Most companies don’t want to hire me because of the delays in the processing of PERM these days since I have just a year left. And I just recently switched careers from construction to data.
Feeling really hopeless and alone. My spouse has a good job, but this stress of not getting any work has been devastating to me. It took me around 8 months of job searching to find a role as a career switcher and now I’m back to square one in a bad market. I don’t have anybody I can talk to and just want to talk about my problems.
I’m parked outside a Burger King parking lot in the car by myself and don’t have a clue on what I should do.
Feeling hopeless.
This really helped me:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
- Wendell Berry
Get out into nature for a day, leave your phone at home, observe reality, walk. The world is mighty, and so are you. :)
If you need to vent, feel free to schedule a call with me
[1] https://calendly.com/taylor-town/30min
or shoot me an email
[2] hello@taylor.town
I'm not a professional, so definitely consider finding one. I've been doing therapy for years, and it's really helpful:
I want you to know that you're not alone in this. There are many people who have been in similar situations, and there is help available. I'm here to listen to you and offer any support I can. There are a lot of options for you. O1 Visa is one of them.
In terms of practical help, have you considered reaching out to organizations or groups that offer support to people in your situation? They may be able to provide guidance on navigating the H1-B visa system and finding job opportunities. I can also help you research and find resources in your area.
Additionally, I encourage you to take care of your mental health during this difficult time. It's important to prioritize self-care and seek professional help if needed. There's no shame in asking for help, and it can make a big difference in how you feel.
Please know that I'm here for you and that there is hope for your situation. Let's work together to find a way forward. Please drop me an email : anand.bdk [at] gmail.com
I'm on one of those people who think about the single bullet cure when I'm shopping for groceries, so I've built up a little cabinet of mental tricks to keep it from happening until I'm good and ready.
Tad Friend's "Jumpers" (a long piece about people ending their lives from the Golden Gate) has kept me on this side of the Great Gate several times now over my forty-something years on this planet. I still read it a few times a year.. Specifically, the following passage:
https://archive.is/oy2Nd#selection-811.0-815.396
Survivors often regret their decision in midair, if not before. Ken Baldwin and Kevin Hines both say they hurdled over the railing, afraid that if they stood on the chord they might lose their courage. Baldwin was twenty-eight and severely depressed on the August day in 1985 when he told his wife not to expect him home till late. “I wanted to disappear,” he said. “So the Golden Gate was the spot. I’d heard that the water just sweeps you under.” On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. “I still see my hands coming off the railing,” he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”
I applied to approx. 100 jobs, got 5 interviews and 2 offers over the course of two weeks, and the job I accepted was one the recruiter set up for me.
The recruiters cost nothing to you, they get paid by the company if you stick around for 3 months (or something). I stayed at the company I was hired into for 9 years.
I'm not good at comforting people, but I think it should help to know this is a very solvable problem. You got this!
Do not beat yourself up, and do not feel sorry for yourself. These are traps that will damage your self-esteem and could potentially sabotage your relationship.
Communicate with your partner. Tell them how you're feeling and get feedback.
Edit: could you tell us which state / city you're located in? You'd get targeted help from people, like referrals, or other help.
My friend and I have been working on a job hunting playbook for the past few months on how to get interviews without a recognizable brand on your resume, in this down market. We wanted to do a show HN after a week or so once it's more polished, but heck I think it can help now so here it is: https://zerofactorial.xyz/get-interviews/intro.
Happy to help however I can, and hoping your situation gets better soon.
And please know that you're not alone. I'm glad to see the other comments here offering their contact info to chat with. In a sense we're in this together, and you have this community behind you, to help you in any way that it can.
Please take care my friend.
Showcase your CV/skills online for others to find you. Opportunities will come. Stay strong. This is just temporary.
Now, be the best husband for her. You have time, so keep the house clean, cook for her, be supportive, and keep motivated to find another job.
You will eventually find another thing. But REALIZE that you have your wife with you.
Several others in my company on H1B were also laid off- alto the company was "generous" enough to keep them on the books (at a token salary) for an additional 4 months to give them an extension while they look for work.
You are lucky to have a good spouse. Think about what you have. The market will come back- and you will find a job soon.
Acknowledge this is very difficult situation. Usually people can deal with 1 problem at a time but its still very stressful. 2 is really hard. If you can deal with 3 you are a mensch. (eg: dealing with new baby, starting a company, deal with aged parent all at same time).
What you can do:
1. Work at your skills. Create a 40 hour schedule for yourself filled with job applications, becoming better at skills (educative.io is a great resource for indepth technical topics and interviewing skills ) .
