vent | nothing interests me outside of rally cars
Posted by DR1665
Brian Driggs Junior Moderator Location: Glendale Join Date: 06/08/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 832 Rally Car: Keyboard. Deal with it. |
I know it's random, but I've spent the last four hours of my day covertly browsing Dice.com, Monster.com, and the DeVry national job board for hopefully a remotely interesting job of some sort. I've got it made for the time being, $14+/hr to sit on my arse and whore a bunch of automotive forums all day between faxing this or that to some underwriter so some schlub with worse credit than I've got can get a second or third mortgage for to pay for a swimming pool that costs more than my annual salary, but this job doesn't interest me.
Catch 22. It's not the money that is important, but doing what you love. In my case, I love rally cars. I'm a borderline "keyboard rallyist," I know, but dammit I've got a rally car and I want to build it, but that takes money. So here I am thinking to myself, "You don't have to make $50k+ to be happy, you just need something you enjoy doing that pays the bills." Sure thing. Only problem is, I have this $73k student loan note over my head for the next, ugh, twenty years, and all I can seem to find are A) receptionist positions,  WORK FOR HOME-EASY MONEY NOW bullshit, or C) some uber-advanced technical position of which I don't have dick for experience.
Ah well. Sorry to vent, but I figure you guys know what it means to have so much of your life revolve around rally (or the desire thereof), but have to be tied to some pud job that you're not really interested in, hoping to "one day" make it all happen. Nothing (financially) rewarding looks like anything I'd be interested in doing or qualified to do, and nothing I am interested in looks like it would pay squat. One of these days, I aim to get this crap figured out. In the mean time, I'm going to grab a cold Dew, fire up the Talon, fire up a Kamel Red Light, and enjoy the upper limits of the tachometer in lower gears on my way home from a dead end job. (sigh) At least I have a cool car to play with when I get home tonight.  Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero alterius non sit qui suus esse potest |
Grant Hughes Infallible Moderator Location: Whitefish, MT Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 6,818 Rally Car: BMW |
Carl Seidel Infallible Moderator Location: Fe Mtn, MI Join Date: 02/10/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 765 Rally Car: 1993 honderp |
Brian Driggs Junior Moderator Location: Glendale Join Date: 06/08/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 832 Rally Car: Keyboard. Deal with it. |
NoCoast Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------- > Move to Wyoming for a few years. Yikes! I knew something like this would come up. Haha. The whole time I'm typing that, I know the solution; get a few friends together, move into one location, and spilt all the bills so that you have more income to spend on rally. (Sound familiar?) That's the ironic thing about it - you want it all. A nice house (nothing palacial, mind you, but something decent that's not located in the ghetto), money to live a comfortable life, and money to put into the rally program, but all that money adds up and you find yourself basing your job search not on what you're most interested in doing, but in what looks to be the most money you can get at the time. Wyoming? Land of opportunity aside, I don't want to live in Wyoming.
NoCoast Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > They've established a fund from state royalties. > From here on out, if you graduate high school in > Wyoming with at least a 3.0 GPA, the state covers > your entire tuition to the University of Wyoming. > 2.5 GPA gets 2 years at community college and 2 at > UW. But they are having problems getting people > to take up the offer because they can make so much > money in oil industry. If I were to move up there in hopes of cashing in on the boom, I can guarantee you the bottom would drop out of it in no time, and there I would be, stuck in Wyoming. LOL. Not to be pessimistic, but I came out to Phoenix about six, seven years ago to visit my family (who had recently moved here from Wichita). When I did, there were guys in "bunny suits" standing out on the curb at Intel plants with signs practically begging people to apply for jobs there. The tech sector was booming and upon my return to Wichita, I got a second job in order to raise money to move my ass to Phoenix. A year later, I made the move and ended up getting laid off at least six times in my first year. I left a decent, permanent, position with the pool company I'm with now to puruse what I was told was a solid future with Motorola, only to be laid off three months later due their new facility in Nogales coming on line early. Back to the pool company I went, and I've been doing the finance thing ever since. IT has left a bad taste in my mouth, but here I am with a degree from DeVry of all places. Heh. NoCoast Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What's your degree in? I always here about people > with degrees having trouble finding jobs in > Phoenix. I've had 3 friends that graduated from > schools down there and ended up moving elsewhere a > couple years after graduation because they > couldn't find any jobs. I had started in an associate program for Electronics Technician, but my boss at the time (one of the many lay off bosses) told me that, every time they put an ad for a technician in the paper, they'd get a couple hundred resumes, and that the computer information systems program (programming, database admin) was where it was at. About a year into that, seeing as I was progressing through the program without actually learning how to do any actual programming, I realized it was not something I wanted to pigeon-hole myself into and changed over to technical management. It's sort of business management with an emphasis on technological resources. DeVry is really good about finding students part time jobs, many tied to a degree program, but when you're a non-traditional student (I'll be 30 in April), you can't afford to take a <$1,000/month salary because you have, oh, I don't know, grown up and have these diabolical things called "bills" showing up each month. I was herded through the ranks like the rest of the current DeVry sheep, learning less than those at state universities, paying more than $400/credit hour, and not making any use whatsoever of the skills I managed to take from my schooling. Again, forced to seek out the jobs that pay the most in order to survive, fucking myself in the long run as I see it. Due to my changing programs three times, what was supposed to be a three year program ended up running me just under five years. When I started, companies were actually flying entire families out of state prior to graduation in an effort to entice prospective employees to work for them. These days, well, you read my first post. Close to 60% of all the jobs listed on the DeVry job board are through employment agencies representing IT firms looking to reach delivery goals while having their senior employees set up new facilities elsewhere prior to another lay off. About two years ago, I realized that I was probably going to have to look out of state if I wanted to make use of this degree, and that's why I went to Salt Lake last month. It's why I was planning a trip to Denver next month (now cancelled in favor of volunteering at Laughlin), and why I still might make a trip to Portland/Vancouver in the spring. I did my time in the small towns and I'll avoid it at any cost. That would be like trading a shit job for a shit town, ya know? At least in Phoenix I have a solid network of friends, enthusiasts, and rallyists to keep me from losing my mind outside the cubicle. Yeah. I'm a bit bitter about all of this. 
