Monday, February 02, 2009

Unempoyment week4

So couple of weeks ago, I filed for unemployment and now I found out that one of the requirement is to register under labor exchange system to find a job. After searching for a labor department website in Brooklyn, I found a location 15 minutes subway ride from me in down town Brooklyn. First thing I noticed as I walked in this "workforce 1" center? Me being total minority out of minorities. It was mostly blacks, and some Hispanics. On top of that, me being the only person with I-pod and Mac Book (well and my $300 boots) in the waiting room stood out pretty nicely. It reminds me of my friend Josh's experience at a sleepy Waffle house somewhere deep south with his laptop checking his work emails. Well, anyways I got there around 11:30 am in a good spirit (I had a nice cup of Cappuccino in my polish neighborhood bakery) and found out that I have to wait for about an hour until they have an "orientation." I waited until the security guard told us to make a line - which was quiet long. And we were told they only take 40 people at a time. I was at my 33! Bunch of people had to go back home. Obviously there are more demands for the service that the supply here. Mayor Bloomburg extended office hours since last December.
So after sitting in the classroom for registration for about 4 hours here are things I learned from a serises of Powerpoint presentations (well of course I enjoyed Bad art on each slide)!

1. You make $9/hour as a tele marketer if you are bilingual - spanish/english (not korean / english i understand) and 7.25~7.50/hour just for english.

2. Telemerketer entry level position doesn't care about your criminal history

3. You gotta MARKET yourself to join the today's WORKFORCE

4. They also offer a GED classes along with basic computer skills, resume writing...etc.

5. no FUNNY email addresses or DJ style voice mail greeting if you wanna be taken seriously by companies like time warner (well as soon as I heard this comment I started brainstorming about how to make my voice mail greeting GROOVY :) )

6. Today's employers seek people with COMPUTER skills OMG

7. The offered areas of available position this week are... health care, security guard, cable technician, ah and something else I forgot

8. Of course you gotta be quick standing in a line

Finally, I have to say I am being a total smart ass about this public service and people who are trying to help me...but seriously, I have to say it was pretty tough to get through the program learning what opportunities lie there + having to explain what a design researcher does.

4 comments:

serota said...

"3. You gotta MARKET yourself to join the today's WORKFORCE"

this made me laugh SO HARD.

Unknown said...

It sounds like there are no categories for the unemployed. You should demand separate but equal PPT presentations -Myriad & Frutiger with subtle slide transitions and NO stock photography or animated text.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the tips! I'm now going to change my cellphone voicemail message to remove the audio sample I have of "We Call It Acieed".

missoh said...

Thanks people who shared kind words about my Ignite NYC presentation on Unemployment 101.