2. Enjoy this break. Weird as this sounds - you have the rest of your life to work. What you can do is workout, get back into the best shape of yourlife. Travel either locally or with spouse - make sure she is happy.
3. Help others. Helping anyone will help your mental health tremendously. It can be at a soup kitchen or anywhere else. Help friends in similar situations. Write a blog for others in similar situation.
That's a tough word. It feels like a loop: The mere fact that I feel hopeless makes me feel worthless which makes me feel hopeless.
I've never struggled to find work but I've had two tragedies in my life that feel similar -- a very big loss that maybe has a way for you to assign blame to yourself (blame that is likely less deserved than how much is being assigned), a loss that feels like your future is blurry or that makes you feel like the dreams you planned on are not possible any longer. OK, that's probably a good place to stop with that ...
You are by yourself in a car in a Burger King parking lot, but you are not alone.
You haven't given up. I don't believe you will.
Let yourself feel hopeless for a little bit -- at least, don't let yourself feel guilty for "being normal". If you haven't already found a thousand people to talk to, reply and I'm sure we can figure out a way to exchange numbers outside of an HN comment thread (I'm pretty easy to track down). If not, I wish you and your spouse the best through all of this -- give them a hug; they're rooting/hurting for you, too.
[0] raises hand looks around puts hand down
Start journaling. Uncensored. Write nonstop for 30 minutes. This will clear your head, feel like an emotional burden lifted, and help with the feeling of not being able to talk to anyone. All of this will make dealing with the actual issues much easier.
I have done therapy, and journaling every morning has the exact same cathartic effect for free.
Google "Morning Pages" and "The Artist's Way" for more info, but it's literally that simple, and it's surprisingly effective.
What about contacting your former company? What about your former boss or bosses there, a colleague, HR person, or all of these? If the layoffs were 6 months ago, it's always possible they are rehiring, even for your exact former position. Don't be afraid to explain your situation to them.
If you are on a dependent visa, does that mean you aren't in danger of having to leave the U.S.? I'm not sure if your spouse is a U.S. citizen or not, but are you allowed to apply for work authorization under whatever dependent visa you're on?
> I’m parked outside a Burger King parking lot in the car by myself and don’t have a clue on what I should do.
If you have any amount of insurance, please try to find a doctor, any doctor including your PCP, and get recommended to see a psychiatrist and therapist as soon as possible. If you don't have insurance, I'm not exactly sure of the steps, but you could still see a previous PCP or any family doctor to get some pointers and advice of how to move forward. That is what they are there for, and you definitely need it. Please follow through on this. You gotta make the phone calls.
In the meantime, do your best to eat well, get sleep, and try to work out in any way possible, even something as simple as morning and evening walks. You should see a doctor, but these are ways to help your body relieve itself of stress.
Email is in my bio.
The market is not as good as it once was, but there are still plenty of openings and it only takes one offer.
In hindsight, this experience initiated a lot of good changes in my life:
--It showed us that we (spouse and I) are a strong unit. We are more resilient than we thought, and don’t need a lot of material things to keep us happy and together. That realization was extremely powerful.
--I kickstarted my financial planning into high gear. We boosted our savings rate, planned for kids’ tuitions, paid off the mortgage early, etc. Since then, we always have 1 year’s worth of living expenses saved, in case both of us lost our jobs. All of that helped in taking our net worth to the top few %.
I would highly recommend reading “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. There are other good books on stoic philosophy as well.
You will have a tough time ahead but you'll survive just fine too. Think one level lower on Maslow's hierarchy of needs for now. You have everything you need to survive. Going higher is on pause. For now.
Can I ask a question? Have you told your spouse? This is common in these situations. You don't want to put much on their shoulders but they'll just want to hug you and support you. So does everyone.
- You can get naturalized. https://www.uscis.gov/military/naturalization-through-milita...
- It's the U.S. Military, so pretty good record on the whole. Maybe if you look the other way on Vietnam, Abu Ghraib, Blackwater, misbehaved politicians and their silly e-mail servers, and the fact that it can kind of be ugly business.
- Free college, if you have kids you can confer it to them.
- It's a job, dollar-amount-wise pay won't be competitive, but it's non-zero, and yields non-cash benefits such as the VA loan, aforementioned GI bill, and a litany of other benefits from both state and federal government. https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/benefits_book/2020_Feder...
- May be able to select your own job, and get a standard technical career education in that trade.
