--VERY Long and Ranty, But Seeking Advice I Can Implement and Use!--
Hello, FB Friends. I would like to get everyone's opinion on something.
I'm now 50 years old, learning-disabled, and wanting to do something substantial, that will get me out of debt, and assist me with, ahem, 'getting my act together,' something I haven't been able to do in 32 years (Since I was 18, that being legal adulthood), since graduating high school.
I've been to a number of colleges and universities in many states--I've lived in about seven or eight--and always have the same results when I go: I go full-time, start strong and motivated, but when the mid-semester/term arrives, I'm so overwhelmed that I can't catch up my class work, and end up having to withdrawal from the program.
I'm now so sick of school and traditional learning that I expect to fail, unless something different can occur.
I've tried to get disability services agencies (Michigan and Missouri in the recent, and not-so-recent past) to allow me to try something different; less-than-full-time college work, starting my own business in Michigan (the office I was involved with basically laughed at me when I had an idea for a then-new-concept, touch-screen gps receiver. I guess Garmin beat me to the punch, eh?)
No get-there-before-it's-adopted-and-marketed-out-of-profit-margins-for-the-small-guy, for me, I guess, eh?
I had that idea before 2004. Now touch-screen gps units are everywhere.
All I given was a little test "to see if you'd be good at business," apparently which I 'failed.' Ya...Right!
I'm currently working with another disability services agency, and they, at least--and at last!--are willing to work with me. Still, I'm indecisive--not exactly the mark of 'substantial entrepreneurial endeavor waiting to be discovered,' so-to-speak.
The fact is, I'm frustrated. This emotional state is usually what people focus on--trying to prevent me from feeling that way--rather than focusing on what I'm saying, with regard to the idea-at-hand, be it another college attempt (unlikely), or a business idea (possibly.)
I have trouble keeping regular work. I had a good job at a local hotel as a night auditor. A night auditor runs computer software that tallies up the day's business, then prints out a lot of paper that has to go into an envelope. This envelope is kept in a box, or some other location, to serve as a hard-copy record of the business for that particular day. This is done every day at a hotel.
This is what my duties were:
Count three money 'drawers'.
Clean a bar area adjacent to the main counter (sweep/mop).
Sweep and mop the front lobby area.
Run the audit at 1am.
Prepare the hot, continental breakfast in the morning (eggs, biscuits and gravy usually, french toast occasionally (usually taken care of by the main breakfast staff; I just started everything, but it had to be ready to go when they arrived.)
Lock up hot tub covers, located outside and in the back of the building.
Tend to guests' reservation needs--something I wasn't adequately trained on, and felt ill when I couldn't meet my guests expectations, which happened more than once.
Clean a bar area adjacent to the main counter (sweep/mop).
Sweep and mop the front lobby area.
Run the audit at 1am.
Prepare the hot, continental breakfast in the morning (eggs, biscuits and gravy usually, french toast occasionally (usually taken care of by the main breakfast staff; I just started everything, but it had to be ready to go when they arrived.)
Lock up hot tub covers, located outside and in the back of the building.
Tend to guests' reservation needs--something I wasn't adequately trained on, and felt ill when I couldn't meet my guests expectations, which happened more than once.
I also volunteered to help the head housekeeper with laundry, which I did, and didn't have any trouble with. However, after a month of this, I couldn't keep up the pace, anymore, and my night shift was segueing into morning, causing me toward the end, to not get enough sleep.
The end result was that I couldn't do the work anymore, as I was getting burned out! I'm really not that much of a multi-tasker, and it finally got to the point that it was either my mental and physical well-being, or my job.
I took the former over the latter.
So now I'm back to square one: 50 years old, living in an income-based apartment complex (for which I'm eminently grateful to have! ♥), in a nice, small town that I'm really falling in love with.
I'm heading for divorce, unfortunately, (another story entirely), an issue that is, of course, heavy on my mind. One doesn't just go eleven (11) years without feeling something. As for me and my spouse, we've both decided to remain friends, but otherwise move on with our lives, at this juncture.
