I had been unemployed for about 30 days or so, and decided to use the Georgia department of labor’s website to find job leads. After submitting many inquires for potential leads, I notice that I was regularly receiving emails back, stating my skills didn’t match the employer’s specifications. This bothered me, especially when I’ve always read jobs specs carefully before applying. I had begun to ponder the effectiveness of this agency and the competency of its staffing. If anything, I’d considered myself over qualified for most jobs I’d applied for on the site – pitching low and aiming hitting high. Despite my unsettling premonitions, I continued to apply and reapply and I would occasionally receive an acceptance E-mail. At first, you couldn’t even imagine my excitement upon receiving one of these acceptance E-mails. But my excitement was always short lived and made completely null because they would often contain link errors prohibiting me from following up with the application process. Some conformation E-mails were linked to other temporary service agencies making the process further cumbersome, or linked to jobs that no longer existed. Some E-mails requested that I show up at my local DOL to complete a submittal, this option was by far the worst. These places are like prisons or physic wards often having armed security patrolling the building’s interior and exterior. The personnel seems to repeatedly bark orders at citizens instructing them seat down, stay seated, get up, don’t lean on counters, whereby, making many feel totally disenfranchised. It’s like your being prosecuted for a downed economy on top of not having a job. These places wrecks of despair, dread, and misfortune. But shockingly, this ambiance felt is not facilitated by the hopeful unemployed but by its substandard staffing.
I finally got a job by pounding the pavement, and through good old fashion elbow grease. First, I researched the places I wouldn’t mind working, and then submitted my application to them DIRECTLY. I followed up by calling or E-mailing them, questioning the status of my application - DIRECTLY. By becoming my own ambassador and speaking for myself I had begun to harness my own sense of assertiveness. I had inadvertently placed the power squarely within. Those DOL folks (IT and HR department) are babysitting chairs getting paid off your despair. They don’t care if you’re about to lose your car, home or having trouble feeding your children. They’re only there to receive a government/state procured check, much like the citizens they encounter.
Protest against their indignant practices by writing the commissioner (DOL) and doing what I did. Maybe then we could lead some of these personnel back to their first love – servicing the public or servicing French fries, it doesn’t matter.
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