The Corporate America Experience

I've never actually taken the time to talk about my career with anyone because I've never felt like it was anything worth bragging about no matter what people say about the things I have done. Sometimes I actually get a little annoyed when people start to ask too many questions because I hated the job so much, but lately I have been feeling like maybe I should share my experience. 

Why did I go to college?

I don't know why I have felt compelled to share my experience, but I guess the best place I can start is the beginning-- ish. 

For as long as I can remember my mom pushed me to get good grades and good to college. The rule was as long as I maintained a 3.0 I had whatever freedom a minor could have, but even the slightest drop in grades and I would be on lockdown like I got caught robbing a bank. 

There wasn't much detail to the plan for my life outside of get good grades and good to college. I didn't even have a college picked out until I actually applied and went. I managed to get good grades rather easily all I had to do was try and armed with my money for doing my household chores, high school was a breeze. 

The summer before my junior year of high school I got my first job. My mom told me it was time for me to start paying for the minutes on my phone and $45/mo. wasn't going to cut it if I wanted to keep making my social appearances, so I got a job. 

I was living in Japan at the time, Okinawa, specifically. There was a store on Kadena Air Force Base that was basically like a Target and I loved it. I had two friends get jobs there as well and we had a blast. It wasn't a hard job. Stock the shelves, help customers, and whatever else that needed to be done. 

By the time my senior year rolled around I had no clue what I was going to do after I graduate except go to college. I can't say that I wasn't curious about college or that I shouldn't have done my own research into college, but there wasn't anyone really sitting down with me showing me what the process looked like, what degree I should pick based on the job market, and all those sorts of things. 

Again, that's not to cast the blame anywhere because at the end of the day it's my life and I should have taken the time to do the homework and ask questions. After I graduated we moved back to Virginia with my mom and found myself working at Walmart going to community college. 

I decided that getting a degree in business would be the best way to find a job after college, so I started with an Associate's degree in business management. My aunt helped my get a job at the Walmart where she had been working for years. The job was supposed to be part-time but I was there just about 38 hours a week. Technically part-time, but close enough to full-time to where one department manager was shocked to learn I was part-time. They were shocked because I was there so often that it was a surprise I was only part-time. 

I loved the job and college was easy. Both didn't consume a tremendous amount of effort to maintain and if I showed up, put forth effort there I didn't have much to worry about. I started out unloading the trucks and stocking the shelves, but after a year or so, one of the department managers took a shining to my work ethic and personality and asked me to transfer to the floor. 

I moved to the salesfloor and a year after that I became the "lead" associate. Basically I was the guy who did all the shit the department manager should be doing, but I end up doing because they were some where else. I didn't mind. I was basically doing her job which was training me to take it or one like it at the first opportunity which didn't take long. 

About 6 months into my new role, the store was to undergo a remodel and they would be moving department managers to zone managers for the remodel teams which would leave my department without a manager for the foreseeable future because rumor had it that she would move into an assistant store manager role after the remodel and her job would be up for grabs. 

I played the good soldier and took the job with and interim title. I had to do all the work but I didn't have any real official capacity of a department manager. I put school on hold to see how this panned out because if I got the job I could go to a four year school at night and work Monday-Friday. It was basically my way of helping keep the cost of college manageable. 

Ultimately I got screwed out the department manager job and I quit. During that time I decided that just going to a four year school was my best option because wasn't my time working in retail was getting me no where and I should just go to school full time. 

Keeping in mind that I was going to focus all of my efforts on school full-time, I knew that I didn't want to sit in some office for the rest of my life or run some retail store. I knew that I wanted more from life, but I also knew that the reality was that I needed to first get a career so that I could explore other options from a safe point. 

With all of those things to factor in, I figured that when I transferred to college I would major in Business administration. When I got to college they told me I had to pick a minor as well so I picked Human Resources. I figured that combination would net me the best chance of finding a decent career after college because it was a degree combination that would seemingly be widely applicable to a lot of different industries and companies. 

The Job Market Was a Lot Tougher Than I Thought...

College was great and while it had it's challenges, I found that it wasn't much harder than showing up and paying attention. I joined a fraternity, maintained a decent GPA and basically had an average college career. I didn't start a company or doing anything too adventurous because I figured when I got out I'd find a job and make enough money to chase whatever dreams I wanted. 

After I graduated, I wasn't one of those kids that thought that I was owed some ridiculous salary or some big job title, but with that being said, I did my homework and knew that $40-50k was a salary I felt was in line for someone with my experience and education. 

