things are looking gloomier in the financial department for us. towards the end of last year, saxy applied at a previous place of employment, which was supposedly under new management, and was told that they would indeed be hiring him. he needed to wait for the next training class to come around however and we knew that would take a few weeks. so we were willing to wait because it was a good paying job especially considering it didn't require a degree or 3 years previous experience or something equally difficult to get in our current circumstances or in the current job environment. other job were actually available at the time but not as well paying, so we waited for the already in progress training session to end.

and heard absolutely nothing from anybody about the time it should have been over.

so saxy called. no one was in. he left messages. no one called back. he kept calling and, according to those answering the phone, kept missing the person he needed to talk to. and she never returned his calls. and, by now, the holiday was fast gaining on us so even seasonal work was gone. he finally ran into the appropriate person at the mall and cornered her.

turns out they decided not to hire him after all.

while by this time that particular news was no big surprise, we were quite upset over why he wasn't being hired and the fact that no one bothered to call and tell him he wasn't hired, especially after telling him he already had a job. in our area, if you are told you have a job that pay $8-$10/hour starting you don't go looking for other work while waiting for your start date because there's very little out here that pays that much even if you've been with the company for awhile. we live in the land of minimum wage and under the table and no benefits. we also live in the land where there are 50 people minimum applying for every opening even if it is minimum wage with no benefits and only 20 hours a week.

let me put it this way: the recession that just might be coming back across the country never left our where we live. instead it made itself quite comfortable and hung around waiting for a chance to pounce on the rest of the country while contenting itself with wrecking havoc here.

so it is absolutely appalling that this woman, who usually doesn't hesitate to give anyone bad news, failed to return saxy's calls to let him know that his employment had been denied. but the real kicker is the reason why he wasn't reemployed when saxy was originally fired, he was fired on a totally bogus reason having to do with his attendance. the company works on a points system and saxy had 1 point left. he offered to come in on a day that he was not actually scheduled because the company was short handed. something came up and he called within the required amount of time (something like 48 hours in advance). on the his next regularly scheduled day he was called into the office as soon as he walked in and was informed that since he volunteered, the extra day (which would have been over time for him, and at the time they were discouraging over time for any employee) had become a scheduled day. since he had failed to come in on a now scheduled day, he was now at 0 points and therefore out of a job (never mind the fact that they had another fellow who would literally disappear 2 or 3 months at a time who was never fired). and now it turns out the company we thought was under new management is not under new management because the head of personnel from the above company is who axed his employment this time stating attendance problems.

saxy has explained this all to the woman he was talking to, about how the whole attendance bs went down in the first place, and she said she would talk to the head of personnel, but that was several weeks ago and we've heard nothing. considering her refusal to call us about ti when this whole thing first started, i am assuming no news, in this case, is bad news.

which means saxy now has to look for work again. guess what? it isn't out there. what little that is out there requires either a degree (and not in english - besides which, i'm still waiting for the damn grade change to hit the system so i can't even find a job in my field at this point because i don't yet qualify), someone who's already trained, 3-5 years of experience, a car, or any combination of the above. thing is, most them require the car regardless and we don't have one. reliable transportation does not equal the bus even by the bus company. so, basically, this company took away the only recent chance he really had of finding anything at all local by not bothering to tell him he wasn't hired afterall. they took away not only the job they said he had but also any chance of finding a job at the one time we had a reasonably good job market.

monday saxy starts looking for work with the worst strikes against him in the worst job market ever. what it comes down to is no car, no job, regardless of what the job is.

and when my degree finally posts, that very same problem may also apply to me.