Granted, it's not over until the papers are signed and the judge says "divorced," but it is, probably, a foregone conclusion for me at this point.
So now I'm looking at becoming single again. Single, Twice divorced (assumed on the 2nd.) No completed college education. Learning disabilities. Little decent job experience, save for a lot of pizza delivery.
Experience in this field doesn't mean advancement. There are so many local high school and college students needing jobs, that long-term advancement in this--and most food service jobs, save for that of head chef or sous-chef at a nice restaurant (not my fields of interest)--field are extremely limited.
One, they're too fast-paced for me. I have attention deficit issues, cognitive learning issues, and just don't learn well when I'm moving too fast.
I can learn. That's not the issue. It's just that I have to learn, and focus, on one thing--or one item of a larger discipline--at a time.
Why do disability services departments insist that everybody go to school full-time? I know I can't do it. I've been trying since 1984! Don't people understand what disability means? As if I could do the same thing as an eighteen-year-old freshmen who got Straight A's in high school!
Hell, I can't even get straight C's, let alone A's, and especially not if I can't get the accommodation I require, which no one seems willing to give.
I'm not lazy!
I've worked my ass off to get out here where I am now, including a month and a half of sleeping at a !#!$##! rest area, while working for a Pizza Hut during the day, in one Missouri city!
I worked for a pizza place--where I was earning excellent money--in a South Dakota town for a full month, before I had to quit to meet the move-in requirements for my HUD apartment complex. I had planned on making a daily, 100-mile, round-trip commute to work at the pizza place, but I was told I was "making too much money," and the move-in costs, with deposits and such, would've been beyond my reckoning, as I didn't have a lot of cash at the time.
So I quit, and moved, and have been in my apartment complex for eight months now.
I had one job at a local ski resort, where the managment and attitudes of the people were so bad, and so rude (mainly 14-16 year olds running the !#!#$ cafeteria, gossip, and the like!), I had to quit after three days.
A far cry from working for Pizza Hut for two-and-a-half (2.5) months before I moved out here.
The 2nd job was at a hotel--as a night auditor. I worked two weeks, for three days a week, then was let go without explanation.
The last job was the one where I had to do all the breakfast, money counting, and laundry work. The interview went extremely well, and I was excited, and happy, to be working for that firm. The people were great, and I felt a bit more secure for the first time since leaving Missouri.
However, as stated above, I couldn't keep the job due to too much stress, and multiple work roles.
The End Result?
Well, I'm now broke. I don't get SSI, but only SSDI. Because I"m married, both incomes are factored. The real truth is that I really want to wean myself off of all assistance, make my own way and fortune, and build a respectable home up in the hills near where I'm living now.
But how can I do this?
My beliefs are so mired in the "I'm going to fail no matter what!" category, that my mind is numb to anything that even resembles something "I want to do." If it's not something I want to do, then my subconscious is more than willing to let it happen--just so long as I don't get too happy or believing in myself. That I can do it.
Self-defeatism is so ingrained in me, success is like a foreign country to me. But, to me, that's what I'm going to have to do: succeed! And not just little things, either. Something 'reasonably large, and that I want' is what I need. A material goal at the end of it, as well as having learned something that propels me to the next success.
I've known failure. I've tried to 'pay my dues,' but keep having to 'ante up' so much, I can't get my foot in the door, or a word in, edgewise!
So I'm back to square one! I won't have money until the 3rd, and most of that's depleted due to bills. And I pay my bills on time! I haven't missed one, yet, and have no intention of missing any, at all!
I want my time in my new area to be positive, and successful! I'm tired of failure, but know I'm going to have to endure many more until the end of it.
I know how to fail. But why can't I just learn how to succeed?
I'd sure like to be able to meet that motor scooter goal of mine (see my home page background), but by my hands, doing things my own way for a change, and being able to see ahead, through any failure, and just brush it aside, solve the problem, then move ahead, and achieve that elusive goal we call SUCCESS!
As of now, I'm having a hard time seeing it. Any suggestions are both sought after and welcome.
--Stephen