Not only did I have to account for salary, I had to account for the fact that I was living at home and at the time my parents lived in the middle of nowhere VA. Jobs don't exactly grow on trees and I would know considering how many are between my mom's house and civilization, so I knew that I would need to take whatever job I could at home, but if I were going to move out I needed to make sure I took a job in that salary range I mentioned before. 

The first month or so was what I expected, you know? But what I didn't account for was the following 6 months. It was a struggle not even being able to get a job working at grocery store or a fast food joint. Mid way through I decided that maybe I need to change my address on my resume. 

The reason I thought changing my address would make a difference was because like I said, my mom lives amongst the trees and when you Google Earth that and see that it's 2 hours from the job location you're not really inclined to want to give someone a phone call about a job when there are 100+ other people who live right around the corner. 

I had a buddy that lived in Northern Virginia at the time, NoVa for short, and he said I could use his new address for my resume. The job interviews didn't exactly roll in but I got a few more here and there, but my frustration was definitely growing. 

About 2 months before I got a job, I was at my wits end trying to get my feet on the ground. All I wanted was a job so I could make some money, but that was proving to be the hardest thing ever. I finally got a job a small staffing company and when I say small, I mean small. 

It was the CEO, a recruiter, and an account executive. I had finally done it and I was ready to finally move out of my parents' house and start making money. The job was only paying $14/hr. but I was going to be living in a tent in the basement of the house they were renting so they only made me pay like $300 for rent. I didn't care, it was my first place that wasn't college away from home. 

The job was working as the office assistant. Basically I didn't a little of everything that everyone else did in the office. I had to make new contracts for clients, I had to do some recruiting, I had to do 100% of the HR paperwork, and a bunch of other stuff. I didn't care because it was a job and I was out on my own. 

The job was only a 3 month contract but by the third month I was ready for the job to be over. The lady I worked for wasn't a very good employer. The account executive left because she cheated him out of some money on a contract and then tried to say that the reason she wasn't paying him was because he breached his contract. She even had me get his HR file and put his confidentiality agreement on her desk. 

Things got so bad at the office between them that she would call up there basically asking me to spy on them for her. She pulled me into one of the meeting rooms for my "evaluation" and told me I was doing a good job, but at the very end she brought how she was depending on me to help her out basically by being the office snitch-- not for f&cking $14/hr. 

Then there was some "pay issue" that happened with ADP where no one got paid, not even myself. The first thing she says to me is to tell anyone that calls that they are working on the pay issue. I couldn't believe it. I was thinking to myself, "She didn't even say anything to me about my pay, she just told me to tell everyone else what was going on." Things with this job were at a point where I wanted to be done so I started looking for a new job, but I wouldn't beat the axe. 

The day she fired me, I had told her that I wouldn't be in the office a week in advance and never got a response. Two days before I reminded her, no response. The day before I turned in all my work, sent her this long detailed email about the situation and everything she requested. The day I wasn't at work she waited until pretty much all day to call me and ask me where I was at. 

I told her that I had sent her plenty of emails about it and that it was on the calendar. We got into it and then I get a text from her husband saying that my services were no longer needed-- Thank God. I was out on my butt with no job and rent to pay. Luckily I made some contacts and found a new job as an HR Coordinator with a new company. 

My job there was to review hours submitted by contractors and essentially be the HR manager for those contractors. At that time my two biggest clients were Capital One and Freddie Mac. I had about 100 contractors and IT consultants that I was responsible for making sure they submitted hours, they had access to their benefits and things that you would consult your HR manager about. 

I liked the job enough to feel like I could do it while I chased my dreams and I was making enough money to make rent. It was about 6 months in that I started things were starting to look like trouble. While the people I worked with were great, they abruptly fired the branch manager, and several others. A few people "left for personal reasons" but the whole time the HR department was told not to worry. 

I had some coworkers ask me what I thought and I told them not to panic but to start putting your resume out there on the off chance that things go south. In my mind I knew what was coming and I just wanted to make sure I beat it. I had about 2 months before I would get laid off. At the time I was trying to find a job here in North Carolina because I was with someone who lived in the area and she was graduating from college. 

Right after New Years my boss told me she wanted to schedule a meeting with me. I could see in her face that she was uncomfortable and I knew so I followed her to her office as I always do when I assume she has more to say and I said, "So when are you letting me go." 

Her face got red and she said to just wait for the meeting. She had that same red face during the meeting when she told me she had to let me go. She cried a little and I knew she felt badly, but I assured her that I knew it was coming and that I was looking for new jobs already. I told her that sometimes you're on the good side of business decision and sometimes you're on the bad side of one. 

