 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Curious, what are you guys doing for health insurance?.
Question was probably not directed at non-Americans, but we thankfully don't need separate health insurances here in Norway. It's all covered by the state and the taxes. Well, not entirely. We usually pay an "own share" for each doctor's visit (between $35-50), but you never pay more than $245 during a whole year. If you still need to visit the doctor after that, you get a socalled "free pass", which means that you don't have to pay anymore that year.
Can I immigrate to Norway?
If you hear any of the news from the states, we're struggling through that now. But I don't think that we're going to end up with anything close to what you have.
And thank God and my wallet for that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hey David, was this thread title created to the tune of "Let's hear it for the boy" by Deniece Williams?
Nope. I barely know the song. Ask me about pop/disco much past "It's Raining Men" and you'll get a couple of Orphan Annies outta me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Sep 14, 2009 - 3:11 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
antipodean
(Member)
|
It is vitally, vitally important to maintain a positive outlook always, difficult as it sounds. I know because I've been there before, too.
I think that for many people, with skills and qualifications and experience to offer, not being able to find work or earn a living can be demoralizing, especially when you see other people in roles you could do who were less qualified or "less deserving" than yourself. It is depressing because it eats at the individual's sense of worth. (With money problems, at least you can still borrow or sell or cut back on spending or beg the bank for time, etc - but a crushed spirit... that goes right to the core.)
I still retain many of the frugal habits I acquired during the "times of famine." The number of books I buy in a year you could count on the fingers of both hands; the library supplies the rest of my reading. I'm probably buying more CDs than I should, but it's slowed down considerably in the last few years, and I don't buy first-hand if I can find the item cheaper second-hand.
I don't take "work" as something for granted. In this current economic climate, any perception of "job security" is illusory at best - your job is only as secure as the notice period stipulated in your contract, including any severance "benefits".
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Sep 14, 2009 - 3:44 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Sarge
(Member)
|
It is vitally, vitally important to maintain a positive outlook always, difficult as it sounds. I know because I've been there before, too.
I think that for many people, with skills and qualifications and experience to offer, not being able to find work or earn a living can be demoralizing, especially when you see other people in roles you could do who were less qualified or "less deserving" than yourself. It is depressing because it eats at the individual's sense of worth. (With money problems, at least you can still borrow or sell or cut back on spending or beg the bank for time, etc - but a crushed spirit... that goes right to the core.)
I still retain many of the frugal habits I acquired during the "times of famine." The number of books I buy in a year you could count on the fingers of both hands; the library supplies the rest of my reading. I'm probably buying more CDs than I should, but it's slowed down considerably in the last few years, and I don't buy first-hand if I can find the item cheaper second-hand.
I don't take "work" as something for granted. In this current economic climate, any perception of "job security" is illusory at best - your job is only as secure as the notice period stipulated in your contract, including any severance "benefits".
Antipodean, I feel EXACTLY the same way. My year of unemployment changed me forever. I'm frugal to a fault, and I'm always consciously and subconsciously preparing for it to happen again.
It changes you. It really does.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Sep 14, 2009 - 6:01 PM
|
|
|
|
By: |
antipodean
(Member)
|
This is the hardest thing for me. I have over 20 years of IT experience in a lot of areas and really do my job better than most so not being able to find a job can be so demoralizing. You start to feel no one wants you.
One of the problem - if you want to call it that - lies in the way people hire other people. On the one hand, you have employers advertising a role with certain stipulated requirements and getting a flood of candidates responding, out of which HR may shortlist the first five or ten or twenty suitable roles they come across for interviews and ignore the rest simply because they have no way of getting through every single one.
Or HR people may decide to play god and chuck out someone's CV simply because they don't like something they see. (When you're a job hunter, HR is not your friend. Their job is to keep as many people out as possible and let the few lucky ones in.) And sometimes the employer doesn't know what they're looking for, so they just cook up a set of preliminary requirements which may or may not reflect the job - and even though you may be eminently suited for that role, their own uncertainty may see you failing to make the cut on the basis of fuzzy or inaccurate requirements.
So if you're sending in applications along with a hundred other people and continually get rejected for reasons which you don't know why, it can feel like nobody wants you - but it can also be a symptom of how inefficient and wasteful the whole modern recruiting process is.
On the other hand, if I were looking for someone to hire, this would be my hierarchy of preference:
1. Hire someone whom I have worked with before and can do the job
2. Hire someone whom I have worked with before, who may not be able to do the job but can be trained up - this includes promoting deserving staff to bigger responsibilities and roles
3. Hire someone recommended by someone else who can vouch for them
4. Hire someone through a reliable recruiter
5. Advertise and see who turns up
Anything after the first three options, you're just so dependent on the luck of the draw as to which candidates you get, because there are so many things like work ethic and team spirit which don't show up on a CV and former employers may be reluctant to say bad things about others on a background check.
The first three optiions are also the reasons why if you are looking for work, you must let as many people know, as far and as wide as you can: friends and former colleagues, your friends' friends, people you meet on the bus and in the queue, your hairdresser and grocer and anyone you can think of meets a lot of other people every day. This is because you have no way of knowing how something can turn up - someone might know someone or something from a chance conversation. Never discount the effect of serendipity, and "knowing someone" already gets you a foot in the door past the hundreds of people flooding HR departments with CVs. (The last four jobs I've had were never advertised at all: I happened to be talking to the right people at the right time when the roles came up. I was lucky - but sometimes, in a way, you have to make your own luck as well.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
When the economy is going boom and full guns, though, and HR recruiters can't find enough people, they will hire virtually anyone just out of college or with the remotest experience. I KNOW this for a fact- I went out and relocated to Arizona in 2000 with a hefty bump in pay just to train the kids they needed so desperately. That was THEN- this is NOW.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I was made redundant at the end of November 2008. Fortunately I got a small retention package and have not yet thrown myself on the mercies of the state - I'm saving that humiliation for when I really need it. I'm also in the unusual position of not having a mortgage or bank loan - I don't have any debts except the monthly outgoings of phone, internet, electricity, council tax, cinema and DVD rentals. These last I use to their maximum, but there comes a point where you've seen every interesting new release that's out now, and they're just sending you as many duff bad titles off your rentals list as they can. Probably deliberately.
It is the boredom which gets to you more than anything else. I was planning to take an extended break anyway, but that was originally going to be about three months long and I was originally planning to get back into the workplace around April. Sadly this is not the time or the economic climate to pick and choose....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Sep 15, 2009 - 4:52 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
CinemaScope
(Member)
|
I was made redundant seven years ago. Luckily I started getting phone calls offering freelance work, a day here, a month there, & that's how it's been since. Good years & bad years, last year turned out very good, this year not so good (& I have to pay the tax for last year). I'm not complaining, I had 38 years of regular employment, & like Hercule, don't have a mortgage. I think it's bloody tough if you're young now. It was a piece of cake when I left school in 1966. You could walk into (& out of) any job, no problem.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm reading "Adventures of Unemployed Man" and enjoying it. I think anyone who has been unemployed would enjoy it, too. Might be too close for comfort for the currently unemployed.
****
I'd also like to say to those who are still, or are recently, good luck. It takes a lot of strength to do what you must do each day.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
