Hey guys,
Hopefully this isn’t the wrong forum. It’s the only work-related space I follow, though if you know somewhere else I should post, please let me know. I’ve been unemployed for over 2 years. For a while it was fine because I was picking up gigs on an app that shall not be named and had a few freelance clients that carried over from my previous company. It wasn’t good money, but I was getting by somehow. Then I got dropped by the app because I missed a gig after getting into a car accident this summer. I even sent them pictures of the car and everything but they said it was against their policy to reinstate someone after missing a gig without timely notice (I didn’t let them know until the next day, which in retrospect was stupid of me but I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time).
My freelance at least was going alright-ish so I just cut back on my spending (by which I mean I stopped paying certain bills) and started applying for various night jobs, figuring I could pull it all together soon. Well, no one’s been biting. Out of the dozens of jobs I‘ve applied for only 2 even bothered to tell me they were going with someone else. Then my freelance started taking a hit as well. It’s not totally unexpected. They’re all regular people running their own side gigs and between the holidays and inflation, there’s only so much new collateral they’re willing to pay for. I get it.
Now though, time has basically run out for me. I’m going to a staffing agency later this week in the hope they can schedule me for evening event gigs- who knows how many of those gigs there will be, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime, I recorded and edited a video for YouTube. I‘m including a donation link in the description but I honestly don’t expect it to pull in any money. I just thought if I started a channel and did a new art project every 2 weeks or month, maybe it would eventually generate new freelance leads so I don’t have to depend solely on gig work. Even just 2-3 new clients would be a huge help. I absolutely cannot work a regular 9-5 job right now (not that any of them would hire me anyway) so my final resort will be applying for an Amazon warehouse position. It’s the one thing I haven’t applied for yet because even though I know they have night shifts at the warehouse some 40 minutes away, I also know they don’t stick to the shifts you’re originally hired for and the work itself is likely beyond my physical capabilities; though I’d push myself to do it for as long as I could if I had to.
Note that I’m not advertising or anything. I haven’t even uploaded the video or figured out everything I need to know to start the channel yet (also on the schedule this week, but we’ll see). I’m just wondering how I can get people to see the video if I’m not on FB, Twitter, or other popular social media forums to promote it. God knows YouTube won’t promote it and before now I’ve avoided social media as much as possible. As in, I started a FB page 2 years ago and then never posted even once.
Are there reddit forums for this kind of thing? Are there less-known places to post that are not as…awful? I do have a linkedin account but f*ck that place is a hellhole of recruiters and garbage people. I’m super depressed right now and beginning to feel hopeless but I know too many things are depending on me to give up just yet. Any advice is greatly appreciated.