Did you move out yet?

:/

I'm a 21 year old high school dropout with no job. Still live at home with my parents, never lived away from home for anything more than a week, when I was at my brother's dad's house cleaning it up a bit. I don't pay rent or anything either. Basically, my step-dad would love to get me out of the house, but my mother won't let him kick me out.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to get my GED, a job, driver's license and car, and get my ass out in the work force, but it's hard to even get the funds to start that little journey when you've never had a job and have no experience...

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Midna

I'm sorry, but what the fuck, man? You are 21 years old and just pissing your life away. Time goes by fast. If you sit on your ass and make excuses why you can't start your life you're going to find yourself middle-aged and wondering what the hell happened. It's no fucking joke. If you don't have the money to pay for getting your GED, then get your ass out there and find a way to earn money. It's spring and there are a whole lot of people needing yard work/home repairs/painting/etc done and if you put any effort into it I am positive you could earn some money creating a job for yourself.

Get off your ass and get your education and do something with yourself.

What the fuck is wrong with people.

Like I haven't TRIED getting a job or finding work? In the area that I live, people, even the elderly, take care of their own lawns and houses, or they take advantage of living in a shit state that has no money and hire professionals to come and and do it for cheap. Now, I do make a BIT of money fixing computers, but it's in small amounts, and it's not very frequent, but it does add up. Hopefully sometime next month I'll have enough money for my GED, but even getting that isn't going to help me much with no work experience, especially not when all actual jobs around here have requirements that I don't meet.

I assure you that I'm not thrilled with my life as it is. I'm pissed off that I've been stuck wasting so much time saving small bits of cash here and there so I can move on with my life and get myself an education that enables me to get a job, but what can I do other than wait while saving my money until that day comes? Look for more work maybe? I'm checking the online services for my state every day with no luck. Every Sunday I check the paper, never any luck. I'm doing all I CAN do to make money right now, but trust when I say I'm trying to keep myself from " pissing my life away. " At the very least, I know how important education is, and though I'm not in any classes or school currently, I do still try to keep some new things coming my way. My brothers and friends let me read through their college text books when they're not using them. I mean, it's not really a substitute for actual classes, but at least it's doing SOMETHING productive education wise.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Encephalon

So, like, how do you eat? How do you have fun? Do you bum cigarettes from bums for fun? I'm not seeing how you even get online.

Well, as I said up there, I still live at home with my parents. They kind of buy the food here, and pay for internet. For my cigarettes, my friends smoke, as do my parents. So I just kind of bum them usually, or my parents will buy me a pack when I do work around the house for them. For example, I'm doing work on the basement this week. Scraping old paint off the walls, sanding, repainting and all that fun shit. For helping out, they bought me a pack of cigarettes, and I'm going to be able to drill a hold through the floor so I can get internet in the basement, which is where my room is. They'd pay me, but we're kind of strapped for cash at the moment.

Originally Posted by Rasputina

Everyone is born with no work experience. Most people start off with cheesy jobs to get the experience they need to get better jobs and more money. It's a slow process and you had better get started soon because you're already about 4 years behind your peers. You're hardly in a catch-22, getting a job is the first step and it isn't that hard if you are persistent and start at the bottom like most folks in your shoes.

I've applied at video stores, fast food places, grocery stores, Computer Repair stores, gas stations, drug stores, bars, and just about every place in between. I follow up on turning in my application by coming in about 3 days to a week later to talk to them and ask them if they've had a chance to look at my application. I go out once every couple months and do my normal rounds of getting applications for every place I can, filling them out, then going and turning them all in at their respective places. When I go in to get the application, and when I turn them in, I make sure that I'm dressed nicely, clean shaven, and as presentable and professional as possible. Oh, I should probably add that I've been doing this since I was 15. Yeah, and still no job. I keep trying though, which is all I really can do at this point. Like I said though, hopefully next month I'll finally have enough money to go and get my GED. My brother's dad has said that if I can pass the tests and get my GED, then he'll help me pay for my Driver license and first car.

