was busy studying. Some people can pull off a job and school and a family. I could never do it.

Sure, not having much or any job experience at my age is tough, but what are you (or I) gonna do? It makes no sense to make it sound like I have failed my life or something.

I spent months and months applying at literally any job. With no experience on my resume, I didnt have luck. The grocery store was literally the first place to interview me, and the only one to contact me back. I took the job.

I guess I dont inhabit the same place as most of you. At 24 I am a college graduate, but also a seeker. Someone who knows I think and will be different than most people. In work and in life. My destiny is different. I have never and will never take the path most people take. thats the way it is.

My line of thinking is aligned with the Born to Run era Uncle Bruce, Jack Kerouac, hermann Hesse, and Chris Mccandless. They explain the youthful ehuberance and the unwillingness to settle down, to commit. I am 24. It is an excuse to be youthful. I personally dont care to be put down for feeling this is the "springtime of my loving" as Robert Plant once said.

Jobs want you to commit. Even at my age. Any job I ever take will be asking me "how long do you intend to keep this job for". The joke is, if people were honest, and said the truth, no one ever would get hired. We all lie. Life happens. things happen. Our feelings and passions change.

I make no apologies for not getting a job earlier, and I make no apologies for my feelings now.

Ultimately I feel I answered my own question. the fact that I am feeling this way, may be a sign unto itself

I'm sorry if you felt that I was putting you down. That was not my intention.

I admire your free spirit, and wish you success with whatever path you take. However, your quest for living a "simpler" life, may make your life more difficult in the long run.

dunkman

radiohead33 wrote:

how do you know when to leave something? A job? A situation? A state?

when the cops come around and start asking questions like.. where does he keeps his computers.. what does he do between 2am and 4am... why is he on ebay buying ski-masks, leather dungarees and a samurai sword...

thats when i knew it was time to go.

sociology? what does a sociologist get paid? it sounds easy

CityMouse

PJSerf wrote:

I'm sorry if you felt that I was putting you down. That was not my intention.

I admire your free spirit, and wish you success with whatever path you take. However, your quest for living a "simpler" life, may make your life more difficult in the long run.

this could not be more true.

Plus, I couldn't help but find the "free spirit" post a bit condescending. the VAST majority of people HAVE to work. Sure, we'd all love to go out sniffing flowers every day, but it's about survival. Some of us here are slaving away at multiple part time jobs or we've worked to get lucrative full time jobs or whatever. the point it we need to put rooves over our heads. I'm not thrilled with my current job, which is total feast or famine, but you know you have to do what you have to do.

plus I was thinking about this post more after I logged off yesterday. radiohead says she (??) wants to "experience" things rather than be stuck working or studying...which is perfectly understandable. However, working and studying ARE experiences. Dropping everything and finally going to grad school halfway across the country and meeting literally hundreds of new people, learning from brilliant professors...that was one of the best "experiences" of my life. Radiohead, my question is, what were you experiencing each day while you weren't working after college? What do you WANT to experience when you quit the grocery store?

PJSerf

CityMouse wrote:

this could not be more true.

Plus, I couldn't help but find the "free spirit" post a bit condescending. the VAST majority of people HAVE to work. Sure, we'd all love to go out sniffing flowers every day, but it's about survival. Some of us here are slaving away at multiple part time jobs or we've worked to get lucrative full time jobs or whatever. the point it we need to put rooves over our heads. I'm not thrilled with my current job, which is total feast or famine, but you know you have to do what you have to do.

plus I was thinking about this post more after I logged off yesterday. radiohead says she (??) wants to "experience" things rather than be stuck working or studying...which is perfectly understandable. However, working and studying ARE experiences. Dropping everything and finally going to grad school halfway across the country and meeting literally hundreds of new people, learning from brilliant professors...that was one of the best "experiences" of my life. Radiohead, my question is, what were you experiencing each day while you weren't working after college? What do you WANT to experience when you quit the grocery store?

Agreed. I don't like being a "cube rat", spending 10-12 hours a day in front a computer. But I do it because it provides me with the means to enjoy my free time and create "experiences" I otherwise wouldn't be able to afford or do.

I understand and respect "different strokes for different folks". Life is what you make it.

GraySaturday

radiohead33 wrote:

I am assuming you all arent familiar with me, and as this is a forum and we have all never met, I assume you dont know my past. I never got a job in high school or college. I was busy studying. Some people can pull off a job and school and a family. I could never do it.

Sure, not having much or any job experience at my age is tough, but what are you (or I) gonna do? It makes no sense to make it sound like I have failed my life or something.

I spent months and months applying at literally any job. With no experience on my resume, I didnt have luck. The grocery store was literally the first place to interview me, and the only one to contact me back. I took the job.

I guess I dont inhabit the same place as most of you. At 24 I am a college graduate, but also a seeker. Someone who knows I think and will be different than most people. In work and in life. My destiny is different. I have never and will never take the path most people take. thats the way it is.

My line of thinking is aligned with the Born to Run era Uncle Bruce, Jack Kerouac, hermann Hesse, and Chris Mccandless. They explain the youthful ehuberance and the unwillingness to settle down, to commit. I am 24. It is an excuse to be youthful. I personally dont care to be put down for feeling this is the "springtime of my loving" as Robert Plant once said.