Carl S Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Finding a good job sucks. I love my job right > now, but I get paid dick. Not by any fault of my > bosses, they pay me what they can. Its just thats > what someone of my level makes. But its still > hard as hell to rally on $9 an hour! I do find, > however, that being a mechanic sucks some of the > fun out of working on the rally car. So thats why > I'm going back to school next fall to get my > bachelors, then I want to move to europe where > hopefully I can rally more. I hear you on the mechanic thing, Carl. I love cars. Always have. I own/run az2gnt.net, run 2gnt.com, a national community for owners of the second generation, non-turbo DSMs, and hang out on at least half a dozen other DSM and rally-related forums because I just can't get enough of this shit. I am always talking about something that needs to be done to one of my cars or a friend's car and always hear people say, "Why don't you see about working as a mechanic?" Simple. Once you have to do something, it takes a great deal of the fun out of it. How could I, after spending a day in a hot garage repairing the end results of neglect and ignorance of others, go home and want to continue the wrenching on my own car? I know I could, but damn, what an undertaking to be under a car all day, every day. I was optimistic for a while at sending my resume to Barrett-Jackson for a consignment position a couple weeks back, but they never replied and specifically stated, in the form email reply, not to call them to follow up. Seemed perfect to me - not fixing shit I didn't break or selling shitboxes to morons who already think I'm a dirtbag on some lot. Oh well. As for moving to Europe, I'd love to do that as well! In fact, I spent some time researching the idea earlier this year. I joined a couple ex-pat sites and still get the newsletter from the US Embassy in London. My German is far from acceptible at anything other than being a tourist so, despite my love of Heidelberg (which I consider to be my home), I had looked into moving to the UK. I figured it would make a convenient launching pad to WRC events galore each year. Turns out they have these "schemes" for how you can live and work in the UK. Try to suggest something like them here in the states and here comes the red, white, and green out of the wood work crying about how we're all racists. Bah. There is a reason why the Pound and the Euro are doing better than the dollar these days... It just seems like I'm so eager to stop spinning my wheels and actually do something with my life, but as far as I see it, unless you're working for yourself, there's no way you can see the direct benefit to your increased efforts on the job. All we are is line items on a budget that is skimmed by a multi-millionaire who gets a multi-million dollar bonus for taking the job and another multi-million bonus when he leaves because the company is ashambles. I hate to say it, but I really think that, eventually, in America, you will either own McDonalds or you will work there. Anything in the middle will be shipped off-shore or something. Oh well. Thanks for letting me vent. I'm really not pessimistic. Just don't right know what the hell I'm doing these days and sometimes get the feeling that I'm losing valuable time to deal with more important things because I just haven't found that brilliant idea yet... At least I've found there is a solid rally community in the states that will help me focus my efforts on this project car. I've got a $6,000 motor in my, now, daily driver, but she's never seen a dyno or race track. If she weren't so much damn fun to drive to and from work every day, I'd part her out to fund the rally car... which I plan on at least having running in time for Laughlin. 
Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero alterius non sit qui suus esse potest |
John Lane Ultra Moderator Location: Lynden Washington Join Date: 01/14/2006 Age: Possibly Wise Posts: 725 Rally Car: The Fire Breathing Monster |
Pete Remner Godlike Moderator Location: Cleveland, Ohio Join Date: 01/11/2006 Age: Midlife Crisis Posts: 2,022 |
Dave Maxwell Junior Moderator Location: secoast NH Join Date: 02/17/2006 Age: Settling Down Posts: 97 |
Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.