What's Next??

Having just been laid off after getting a new car, I had to do the prudent thing and cut my expenses. I moved back home and filed for unemployment. It sucked being back home after being away for about year, but at least this time I had a car so it would be easier to find a job. No such luck. 

Same situation as last time, the only difference was that I had a car and a girlfriend. This time it took me 6 months to find a job. I landed my first role as a recruiter for a healthcare call center. My job was to recruit people for jobs working in call centers for clients like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Human, CVS Caremark, and a few others. 

After I finished my training I got my first job requisition for Blue Cross Blue Shield Tennessee. They needed 15 people that could pass the licensing exam as well as do the regular call center training and I had about 30 days to do it. Sounds simple enough, right? Not exactly

The thing about recruiting...

As easy as it might sound to find people to work in a call center, it's not a walk in the park. First you have to worry about finding the people to show up to interviews. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone shows up for an interview and when you're scheduling 30 interviews and seeing that anywhere between 10-15 people just aren't showing up you have to schedule more people. 

That's just one issue in the hiring process. Depending on the company you may run into other issues and with this particular process there was a testing process before anyone would get seen for an interview. The tests were different but the most common was a typing test and a customer service test. People had to have a minimum score of 70% on the customer service test and the lowest words per minute requirement was 45. 

You might think that putting those things in the job description might help weed out some of those candidates but it doesn't. People will still show up knowing they can't type at all hoping that we won't know. Essentially out hiring process would turn 150 candidates into 30-45 people ready to start work. 

During our busiest time of the year I could be working on about 3-4 of those jobs scheduling about 150 interviews a week a minimum to make sure I maintained a high fill rate across all the jobs. Once I got the hang of it it was relatively easy but I couldn't stand the people I worked with. 

Because I was capable of so much they pretty much expected me to do all of the bulk recruiting which I was okay with but what I wasn't okay with was all the extra little stuff they would throw on my plate or flat out not do but expect me to do while they played around on Facebook and other stuff that had nothing to do with work. I felt like I was busting my hump all so they could take it easy. 

I had to start looking for a new place to work because I wasn't happy there. My personal life was suffering as well. When I got home I just didn't have the energy to deal doing things I didn't want to do like going to dinner my girlfriend's parents or going to the dog park. All things I never minded doing before but because I hated my job and I was consumed with finding another place to work, I kind of neglected my relationship. 

I was there for about a year before trouble starting brewing. The first thing was an argument with my boss. There was an issue with a candidate and they were asking to speak to HR. Basically she told us that we needed to tell them that trying to talk to HR is a waste of time. That annoyed me and I spoke up. She didn't appreciate that and said that if I couldn't handle telling them what she said that I needed to refer them to her. I said okay and that was that...or so I thought. 

A few months later there was a "hiring freeze" and for about 2 weeks we couldn't hire anyone. People were asking me if we were going to get laid off and I told them that's it highly likely. When they lifted the hiring freeze they laid off 2 people in our office. 

I thought I was safe for the time being but then our VP of Recruiting left and a new one came in and this one was a personal friend of my direct supervisor so it only took about 2 weeks before I was gone as well. At first it was a huge relief because I hate that place anyway. 

It was another 6 months before I found a job, but the stress of being unemployed and generally unhappy took a toll on my relationship. I remember the morning she said she couldn't be with me anymore I had gotten a call from the job I was hoping to start saying that they couldn't start me right away due to budget constraints. 

Ouch. Not only is my girlfriend leaving me but the job I was banking on getting just fell through. I had no idea what I was going to do. I ended up talking my way into two full-time commission recruiting jobs. It only took about a month before I parlayed one into a full-time staff job. 

I was back recruiting again, but this time I was doing it from home. I had to take a major pay cut and to make the up I had to work on commission, but at least the people were great and I didn't have to commute anywhere to work. 

That job lasted for about a year. I ended up taking on a part-time job because I wasn't making as many placements as I wanted and it wasn't for a lack of effort either. See, when you work for a staffing agency some of the jobs you are working on have other vendors as well meaning that you might submit 3 candidates but so did how every many other vendors there are and you can't submit candidates that were submitted by other vendors either. 

I got to a breaking point when I had to fire a kid for not showing up to work. The kid was late every day and then didn't show up. I called him and talked to him about it and how I would have to end his contract. Basically he seemed like he didn't care and that's what broke me. I am working two jobs almost 70 hours a week to get by and this kid is taking money out of my pocket because he just can't be bothered to give a crap about showing up or showing up on time. 

