he is soo right :( It happens alot no matter how much top university you passed or how muc...

In this case, can you blame employers? Kaede has used his academic achievements to shut out the world. He's innocent, but gullible; sweet-natured, but blind; hardworking, but pathologically shy; self-responsible, but fearful and self-absorbed. He gets blamed for mistakes he didn't make. He is on the verge of making a huge mistake. He is wholly unsuited for a job which requires initiative and risk-taking, which tends to be the difference between joe-jobs and an actual profession.

you are 100% right but here I am talking about the companies :(

And when I say that he gets blamed for mistakes he didn't make, it isn't as though I think that's his fault, but those who live courageously defend themselves because, to do otherwise, robs the person who made the mistake of the opportunity to change and puts the rest of the business at risk.

But being able to communicate easily with coworkers about subjects that have nothing to do with the job, no matter how silly or inane you might think they are, can tell a prospective employer about how responsive you are, how you deal with impropriety, and other cues. It isn't about the subject. It's about you.

It's a catch-22.

Either you focus on school work to get good grades and do internships...and then you get no job because you have no credible work experience and they don't want to deal with you.

Or you focus on work and making connections and middle your way through school on a half-assed degree. But hey, you got work experience...but no higher education (Masters) so promotions aren't really for you.

Only people who do well is those with connections and you get that by family and friends.


I couldn't even get a job at a bank with my B.A. so I went back for a Masters then they said I had too much of a work history gap.

So I decided fuck it I will work for myself and live with my folks...not exactly going to plan.

I agree that personal prestige and social connections improve the chances for and success, which is why human resource personnel place so much emphasis on them and the skills for acquiring them during the interview process. That is why it is important to cultivate them in addition to one's academic achievements. Relationships and being able to relate are often as important as what you know (except in some cases.)

Which makes it hard as fuck for hermits and shy people those with social anxiety to get anywhere.

It really does. Especially now that people are expected to have multiple careers over their lifetime, and must be resourceful as well as sociable.

I'm just horrible with people. I get anxious on the phone. I don't know if I have the authority to say or do something and just want to fob it off up the line. Then I get chewed out for not handling it myself.

I did several work internship programs for class credit or a workstudy (financial aid program) and I would fuck up in some way. I wouldn't get rehired at the same department.

Oh god. I did a workstudy at the Archaeology department at my Uni (14 years back?) and I lost the payroll docs because the box was heavy and THEY placed it on the trashcan and I just forgot to move it (thought I put a NOT TRASH sticker on it) and next day the director was dumpster diving. NEVER FOUND THEM. They can't exactly FIRE you (contract thingy) but they can decide to not rehire you.

I wish they told me at the end of the semester that I shouldn't reapply for them. They just sneakily denied me and never said why.

BTW, I knew these people for a while. I did two summer work programs with them for the kid's summer archaeology dept and the Director was my Professor a few times. And they still just didn't say, don't reapply for us and yes it's because of the payroll thing.

Fuck, it's not like I crashed the car unlike a previous workstudy person.

It was my last workstudy program. I got a job at my dorm instead not as an RA but night staff. I was paid min wage but worked only 20 hours if that...so it was sucky pay.

The Archaeology Dept did let me come back for an internship the semester I graduated. I was stuck in the back organizing dig stuff, records etc. I'm good at organizing things. I'm also good at fixing things. I'm NOT good at people stuff.

Oh and the dorm thing. I would also fuck up with the people thing. I did a semester conference thing. They kick out the dorm students for the summer and then host conferences there like a hotel. It was interesting. I applied for an RA position but I was graduating mid-year so I didn't get it. They also told me it was the only reason I didn't get it.

If I got a local job I think because of the contacts I made I could have got a good job. But I was planning on going to Grad School in another city so I left. I went home for a semester, got my Denial letter. Tried finding jobs. Then went to Grad School locally. Not a top tier Uni but a good one. I got the bug to try to open my own book publishing company but...no other authors wanted to sign up...and things have slowed to a crawl due to lack of investment funds.

