Topic : Balancing Work and Family

I am a 39 year old man living in California. I moved out here a year ago thinking that I could start a new life out here and leave my old life behind in Michigan, where I lived a rather depressing life.  I came fr a broken home, was placed into foster care when I was 11 years old, inevitably went into a life of petty crime. I lived a lot of my young life out on the street, in Jackson where I was born and in Miami Beach. When I was seventeen years old I returned to Michigan from Miami eager to start living a halfway decent life. I was staying with a few friends of the family who had the best intentions by me but didn't understand that the religion they were trying to push off on me was only alienating me. Soon after I arrived there I chose one night to sleep outdoors in the hammock, and the next morning I made the impulsive decision to leave, and try to go back to Miami. The lady and her husband I had been staying with had locked me out of the house the night before, so I pushed in a little bit of the screen beside the back door and took $150. That single offense got me a 2-15 year sentence for Breaking & Entering. I was released on parole in 1990, but with no where to go, I stole a car and was put back into prison. I remianed in prison for nearly twenty years.  A year ago I was released from prison, married, moved out here to California, and have tried to establish a better life for myself. I got my driver's license, my social security card (all of these things I had never had before and were very difficult obtaining, having never had them before). I began a career at home, a digital art business, which up until now has been little more than a pipe dream. And for the past year I have been looking for work. I won my own home, I just recently bought a car in order to be able to have transportation, and I have an impressive computer center here at the house. But the bills are catching up with us, and my wife's social security income is barely covering the expenses we have had to accrue. We ven took in a boarder to help make ends meet.

The point to this message is that I have been looking for a job for over a year, and have been unlucky in finding any kind of work because of a crime I committed 20 years ago. I recently applied for work with Manpower, but they no longer register anyone with any kind of criminal history. I have been rejected at every turn, no one will give me a chance, and given the fact that many job applications are accepted by way of the computer and the Internet, my applications are usually flagged and rejected before anyone at the company knows I even applied. I have house payments, car payments, utilities, phone bills -- so many bills that I am feeling the strain. I wonder if I will be lossing my home, and if my wife, whom I love with my whole heart, will end up losing the home she has lived in for 56 years. I am doing everything I can to find work, but something I did 20 years ago will not allow me to. Legislators are always complaining about the high recidivism rate in the country, and yet they don't take into consideration that the reason many convicted felons go back to prison is because no one will cut them a break and let them live constructive lives. Nothing will force me to go back to prison. I'm too old for the kinds of thinking I used to entertain myself with when I was a kid, but in the process of maintining my integrity, it seems I am going to lose everything me and my wife own, unless someone somewhere comes up with a miracle. I am very computer knowledgeable, I am somewhat of an expert in Windows XP (Windows Vista? don't bother with it). I am a digital artist and photographer. I have been an artist and writer for nearly the entire time I was in prison, and have discovered that I could make aliving doing the very thing I love to do, if someone would give me a chance.

If there is someone out there who has any suggestions, please let me know. I have tried jobing.com  I have tried Manpower. I have tried Labor Ready. I have tried walking into fast food restaurants, factories, have walked from here to the moon and back in search of work, and nothing has developed. All because of something I did 20 years ago. I have even thought about briefly going into the more dubious (though not illegal) professions, out of sheer desperation. I have talked hours on the phone with managers of every kind of company out there, from department stores to auto-repair garages (and I know nothing about cars). 

This is my situation. Granted, I got myself into it, but the fact is that at some point a man has to be given a second chance if he is to survive. I have a family, responsibilities, and yet no one will allow me to meet those responsibilities. I have wept in the offices of hiring managers, and all I got was the door. So far it has been practically impossible for me to find a job. My future holds little promise that I will have anything to lok forward to but another life on the street. My wife is disabled, cannot work, it is up to me to find a way to support her, and being that she has so few years to live, the grim truth is that if I don't find some redemption somewhere, compassion, sympathy, everything I have, everything I have dreamt, will disappear when she is called home. I have to find a solution.

Someone...anyone...anywhere...give me a job. My email address is detff3@sbcglobal.net.

Thank you.

Hello Everyone,

I am looking to see if anyone has any information on how to find a legitimate company  that will employ you to work  from home.  I have a regular job, but I need some extra money at this time. 

Thanks,

Hope someone can help, I feel so lost and useless.  I am 55 years old.  I was a computer programmer analyst for 25 years, until 2002.  Then I was laid off and because our daughter took up with an abusive boyfriend I stayed home and didn't whole-heartedly search for a job.  My husband was making good money and we could afford it.  He encouraged me to stay home.  Said I was needed there. Then my parents began showing their age (they are in their 90's), so my time off was extended to help them.  Then my husband's employer GM began stumbling.  Overtime was cut, rumors flew.  I was told the IT atmosphere was still pretty dreadful so I took a part time office job 2 years after my initial layoff so I could be flexible for my parents needs. Now 2 years after that my husband is saying I need to find a "real" full time job where my earnings are back up closer to my pre-time-off job.  I am trying, but this field seems so unforgiving about returning.  I understand GM is cutting everything.  He had no raises for 4 years.  Last year he did get one for 4%, but it didn't mean much with the rising health care costs.  We are making less because of that.  They even changed that on us this year so we have to pay a deductible before we get any help on our medical bills.  I stopped going to regular check ups and stopped my medications because we could no longer afford them.  He makes too much to qualify for any help.  He has been with GM for 15 years and dislikes the thought of leaving and maybe losing his pension at our age.  The atmosphere at the plant is dismal.  They are not part of the larger UAW so everything they do waits for the "god" of GM's unions which will be in contract talks this summer.  Most believe the plant will end up being closed at the end of the year, including upper management.  My husband is a supervisor there and he can't get the union workers to do their jobs.  It is a fight every night.  He brings home frustration and disappointment every night.  He works second shift so we don't see each other very often either. 

I have MANY fears sbout my job search.  I was never outgoing and hate every minute of job hunting.  I have NO self esteem when it comes to my job skills.  I currently work at a $12 an hour job.  At the height of my career in IT I was making $32 dollars an hour.  I feel like a dinosaur and just want to curl into a ball and hide from life.  My parents don't make helping them easy.  Especially mom, she constantly acts like a spoiled child wanting everything her way and even demanding it.  It takes a LOT of energy and time to help them out.  Everyone says I should enjoy the time I have with them.  That isn't easy.  Now looking for a full time job I wonder how I can juggle it any longer.  I don't even know how to put together a resume that will get attention and how to address the time off issue.  I can probably explain it in an interview but I never get that far.  I would definitely put it on a job application.  I feel they see the time off and are turned off.  Managers don't want to "retrain" someone who isn't currently in the industry  I know I don't need retraining.  I don't know where the news and reporters get their information that employers are hotty looking for older workers, and how women that have taken time off for their families can easily find a job again in their old careers.  I get the feeling that all that is against me and my age only makes it worse.  I am tired of uphill battles.