Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I was lurking on another board, and found a thread from a woman who is a recent college graduate, and she just had an interview (get this) selling life insurance. She clearly didn't know what she would be getting into, and it looks like a semi-fraudulent kind of thing, too.

Anyway, it got me all depressed, because what if my money runs out and I have to get a job, and can't? I shouldn't think about that, I know.

I can't get a job as it is anyway, and I don't even want to think about what my prospects would be if I HAD to work. Any place that would hire me is a place I wouldn't want to work at, that I already know.

When I was job hunting ~3 years ago I got a large influx of interview offers as soon as I posted my resume on Monster. Initially I was psyched, but then I realized in one week I'd gotten 6 interview offers for two companies from three different recruiters. Seemed fishy, so I inquired as to the base compensation rates for the jobs they were offering me, which were all in some form of the "cutting edge Insurance Industry." When they weren't able to give me a base compensation rate (i.e. 100% commission) I told them to go screw.

That drastically reduced the number of interviews I was being offered, but gave me an easy way to call B.S. on a recruiter without having to go lookup the company on glassdoor.com. To Monster's credit, I did land my current job through them so like anything these days you have to wade through some junk to find the good stuff.

My advice for anyone, especially those who want to ERE, create opportunities that develop your skills.
I've spoken with many graduates who believed that they're going to get a desk job and be taught everything, thats often not the way it goes. You are the one that needs to develop your skills.

So selling. caring, cleaning jobs can be a step in the right direction. It develops your people/problem solving skills and demonstrates resilience, So long as its somewhere/ something you're passionate about.

Hi Retiredat 47 I'm not in a position to work, but when this changes I just see endless opportunities. I wonder why you're feeling so negative toward work. If I want to work and can't get a paid job I'm going to volunteer. Isn't there anything you want to try?

The unemployed people I know get interviews, but no job offers. I don't even get called for interviews, so I just gave up. I do have a home-based business that's barely breaking even, and I consider it a hobby. If I stay healthy and live within a certain budget I've set for myself, my money will outlive me, but I can't take that for granted, especially if Socialist Insecurity runs out in the meantime.

It's especially discouraging to be told that you're overqualified by someone with full-sleeve tattoos and enough body jewelry to set off a metal detector from 100 yards away, which has happened to me more than once.

Better to be depressed at the thought of maybe needing to get a job in the future rather than depressed at the thought of having to go to a miserable job right now.

I'd write this off as unreasonable anxiety, a natural result of getting your hands on a good thing.

secretwealth wrote:Better to be depressed at the thought of maybe needing to get a job in the future rather than depressed at the thought of having to go to a miserable job right now.

I'd write this off as unreasonable anxiety, a natural result of getting your hands on a good thing.

True. At least I don't have other people depending on me.

If you're smart/motivated, I wouldn't stress too much. There's lots of decent jobs to make a living at:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07/ ... ee-part-1/

I received a booklet from my local community college yesterday. There's lot of programs that would get one close to a $50k job without years of training.

Yes, a majority of "sales" jobs like life insurance are just a scam, avoid those.