Why Shawn Dropped Out of the American Job Market

In the news we’ve heard that over 25 million people who have dropped out of the American Job Market. People who have exhausted their unemployment, run out of money and run out of hope. People who have given up.

I’m one of those people. Let me tell you why I dropped out of the Job Market.

Since October of 2008, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on Civil service exams, job training in computer repair and A+Certifications. All in the hopes of finding employment somewhere in IT or someplace like CUNY as a CUNY Office Assistant. And after almost four years of searching, I realized that there was nothing out there.

I practically exhausted my unemployment and most of my savings chasing ghosts. I thought I was doing the right thing by going out and looking for work, but there just comes a point where you realize it’s all bullshit.

The definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing and expecting a different result. And running around submitting the same applications to the same places over and over again and waiting for them to say no was as I saw it, crazy.

And from what I’ve seen in today’s job market I’m gonna have to say most of these employers are CRAZY. Certifiable. Their lists for qualifications for some of these positions border on ridiculous. I read some of these job listings these days and it’s almost as absurd as the laundry list of criteria Black women have for their ideal man. No Real Human being can ever meet these employers’ unrealistic criteria for working for them. When you have people talking about they want people with Bachelor’s Degrees for entry level jobs at McDonald’s there’s something clearly wrong with the way Human Resource managers are trying to recruit employees.

I’d go as far to say that most managers are living in a bubble. Most aren’t looking to work with Real People, but some ideal perfect person. Many think educated means smart. Others mistake ass-kissing for professionalism. And a few surround themselves with cronies and relatives so they can continue to delude themselves that they’re superstars while the business crumbles around them.

After dealing with rude, obnoxious unprofessional HR people like those I encountered at The City University of New York I realized that I was wasting my time. None of these people really wanted to hire outsiders. In fact, they had become so insular about their hiring practices that no one from the outside the organization was getting in. From what I’ve seen, hiring in America has become corrupted by nepotism, cronyism, and favoritism.

And from my personal experiences a little racism and discrimination too. A Black man no matter his education or qualifications can just forget about working at a 9 to 5 these days. It’s not even worth his time to even waste filling out the application. The American workplace has become a social club.

It’s not about what you know, but who you know these days. Nowadays who gets hired is not based on work experience and skill, but on how someone sates a boss’ ego. A person could be grossly unqualified for a position, but if they know a manager somewhere, and they know how to say just the right thing to stroke his ego, they’ll have that job. Sure they could be fucking up every day and doing stuff like coming in late, or screwing up a business, but if they know how to socialize with management, they’ll remain in that job for years.

Moreover, it’s becoming more and more unethical. After what I experienced at an interview for an IT assistant position at CUNY, where the job description was changed on the fly, I realized no one cared about what I had to offer. These job interviews are just a formality people were going through so they could hire whoever they wanted.

In late 2011 early 2012 I just realized that in spending all this money looking for a job was wasting time. And my time was just too valuable to spend with people who aren’t interested in what I’m trying to offer them.

Time is something you can’t get back. It’s something that’s more precious than money. And every second I spent chasing someone elses’ job was a second I could spend doing more productive.

Like focusing on my books, my writing and my publishing career.

Every second I spent looking for someone elses’ job was time I could have been spending focusing on my writing and my publishing career. The more time I spent focusing on myself the further along I could get on that road to the next level.

And 2012 was a year where I had some of the strongest growth in the eBook marketplace, and expanded the audience of my blog. I learned a lot of new things and I was even able to teach other writers some of what I learned. Even though I’m still struggling, I am making progress.

The way I figure it the time I spend working for myself could eventually pay off with a best-selling book.

I dropped out of the job market because I began to understand how Every second people spend working for someone else is just time they’re wasting Every second I spend looking for a job is time I could use more productively doing other things. And every dollar I spend trying getting ready for an interview to go out and talk to people trying to sell them on why they should pay me is a dollar I could use towards selling them on buying a paperback or an eBook. If no one wants me to work for them, I’ll work for myself. No one can fire you if you own your own business.