Livin' on a Prayer

Bon Jovi's livin on a prayer seems to be my theme song right now.
At work, we have these group chats where we can go and let off steam. There have been some hour cuts lately, even for full time employees, and some people have had to use paid time off in order to pay their rent. Times are tough right now, everywhere obviously and not just at my job. It seems like everyone has to buckle down and try to just make it right now. And these are hardworking people- my job's pretty stressful at times you know? Dealing with people all day and the like. I have some stories from this job and from all my restaurant jobs that I honestly just cannot make up. I will probably compile those into a book one day, and people can marvel at humanity

 But our group chats are like support groups. It's bad but I'm honestly glad I'm not the only one. I'm also not complaining, because I'm super blessed in so many ways which I acknowledge. I'm just saying, it is what it is. But people are just wondering how full time employees could be struggling so much, using food stamps or PTO just to pay rent. And all this just got me thinking. Why is it so hard to make a living these days? Like, why is the economy SO bad and why does a college degree that's not a specialty (such as nursing) mean basically nothing right now? My parrot ate some of my diploma, and I was just like "go ahead, it honestly doesn't matter."

 Then there are people who can't even get a job.Or at least not in their field. I have a Bachelor's in English (Creative Writing), and I would not change that for anything. I learned so much and met some people who changed my life. I loved every minute of going to school for that. But I'm working at a tech company. It took me eight months to find this job (I started looking before I graduated from UAB). I have a spreadsheet of all the jobs that turned me down, and there are about 300 places on it. Why? I am qualified, I'm young. I had an internship. I volunteered at a hospital in high school. I was in the National Honor's society in high school, then the English Honor's Society in college. I'm personable. So why couldn't I get a job in my field? 
I either didn't have enough experience (even though I had an internship), OR I was overqualified. Overqualified sounds like a cop out if you ask me. I guess they thought I was going to ask for a million dollars an hour or something, but I had NO job so anything would have been fine.

 So, when I came across my job that started at 8 bucks an hour, and the requirements were that you had to be at least 16 (lol), and it was not in my field at all, and they offered me the job in the interview, I had to take it. The interviewer for the only other job that wanted to hire me hit on me in the interview. I was down to my last 200 dollars. (And I'm glad I took it. This blog isn't about me being unhappy at my job or anything- I'm very happy with my life). I didn't even start out full time. But I had to take it.
Would I love being a copy editor in some cushy office with a view, yes. Of course I would. But, God made it really clear that that wasn't the direction he wanted me to take at the time.

 I'm not alone. According to the Washington Post, the majority of college grads do not work in their field, or even hold jobs that require a degree. "First, a significant number of college grads appear to be underemployed: In 2010, only 62 percent of U.S. college graduates had a job that required a college degree.
Second, the authors estimated that just 27 percent of college grads had a job that was closely related to their major." Honestly, I knew the number was high, but that number is shocking to me! It makes me feel like I'm on the right track, though. I feel like my generation doesn't want much, though. Like, what's our wildest fantasy? To be able to afford a used car, moderately sized house in an ok neighborhood, groceries sans food stamps and to pay of our student loans without becoming destitute. Is that sad to anyone else? Our wildest fantasy is to be MIDDLE CLASS, yall. Like...to have a savings account! To have a 401k! We don't even want boats and mansions and luxury cars. Because the insurance alone on those would break us

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