- Sense of duty, discipline, world-class paralegal-type education/MBA-type organizational-business operations exposure, physical-health-type education and training. (MBAs aren't too popular around here, but the frustrating language they use to discuss things is pervasive and hence useful). In all likelihood, you'll skip away with a lot of soft-skills, a stronger body, a wallet, a retirement fund, and a diverse set of friends. As the Military is bound to law, every action must be assessed in terms of law, and all activities are governed by law. Well-meaning contributors over hundreds of years have written law, orders, doctrine, policy, manual, and regulation often in blood, you get to pick that all up.
- Huge community of invested contributors, VFW/American Legion admission, common ground with many Americans as the DoD is the world's largest employer.
- There's options to potentially serve locally such as Guard or Reserve, you might reach out to local recruiters from different branches to find out if that's an option.
You can check out the service-sites for more details, or maybe walk in to a recruiter's station and see if they're like, there.
Call me any time 24/7.
You will get through this.
I am sometimes hiring on UpWork and I can tell you that competent, motivated freelancers with good English skills are super rare.
Feel free to reach me at claims-doubts0s@icloud.com.
Lots of jobs in Japan..
Come up with songs that can break your mind out of whatever loop it is in at the moment. Mix these songs into a playlist of other music or identify ones that already come up. For me its: Madonna resets me to past moments (say a specific time in the 1980s eating at a pizzeria with my no longer living mother and Madonna is playing, a time when I felt very safe, comfortable, and loved). Tom Petty is the universe telling me it will be all right, etc. Bands/songs not too common in your playlist but common enough that they will snap you out of whatever state you need snapping out of a couple of times a day. This gives you a little space/breathing room throughout the day. It's an extra way for you to tell yourself to remember to breath. Obviously it's not actually the universe talking to you, but like a Labrador fixated on playing fetch that wont stop barking, you need something to break the stress loop you are in in the moment. So for now it IS the universe telling you it will be OK.
Meditation and intention in the morning and at night. In the morning it is to prepare you for the crap that will come up during the day so you aren't totally white knuckling things as they come up, at night it's to process enough that you can sleep. This needs to be at a regular time and you need to go to sleep/wake up consistently to meet these times. Alternatively journal if you aren't good at meditating. The morning define your fears for the day and possible bad outcomes (I imagine all the VISA stuff is as stressful as court sentencing day, don't go into that stuff cold turkey) and that while they suck and can be life changing, life WILL go on. Once you are done let the stress of those items go until they happen. If you can't let go, keep mediating/writing why you are still stressed, until you exhaust that stress/worry monkey. Life WILL go on, I promise! I have weekly hourly phone calls with my son when he completely cut me out of his life in the past, but only because I keep troding forward with intention. For years I had no one, living in hell in prison, but I kept living with intention, and now I get to hear my son say he loves me again.
An hourly (or better half hour) alarm on your phone. When it goes off jog in place for 2 minutes or do 5-50 pushups (what you can do). This helps reset my brain to a productive less manic/panicked/stressed state. Do not ignore or snooze. Do it. Every time. It will help other ways as being this stressed will have physical tolls. This might be super prisony and bad advice but it helps me. (But I lived in a space as small as an elevator with another person, bunk bed, desk, chair, 2 lockers and 1X1 foot window for a year during covid so yeah this may be an unhealthy prison coping mechanism).
Eat as healthy as you can. Minimal sugar/nasty fats. Do not reward yourself/use junkfood as your escape. Stress is already high on your body. I don't run my car at top speed/readline and give it bad gas and not change the oil and then expect to get very far. In the same vain get the right amount of sleep (not too little, not depression level too much). Allow a single 15-30 minute nap at a fixed time if needed. Routine is the easiest way to do this.
From the health food store look into: L-Theanine Lithium Orotate
Theanine helps me be calm when I start to get past tilt (but at the expense of motivation). Lithium Orotate is maybe sketchy. I'm at a point where I needed it but an weaning off.
If you have insurance then obviously a doctor can get you something better to deal with anxiety, but if you are in the USA and insuranceless and dependant on random supplements that's what I got.
Remember you are loved and worthy of love. Communicate with your partner don't isolate. Be kind to yourself. Don't allow yourself or the voice in your head to beat you up, that is 0% productive. Rethinking on actions/events/stresses/fears is for during meditation/journaling time and with intention, not dwelling on them unhealthy in the moment when it serves no purpose and is destructive, self defeating or wasting energy that needs to go towards productivity.
Keep your head up brother (or sister)!