I have no idea where to go in my life – advice please?
Question by John S: I have no idea where to go in my life – advice please?
Here’s my story (it’s long): I was a straigh-A student, pursued a career in musical theatre, went to school for one year, didn’t work out there, so I went back home, for 3 years worked as an office temp and auditioned and got nowhere. Was encouraged by someone to study opera – got my BA and worked part-time and had pratically full scholarship, except for loans for living expenses. Graduated, went away to Buffalo to get my Masters so I could get more stage experience while in a learning environment. One semester in, I left because I was frustrated, didn’t think the performance dept was strong enough to give me enough experience for real productions.
Here’s where it gets bad – went then back home and temped again while studying privately for 8 months. During this time, downloaded child porn while at the job and was fired, arrested, and convicted and sentenced to 2 years in federal prison. Got out in 2005 and have held steady jobs since – one for a year, the other for a year, was promoted last year and now am making 32% more than I was previously (at the promotion position for a year now).
However, I have no way to use my degree to my advantage. I also now have a major gap in my resume with 3 years steady work but if I want to go back to school and get a degree in something else (my BA is in Music – Voice Performance), I can’t get aid cuz I have defaulted on 2 loans and have terrible credit history as a result.
What can I do? I have been able to keep these jobs with no problem regarding my offense, but I feel it’s gonna be difficult to get a decent-paying corporate job (which is my goal since it pays more and has room for advancement, hopefully) without more work experience and a degree in something relevant.
Also, another question: I hate the atmosphere in the department where I am now, even though I’m getting $ 15/hr as opposed to $ 12 in the other department (it’s a res agent position at a limo company). I have been checking out other companies to no avail. I know it would be foolish to go back to the other dept, but someone has to leave because of the economy, and I can’t stand the atmosphere any longer because I am being taken advantage of because I’m a hard worker and we share the workload – there’s no sharing in the other dept, just answering phones and some other various work, but not like it is in my dept, where emails come in and people sit there and don’t take them for hours on end. What do u think?
Best answer:
Answer by Jennifer B
I think that you should be glad you have a 15.00 an hour job and that someone hired you with a conviction like that. You SO know you are going to get some really harsh responses.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!