FOR CONTEXT: i've been away, mostly trying to balance taking care of the household while also throwing a good 40-ish hours a week into looking for and applying to jobs, all while ALSO helping out with two disability cases: mine and my roommate's.

(good news! roomie got their case re-approved again! bad news! i could still have months to go!)

but okay, so one thing i didn't do was get a resume checkup, because they either cost money or i figured the free ones wouldn't be helpful. however after three years of a job search, i go in for the free ones because Jesus christ i need something.

turns out my resume is not only formatted in a way that fundamentally breaks the automated systems that job agents are using, but they want everything to be quantified, with everything also in bullet points.

so like: "Demonstrated exceptional customer service by expanding the role of new and long-standing customers in the marketplace and increasing product reach. Successfully resolved disputes and concerns, resulting in a 30% decrease in customer complaints and a 15% increase in customer satisfaction."

but with more "action!" words

which, if you haven't raised your hand in question by now, one might ask "how do you quantify that?" how do you make metrics out of roles like retail work, office jobs, receptionist positions, and customer-fucking-service? to which i go, FUCK IF I KNOW. I'm just realizing that i might be on the goddamn spectrum, you think i understand this?!

these numbers, are, at BEST, wild exaggerations of the truth, and i have no idea how to pour the extent of my work experience into this new format, and for up to THREE YEARS I may have been doing it wrong and been putting in countless hours that will just get thrown away.

plus the number of "ghost jobs" have been investigated, leading to the belief that there are not only more people looking for work than reported, but far fewer actual jobs out there and... It just feels hopeless.

Like at this point i do not have the energy to call up an agency or do anything more than do searches for potential work. each listing i find that matches for me on one point will be immediately disqualified on another point like transportation availability, location, lack of degree, requirement for standing, or no health benefits.

would i love a resume rewrite? yeah! i just don't have that money. hell, we're to the point now where we choose which bills we pay and hope they don't cut the other ones off.

this is pretty much why i've been in lurk mode: it just doesn't feel like i have anything new to say. Still broke, still seeing everything become further out of reach, still without mental help even though i've reached out to the county for it. And still jobless

I have a portfolio semi-worked on but. that also feels hopeless. like if people don't share a gofundme about how someone is facing homelessness and can barely feed their cat or keep the electricity on? they're not going to share a glorified "hire me". So that falls to the bottom of the pile as well

i wish...at least one of your obstacles was taken away. just one

i..I... yeah I keep being really short with my roommate now because I've taken over a lot of their chores and they keep questioning me at every turn, so I'm like "my dude, I would like fewer roadblocks to get the house in order, please don't add so many, okay?

but I get why they ask questions all the time, but. if I could have the weekends back to myself and know they would be okay living somewhere else, I'd take that option in a heartbeat. it'd free up so much.

would it get me a job? probably not! but I would have time and energy reserves to put up with people long enough to mask, and frankly, that's the best I think I can ask for.