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This video is going to be full of feels. If you just stumbled upon my channel and this
is the first video you watch from me, or if you are not a big fan of the feels, you can
skip this video and that's fine. Down in the doobly-doo below the Like button,
I have links to some of my recent videos with considerably fewer feels, so you can watch
those instead.
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Hi there, I'm Roberto. Hope you guys are doing well.
I am not happy and that has been the case for several months now, but one thing I know
is that many times, if you can do something or say something that will help someone feel
better, that will make you feel better too. And that usually does it for me and it's what
has kept me going through these times. Here's the deal: I've been out of a job for
a long time now and after a lot of time looking locally and in the United States I landed
a job interview for a company in LA, and I took a risk and went with the intention of
getting a job and moving there. I knew back then that it was a very risky
move but desperate times called for desperate measures.
And like I told you guys in a video last month, that interview didn't work out; I did not
get that job. So after a couple of days in LA I went to
San Diego and stayed with a friend of mine and his wife, and continued the job hunt from
there. I looked in San Diego, Los Angeles and Orange
Counties. I even applied for a couple of jobs in the
San Francisco bay area even though I don't really see myself moving there.
But hey if something landed, why not?! And in nineteen days I applied for 43 jobs,
at least those are the ones I was able to keep track of.
Some of these job seeking sites are a total mess.
They won't send you email confirmations or get you a profile where you can keep track
of your applications. I applied to tech companies big and small,
some with names we are very familiar with, others with a name I had never heard of, while
others kept their name confidential hiding behind recruiting sites.
In total I landed three job interviews and one of them turned out to be a scam, which
thankfully I was able to spot before I even went there.
There was an opportunity for me to do some work teaching computers at a community in
Escondido but that was only going to be a part time of a couple hours per week, which
would've worked fine as a second job but I still needed a first job.
And in before comments of "Oh everything is all about the money!"
When you don't have a place to live, you need a job that can pay for a roof over your head
so of course, it's about the money. So as excited as I was for that opportunity
it wasn't something I could really afford to accept.
Sheesh! You would think fourteen years working with computers and ten years of experience
testing software would have made things easier for me.
After all, it's not like I was looking for a job in the entertainment field in Los Angeles,
but it really wasn't easy at all. And I was also limited by time.
My friend who is a hitting coach, had to leave for spring training at the end of February,
and I was going to be still without a job and now homeless too.
So it was either trying to find a place at a homeless shelter or coming back to Puerto
Rico. I did not like any of those choices but I
had to pick one. Without a job it made no sense for me to roommate
with anyone else. And that's how I'm here back to square one.
Wait, what does that even mean? Oh according to Wikipedia, going back to square
one is in reference to a board game named Snakes and Ladders, kind of like a less kiddie
version of Chutes and Ladders, a game I that I never played.
But it doesn't matter, I'm back where I started and I'm definitely not happy about it.
But I'm not giving up, I'm still looking and I want to go back.
Like I said earlier, I don't like this place at all and I can't even fake it.
I'm also not down with some people's attitude, who think that I should just give up and live
off the government. What kind of life is that?!
It doesn't matter how disabled your physical body is, if your mind isn't, there has to
be something better and you have to aim for it.
So living on welfare is definitely not an option for me.
I learned a lot from this experience and I know I have to do things differently now.
And I'm getting better prepared now for when I go back.
I was in talks with a company earlier this week but those fell through.
It's okay; when it happens you will see it happen because I don't want to stop making
videos. This time though, I'm not going to jump the
gun and will keep quiet until things actually happen.
That was one heck of a February! And also spoiler alert for those of you kids
who think that as we get older, we stop screwing up and know everything.
That is definitely not the case. We never stop making mistakes and hopefully,
we don't stop learning from them. I think the main reason why I still don't
regret this whole experience is that now I'm not dealing with the "What Ifs".
What if I had not taken the risk and had turned down that job interview at the beginning of
February? What if that was the job for me?
What if I had given up at that very moment and had not kept trying?
Well, now I know firsthand that wasn't the case and I don't have to torture myself with
the "What Ifs". If you've made it this far into the video,
thank you; I really appreciate your support. I don't know how much that made.
In fact, if it made some sense, maybe I'm getting good at editing.
But I hope to bounce back from this experience really soon and by my next video, I plan to
be back to my regularly-scheduled randomness with fewer feels.