Dear Jasmine,
Hello, I hope you can help me help someone else. My boyfriend of 5 years is stuck in a rut where he can’t get out. He just turned 40 years old, has an MBA, and has corporate and upper level management experience. About 6 years ago, through a series of unfortunate events, he had to take a job on the production floor of a factory.
He has gone from someone who was full of energy, to a beer-drinking depressive. He has been trying to get back into professionalism, but through the 5 years I’ve known him he has sent out literally hundreds of resumes. It always seems to come down to the last few and then he gets a letter, and someone else gets the job. He has gone through career counselors through his school and head hunters and even tries to network with some of his classmates.
He doesn’t want to quit this job until he has secured another. He would consider doing something else in the area, but with his student loan still unpaid, (besides the other bills) the only jobs he can afford to take.
He wouldn’t mind starting up a business, but doing what? He has so many varied interests that he thinks he would get tired of the day-to-day aspects of a business. He keeps asking me for help, but I am at my wit’s end having exhausted my ideas. I have just finished dog grooming school and started a new job, but together, we barely make ends meet. Do you know of anyone who may be able to help us? What is your opinion? Thanks for your reply.
Pearlie G.
Northwood, WI
Dear Pearlie,
I think it is okay for our boyfriend to ask you for help but I think he is putting too much pressure on you to help him when you are in the same boat as him, expect you sound like you may like your job. What he has to focus on is the fact that even though he has a job he doesn’t like, I can tell you that a large majority of people have a job they don’t like. Why do they keep it? Because they need to pay the bills.
It is his own weakness that has turned him to drinking. He needs to realize that only he can control what he does and he choose to drink and make himself and those around him more miserable in this situation then it needs to be. He needs to start being a little more grateful and a little less selfish.
Not saying that he should not work at a job he likes but if this is how he approaches a job he doesn’t like, what is to say he will like the next job he gets? Will he revert back to this state of mind if he finds another job that he doesn’t like? He needs to address that issue before he addresses the issue of finding another job.
Well it does sound like your boyfriend has done a lot to try to find a job and is on the right track. Perhaps he can try a temp agency that can place him in a job? As least that would give him the opportunity to work somewhere new and perhaps meet new people and network some more to find a job that he will really enjoy.
Always here,
Jasmine