Jobs want you to commit. Even at my age. Any job I ever take will be asking me "how long do you intend to keep this job for". The joke is, if people were honest, and said the truth, no one ever would get hired. We all lie. Life happens. things happen. Our feelings and passions change.

I make no apologies for not getting a job earlier, and I make no apologies for my feelings now.

Ultimately I feel I answered my own question. the fact that I am feeling this way, may be a sign unto itself

I actually find this post to be rather stuck up. You came here asking when it was time to leave a job. Everyone gave you reasonable advice. Sure, we don't know you.. but you asked us. We didn't seek you out to tell you that you should have worked during school.

At 24, you're not inhabiting the same place as the rest of us? Because you are 24 and a graduate and a SEEKER??? Oh wow, reminds me of a hell of a lot of 24 year olds that I know. Why don't you get your master's degree in something that will land you the job of your choice. Some of the best seekers, I know seek out to educate themselves so they can do what they want in life. Don't sit here and tell us you are so much different then the rest of us. If you were truly a free spirit and really seeking to better yourself, you'd be out there changing what you don't like about your life, instead of complaining on a message board and then dogging the people that try to help.

At some point we all have to be accountable for our lives, and our well being. Sorry that you feel entitled to not have to do anything that isn't what you like at 24, but welcome to the real world. Life isn't a piece of cake. Pay your dues and you too will go places. The people that have higher up jobs, they got those because they walked in your shoes at 15, or 16 years old. Sorry that you're now doing that 8 years later, but just because you aren't 16, doesn't mean you should be given a free pass to have it all. We all start somewhere.

CityMouse

PJSerf wrote:

Agreed. I don't like being a "cube rat", spending 10-12 hours a day in front a computer. But I do it because it provides me with the means to enjoy my free time and create "experiences" I otherwise wouldn't be able to afford or do.

yeah if you don't work how do you support your hobbies, travels...

radiohead- graysaturday is right, you're really not any different than the rest of us.

decides2dream

CityMouse wrote:

yeah if you don't work how do you support your hobbies, travels...

radiohead- graysaturday is right, you're really not any different than the rest of us.

exactly.
not at all.


i'd love to see radiohead/malcom/che in 10 years, truly. see where he goes with this all. and i don't mean it in a mean-spirited way, not at all. it's interesting.


and this....

blackredyellow wrote:

If you've been somehow getting others to support you and pay your way through life so far, then why stop now?

right?
apparently money is not a concern at ALL. most of us know we have to at least pay to keep a roof over our heads. nice to live without that worry.


funny too.....i read mention of bruce springsteen, jack kerouac......perhaps did not follow the typical mode, but hell.....springsteen is a multi-millionaire no doubt, kerouac wrote amazing books......both produced and worked! they didn't do nothing, that's for damn sure. hell, even ed worked at a gas station. we ALL start off somewhere to get where we want to go b/c most of us don't have a free ride to living. if ya do...make the most of it then!

BinFrog

radiohead33 wrote:

graduated college, my field is sociology, not the most employable degree.

the point being, how do you know when its time to move on?

I was a Soc major and am now a Sr Data Analyst (10 years later). Go figure.

CityMouse

BinFrog wrote:

I was a Soc major and am now a Sr Data Analyst (10 years later). Go figure.

I have a friend who was a comparitive religion major with honors.

worked in banking for 6 years

went to harvard business school

now pulls in oodles and oodles of dough

AND

he likes what he does

Employers are more concerned that you studied hard at a good college. any subject you take at arts and sciences college doesn't equal a career path because they are academic subjects- biology, economics, chemistry, english, political science, physics...you don't graduate and get a JOB "in" biology or "in" economics - other than a research assistant. If you want to pursue any of this stuff you go to graduate school because they're sciences and you need to be an academic. that's the point. any other job APPLIES the general knowledge you acquire in your education.

keeponrockin

There was an article on MSN about going to Europe for a year, a summer, whatever, and working there!

For instance, a buddy and I have lined up a job/place to stay in Spain next summer after we graduate high school. Am I scared shitless? Absolutley, but that may appeal to the SEEKER in you.

blackredyellow

keeponrockin wrote:

There was an article on MSN about going to Europe for a year, a summer, whatever, and working there!

For instance, a buddy and I have lined up a job/place to stay in Spain next summer after we graduate high school. Am I scared shitless? Absolutley, but that may appeal to the SEEKER in you.

Exactly... there are many things that you can do and still enjoy that aspect of life.

But as I mentioned before for the original poster, at 24 if he's never had any responsibility at all to pay for anything in life or to support yourself, there probably isn't any motivation or need to actually do something like that when you can live life carefree.

keeponrockin

blackredyellow wrote:

Exactly... there are many things that you can do and still enjoy that aspect of life.

But as I mentioned before for the original poster, at 24 if he's never had any responsibility at all to pay for anything in life or to support yourself, there probably isn't any motivation or need to actually do something like that when you can live life carefree.

I'm 17, so I have to admit, I've had it relativley easy. Having said that, I've been to Europe with the school, (paid for 1/2 of it) and the only way I could get back, is to work! So, I'm going to, as well as hopefully have the time of my life. Radiohead, try doing the same. Take yourself completly out of your comfort zone, asap.