At the very least though, I'm TRYING to work towards what I have to do so I can move on with my life. At least I'm doing that rather than doing absolutely nothing about it.

Originally Posted by Midna

Lyth, what I'm not understanding is why you have no experience at 21. How old were you when you dropped out of high school? A lot of people start getting jobs at that age, and since you weren't in class it seems that would have been THE time to get some sort of employment. Have you tried applying for fast food or retail jobs? That's where most people start when they're just trying to get some sort of experience.

Also, why the HELL did your parents allow you to drop out at all?

I've never been able to get a job. I've tried and tried, but never was able to get one. I was 18 when I left school, and I kind of left on a sour note. I guess you could say that it was half me dropping out, half me getting kicked out. Fast food jobs have been all filled here for quite a while. I mean, there HAVE been openings, but by the time I've heard about them and get up there, someone's taken the spot already. Retail jobs pop up every now and then, but someone with work experience always gets the job over me. Like I said though, I was 18, and it's not like they could really do anything about it other than yell at me or be disappointed with my choice. I tried re-enrolling the next year at the alternative high school in my area, but I found that I was not allowed back in ANY school in that district after I had left. After I realized I wasn't allowed back, that's when I started putting bits of money away when I could so I could afford my GED testing.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Philia

Why did you drop out of school (seeing that you can get to places to apply for these jobs)? Most kids dropped out to work by then (you know, they had a job to go to before they drop out).

There were a few reasons and complications that caused my departure from the school. I was enrolled in a program called " Novanet " at my school. It's supposed to let you do work at " Your own pace. " It works by giving you a pretest to your courses. The pretest will encompass everything that you would cover during that course. If you failed certain sections, it would then assign you work based on what you failed. So if you had trouble with fractions in math, and only fractions, then the only modules you would and lessons based on fractions. After you finished those, you would take a final exam. If you passed that, you'd tell the teacher and they'd send an e-mail to the office of the school letting them know that you completed a course, and the office would mark on your file that you completed that course. I had 2 Math classes, 6 English classes, and a History class to complete before I could graduate. I started with the math courses, and got through them in about a few days. Then I decided to start on the English work. I did the pretests in all of them, and scored high enough to where I could just take the final exam for each one. I completed 6 English courses in a day, but they refused to give me the credits, and said that I needed to spend at least 30 hours in each " class " in order for it to be credited. Obviously if you need to spend so much time, then it obviously isn't " work at your own pace " but it was weird that they'd say that to me, especially after completing my math courses without spending 30 hours in them. I don't know, just seemed like they were fucking with me at that point.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that I'm the victim there completely, because I wasn't some wonderful student or anything. In fact, now that I look back on it, I was a complete prick, and a disrespectful little fuck to the teachers, so if they were doing it to me specifically, then I probably deserved it.

Originally Posted by Fresh Frank

You haven't even been able to get a service industry job? Really?

I'm was a fucking bum (literally) for three years, finally decided to do something and now I'm a bartender. You can always find a service industry job, turnover is incredble so they're always looking for more people. You might not be able to get behind the bar right away, but there's nothing wrong with starting as a busboy or server, especially with zero work experience.

I live in an area with a really bad job market. If you get a job here, you hold onto it for as long as you can, or until something better comes along, and then someone else takes the job after you leave and does the same thing. There are a few bars that go through people at a decent speed, but I'm always either late in hearing about it and applying, or, once again, is more experienced and gets the job over me.

Originally Posted by Alice

Lyth, join the military, dude. It's a job, and even more than that, they will send your ass to school if you want to go.

Heart Condition. I tried last year for the Army and Navy but I was denied for it. I never thought that being honest about my medical history could get me denied so quickly. I might try to enlist in the National Guard or something if I can't get my life on track by next year though. They MAY let me in.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?