I had a conversation with my boss and we both decided that it was best we part ways. I kept my part-time job because I loved it. I was working the front desk at night running an indoor soccer facility. The job wasn't hard and I had fun. The people were great and I was making decent money for a part-time gig just watching over the adult league indoor games at night. 

I still needed a full-time job though. I applied for a bunch of different jobs but I knew I didn't want to go back to recruiting. In my search I came across this job ad for a lady that was selling health insurance. I went for the interview and basically half the job was recruiting and other half was admit. The lady seemed chill and we had a good conversation. 

I took the job and for a while it was okay. We had fun. She was just moving down from NY getting her office set up. This was her first role as a regional manager. She was young and talked a good game about being a team and building something great. Eventually I realized it was all just talk. Again, I found myself doing 100% of the work and getting 100% shit on when things weren't going well. 

It got so bad that one day she called the office asking if I was there working all because I didn't answer her text. I was working and didn't notice that my phone had a text. It was a whole ten minutes between the text and her call to the office. That got me. I mean, I bust my hump making sure this lady's office is running smoothly and she is getting new recruits so she can ride around doing whatever she wants all day just to be treated poorly. 

Luckily this time I would beat the axe and quit. I found yet another recruiting job but this time it was working with people I liked, the money was right where I wanted it to be and it was close to my apartment. I quit that job and washed my hands of that awful situation. 

This has GOT to be the job, right? 

Finally, I found a job that making the money that I needed with people who didn't make me hate working with them. Things were going well. Obviously there were bumps in the road but I felt like I finally had a place I could be at for a while. 

Didn't take long for that to wear off. It wasn't the people or the money it was the job itself. Recruiting just wasn't for me. Dealing with the hectic deadlines, people not showing up for interviews, people quitting, and the rest of the things that happen outside of my control, but could ultimately lead me to being replaced. 

There was one job I was working on that was particularly hard because these candidates needed to have a clean background check and pass a drug test. The background check took a little longer because it was a hirer tiered background check. An issue I was having with this job was finding people with a clean background. Some people would lie and say they didn't have anything on their background and I would waste time running it just to find out they were lying. 

Despite the challenges, I found all 30 people and put them to work. About 2 months after we put these people to work, they want more except now they aren't offering per diem; yet another hurdle as if it wasn't hard enough staffing this job already. Again, find the people and put them to work.

A month after that they say I need to fire all of my guys and find new ones because the old ones were too expensive. Needless to say, I did it but it took every ounce of everything I had to get it done. There were a lot of challenges to finding people for this job in the first place and then to have to find people even cheaper to take a job with no per diem was all but impossible, but somehow I got it done. 

They gave me a pat on the back and told me that we were going to be done with that client, but that wasn't enough for me. I had had enough of recruiting and needed to have a conversation with my boss and let him know that I was going to start looking for a less stressful job because I can't do recruiting anymore. I've tried it and I just can't do it. I don't have the temperament for the job especially when there are things outside of my control that my impact my job security. 

I remember the morning I was going to have the conversation with him rehearsing my whole speech. He called me and said that he had our big boss on the phone and that's when I knew they were going to lay me off. The lockdown was in full swing and even though a few weeks earlier they told us not to worry about our jobs, I still felt like they might. 

We talked and they told me that they had to let me go because the pandemic was impacting the business. After I got off the phone I felt relieved, but I also felt a mix of other emotions as well. Finally that recruiting business could be put behind me and I could look for something else. 

That all happened this past April. Since then I have applied to more than a 1,000 jobs since then and still not much happening. The pandemic has made things finding a job hard, but finding a job has always been hard in my experience. Even when you find a job it's difficult to stay there because you might need more money or you might not like the job. 

One things I've learned from all of this is that I should have been writing and pursing my creative passions this whole time. Going to college was great but it hasn't given me any of the advantages that were promised. I am still struggling just like anyone else despite my best efforts to maintain a lifestyle with minimum financial obligations because work isn't guaranteed. I have been laid off twice and had to quit jobs because they impacting my quality of life. 

After all of that, I just figure that if I am going to struggle it's better to struggle on my terms rather than theirs. Life is tough and finding a workplace is hard but it starts with find something you love and seeing if there is a way you can make money doing it. I had to learn this less the hard way. 

Being a recruiter wasn't hard and if I wanted to I could start my own company. I have the experience and knowledge, but I have no desire to do the job. It makes me hate life and I don't want to live a life where I am slave to a job that I hate all for a few dollars.