Which is why I'm still living with my folks while trying to work on publishing some photography books through Lulu press (need to reformat the whole thing with photoshop) and working on a novel series.

But I keep getting sidetracked by fanfic and manga and since 2016 Politics. I got involved locally and now sort of high up? But it's a SMALL county party so there is only like 15 to 20 people who go to the meetings and I get press ganged to do things since I'm young (most of the members are AARP members. lol)

I had to give a little presentation (was only told AT the meeting I had to do it) on Indivisible, phone apps like 5 Calls, etc for calling Congress and I felt like I was in front of a firing squad and kept stumbling and saying the wrong things. But the local DA and the party leaders praised me for it...lol

Funny enough. I don't regret anything.

Because I was living with my folks they are both alive.

My s-dad who is diabetic had some issues with hacking and anxiety. Mom took him to the ER one night and it turns out he did have heart problems. He had a couple of really blocked valves and had emergency surgery and had stints put in.

I was the caretaker who nursed him for a solid month. Or else he would have been left alone. Mom couldn't take off work to handle him.

And oh god was he was a handful. Mom's issues was MUCH easier even if her's was more deadly.

Mom had been a temp worker at a heavy machinery rental place through a temp worker agency and had been there for 3 years? 4? She got a chance to apply for a permanent position and make nearly triple what she was making (min wage).

So only a few months into the job she is invited to a women's conference in Galveston. They both got sick. It was some sort of virus. But mom's sickness never went away for a solid month. She also refused to go to the doctor.

Then she came down with breathing troubles. She went to the doctor and they told her it was pneumonia. She started to get better and then one day it was really bad.

She couldn't sleep, was sitting up in a chair all night, and I watched over her to make sure she was still breathing.

My mom is late 60s and this happened in 2015. She turns 70 in next November. Still working.

Finally s-dad dragged her to a clinic. She was in heart failure. S-dad picked me up and we went 30 miles to the city at a top rated Heart Hospital. Was in the ER for hours as they waited for an ICU bed to open up. I was taken home by a friend since I was falling asleep.

Turns out the stomach virus attacked her heart. VERY rare. Her heart started to suffer from atrial fibrillation. The pneumonia? It was heart failure which has similar symptoms to it. Trouble breathing, water weight, swelling of legs etc.

Her heart was only working at 25% anything below 50% and your heart could stop working at any moment with no warning.

They blatantly told her that they did not understand why she hadn't died yet as they think she was in heart failure for about 2 weeks. Her heart just kept working but it was running out of power.

She's fine now. On meds for the A-Fib and other issues caused by the virus and her heart made an EXTREMELY RARE FULL MEDICAL RECOVERY in that it is working at normal capacity. Her cardiologist (which is also my s-dad's) said he was going to write her up in a medical journal due to how rare it was.

She wears a fitbit now to help monitor her heartbeats.

But if I wasn't home? If I wasn't the one who took care of them when sick? When I was watched my mother all night and poked her to see if she still breathed? If I wasn't here to nurse them back to health.... I don't think they would be alive.

So I might be considered a loser in life, broke, in high student loan debt, jobless, living with my folks? But I don't regret it.

Life is weird. We just gotta take our licks, fight on, and wait for the rollercoaster to go up again.

OMG, you have been through the wringer. And it is a blessing that you were home when the people whom you love and who most love you needed you so much. That must give your heart a warm glow when everything else piles on. (It certainly made mine feel happy and light just reading it. I wanted to reach through the computer and give you a big squishy hug.) I'm happy and relieved for you and your family that you are there to care for them when they need it, and that they are still alive as a result. You did well! REALLY well.

