im 20 years old, no significant work experience, no highschool qualifications. i live in a rural area (largest town near me has a whole 10k population, my town has 1.5k and the smallest official township within 20 minutes of me has a total population of 600).
theres corporate jobs everywhere, ive been applying left and right and not a single response. i worked corporate retail for 3 months and got fired when the crackhead assist manager teamed up with the crackhead district manager and they cleaned the whole district out, i was the longest employed non management position when they got rid of me. and i think getting fired after 3 months completely fucked my shit up because i cannot find a job now!
i applied 4 places last week and none of them have responded. the only places i havent applied are local mom n pop shops in neighboring towns i have to apply in person at and cant get too because every dime that comes from my side hustle is going towards gas. i have a $95 insurance payment to make and im only getting guaranteed $65 before my insurance is due and it takes $20 of gas just to get to the kid i watch.
now, you might be wondering, OP, what does the title of this post have to do with your money troubles?
well you see, my town, the little 1.5k population town i mentioned?
it used to have over 10k population.
there were 7 gas stations: a Phillips 66, a caseys general store and then 5 local places. there were 5 saw mills. there was a factory that made hats and shirts specifically. the grocer was locally owned and sold both locally made products and big brand foods. it had a deli. there were 2 restaraunts in town. and a bank and a pharmacy. the caseys and phillips 66 were the only true corporate jobs.
old man hollis died and the gas station closed
sawmill 1 closed
mr monroe lost his second location
the opioid crisis found our little bubble
sawmill 2 closed
the 24hr station on the edge of town closed
then came the dollar store
mrs lindsey lost her pharmacy license because she was selling opiates out the back, but someone else owns the pharmacy now and its still local
sawmill 3 closed
then mr monroe lost his license to sell gas at his remaining shop. instead of a gas station its a used tire shop
then the subway showed up
the hat factory went corporate
then one of the local restaraunts closed
then the grocer sold out to a corporation and they built an exxon station right next to it
even the fucking funeral home is owned by a corporation now, which i guess isnt that rare, but in a town this small we dont have enough deaths to even sustain a corporate one unless we let them do exactly what theyve done and price gouged the funerals. when my great uncle died before it went corporate, his funeral was 7k, when my great grandma died a few years ago, 12k. who the hell is out here affording that? because it aint me
but yea, now, in my town of 1.5k we have:
• caseys (corporate)
• dollar store (corporate)
• grocery store (corporate
• exxonmobil (corporate)
• subway (corporate franchise)
• the bank (local; the man who runs that bank is the reason dick is short for richard now. fuck you and your predatory interest rates, richard. i will never open an account there.)
• the public school (government, its k-12 all on the same campus)
• the other gas station (local, family owned and ran for generations and no matter how good friends my dad is with miss twyla she doesnt take applications)
• the post office (government)
• 2 saw mills (local, both have moved out of the city limits now)
• the other restaraunt (local, for sale and shouldnt have passed inspection for the past 15 years)
thats it. city hall is also the police station because 1) we dont have the population to justify a whole station and 2) because we dont have the population to justify the whole city hall. corporations showed up and killed everything. now we rely on them to live because without them we actually have nothing.
i dont know one person that doesnt live paycheck to paycheck. the people who havent been ravaged by corporations have been ravaged by the opioid crisis. everyone who still lives there wants to get out or is too drugged up to realise the towns money supply has run dry. we dont even have a bar or liquor store to drown our sorrows in, but you can get roxys from the neighbor!
i shouldve became a drug dealer too. i either would be making enough that i wouldnt be worried or id end up too cranked to care.
fuck making america great again. make america local again. if a single one of those corporate pieces of shit abandon us then we will be wiped off the map. this fucking sucks. none of the local places hire, or they arent entry level jobs, and all the corporate places are too picky to take me.