869 Days

869 days… Does that sound like a lot? It’s two years, four months, and 16 days. That’s how long it’s been since I last had a steady job. I cannot even begin to express my frustration.

Back then, employers were “urgently hiring,” so I thought I would easily find something else when I had to leave my job. I have nearly 20 years of work experience in total — yes, I did the math, or rather, I have an Excel spreadsheet that did the math for me.

I have only four-and-a-half months of experience in banking and have no intention of returning to that horrid type of employment. I have almost 16 months of experience in education thanks to my job as a tutor before I graduated with my Associate’s Degree back in 2015. I have nearly two years of experience in food service from before my days of retail. None of that is impressive.

But retail… I have 16-and-a-half years of experience in retail, including five years in retail supervisor positions and three-and-a-half years as a retail manager.

Since leaving my last steady job, I have applied to 171 different positions with 127 different companies. This might not sound like a lot, but I live in a smaller town, so there are not a lot of job opportunities. I secured three jobs since leaving, but none of them worked out: the first was a disorganized mess and I left for another job, which was lies, and the last one did not properly inform me of the physical duties involved with the position.