In terms of your social anxieties, they sound surmountable given time, experience and a few positive outcomes. People rarely emerge from university or internships unscathed. It is for learning and will involve making mistakes, and the hoops they make you jump through are precisely set up to make you do a bunch of useless, soul-crushing thisngs just for the sh*ts-&-giggles on the pretext that it builds character, which it emphatically does not. (Kills it, actually. Rigged in favour of psychopaths.) It sounds like you're clear about the biggest mistake you made (the payroll papers—a garbage bin is never the spot to place them because even though you showed foresight and initiative in labeling the box, the people who hauled it away weren't paying attention ... and probably wouldn't ever), but I wouldn't place overly much emphasis on your personal responsibility in the matter. Yes, it was a mistake and your response was unsuitable, but interns are newbies who don't have enough experience to be expected to know all the ropes. Interns misjudge, hence interns need to be supervised and, when their judgment calls are off, overruled. Where was your supervisor when this happened? If he or she did not step forward to accept responsibility, then that's one slippery bastard you should feel relieved that you will never work for again. But there are many people like that in the workforce, which is the reason this thread began in the first place. So one learns to deal, but that also means being able to take the hit. In time, you will have the experience, tough psychological scar tissue thickening your skin, and the ability to brush it off. Trust that! But first there is no point denying that you were wounded and still feel the hurt, and that it was unfair and left you fearful. Give it time to heal, keep working on your accomplishments and for things you believe in, keep track of those (even the small ones), and the strength will come.

And if your field is archaeology, then it is even harder to find work, because there are so few paid placements available and so much competition for those that exist. I've met people with Oxbridge fellowships in that area (well ... more along the area of natural history) who have trouble finding work. It is about as easy to find work there as it is to make it as an artist or actor. One thing that is positive is your training as a progressive. You know that there are limits to personal responsibility, and that vast impersonal forces like politics, economics, the environment and social milieu have a deeper effect on outcomes. Your responsibility is the tiny ripple of breath on a wave; the other forces are like great tidal swells. But what strikes me the most about your work in politics is how you've chosen the one field which has more trials-by-fire than any other. Just putting your opinion out there is going to attract a backlash, and there is nothing like attracting attention from trolls and operatives and dealing with their lies and BS for making a person stronger, more determined and less susceptible to bullying. So good on you for stepping up. The old crones and geezers are right to praise you.

My field was Anthropology, specifically Cultural Anthropology. But Archaeology is interesting and my degree required courses in it. I had a double major of Anthropology & Philosophy.

I wanted to go into Public Affairs...but got denied. My GREs weren't great, etc.

I went to a local uni for a new degree in Publishing and internship with an indie artsy book publisher run by the Uni. I really liked it. Which is why I wanted to do my own thing. I went back for a business degree. Just...money issue is holding things back. I'm trying to do a print on demand thing to save costs but they don't use the same program I did to design the book...and I'm just not in the mood redesign it again at the moment.

But I've always been into politics. I got involved in 2008 but I wasn't happy with the local party because they didn't support the same sort of things I did (marriage equality, etc) and it was difficult to find out WHEN the meetings were.

But things changed when I got back into it last November after Trump won. Our meetings at a restaurant instead of a bank's second floor. We get food. I get notices about meetings. It's more fun.

Plus in 2017 we got a new leader and she's younger and more technologically in tune so we got a website, fb, twitter account and emails about when the meetings are.

Our goal is to re-take our county. We are a small town rural area that has gone Democrat locally for decades in a sea of red Republican counties. We went red in 2016 and lost several seats. But we plan to take them back.

We're smaller so we have more freedom to do things locally.

You sound like a very socially active and engaged young woman for someone who suffers from social anxieties. That's why I'm confident you can work through your difficulties in time. You show the key sign: caring about others. The importance of that will override any obstacles. If you stay focused on the things which are important to people: health care, education, job creation and living wages, redistribution of tax burdens ... I'm sure you will triumph!

Also, don't hold off re-formatting your novel too long. The more work you put out, the more sources of income you will acquire.

Haven't got to work on the novel yet. Still working on timeline stuff.

The photography book is done. I have pdfs of it out. I just need to redo it all for print form and other ebook variations.

But politics is just eating up everything else. I think once 45* is impeached I think I will have more time. lol

I'm less concerned with impeachment, more interested in indictment, and keep my sights homed in on the end goal of prison.