Dear OB Convert:
I have wanted to move to this beachy hippie haven for sometime now. After I graduated I was sure I would be able to find a job in OB where I could ride my bike to work and wherever life takes me.
Sadly, having graduated from college this past spring I still haven’t found a job in OB. I have a BS in Finance, am really into blogging , and writing song lyrics and poetry and am willing to do almost anything to work and live here.
I have posted about me and left my email address to be contacted for my resume under the OB RAG classifieds. Any advice or help for an aspiring OB Convert?
Jobless out of OB
Dear Jobless out of OB:
Welcome!
I’m not the best person to ask about working, I’ve been seeking work for 2 years. BUT, since I always have advice, this is what I suggest:
- Write in different blogs, advertising yourself and your site… Wait! You just did that with the OB Rag. Okay, good start. Oh, and by the way, I like the personal way you write. Folks, check out this post:
- Write articles about OB – relevant things for the OB Rag – and submit to see if you can get them published. Something that utilizes your degree or your interest in lyrics/poetry would be good. The OB Rag will also consider publishing poetry. This is great for portfolio AND helps you get to know people here.
- Attend the Ocean Beach Planning Board Meetings. This helps you feel like you know what is going on and is just good citizenship.
- Go door-to-door to merchants with resume in hand. I know this is old fashioned but, if you are willing to do anything, then this is the way to get a job. While visiting merchants, ask them if they know anyone who is hiring.
- Always carry a business card and tell anyone who will listen that you are seeking work.
- Sell advertisements for the OB Rag, which will pay a commission to anyone who sells OB Rag advertising.
- And, of course, troll craigslist.
Good Luck and don’t get down, you are not alone. I have NEVER had such a difficult time getting work as right now. However, that doesn’t mean jobs aren’t out there, especially for someone just out of college. It’s those of us who are too experienced to convince anyone we are willing to take any job happily that I think are having the hardest time.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I just want to extent my support to Jobless out of OB. I had this problem a year ago, but it was quite different. Growing tired of living in NYC for my entire life, my fiance and I decided to drive across country and live in OB (after some super-saving of course). We pounded the pavement, scoured craigslist and read the Reader every week trying to find a job. We both have college degrees and would have taken ANY job if we were even offered. We lived in OB for 4 months before we had to pack up and hit the road back to NYC. Just wanted to let you know, living in OB is indeed as great as you imagine it is. I wish you better luck than we had. I would move back to OB in a heartbeat if I had the opportunity, even today.
Hey jobless in OB…. It might be tough to use that Finance degree for a job in OB, but Sorrento Valley is FULL of biotechs always looking for good finance and accounting people (that is if you are willing to commute). I live in OB and work in Sorrento Valley and it’s about a 20 min drive – 10 on my motorcycle. Good luck on your search!!
Hey I’m Jobless out of OB!!!, I want to thank you OB Convert for posting my email I sent. It looks like this is something so many of us can relate to. I have been looking for jobs in the OB/Pt. Loma area because I really don’t want to bring a car, and because they have decent walk scores I should be able to walk to get groceries and such. I’m starting to think that so many of my job inquiries I send on craigslist go unanswered because I don’t live in the area and they just don’t want to deal with me not being available, so I’m thinking of moving here and living on the savings I have and looking like a crazy person.
Job inquiries mostly go unanswered on Craigslist because bosses have told me, whereas they used to get 30-40 apps when they posted their openings a few years back, in this economy they are getting 200-400 apps now! I was told this a couple of years ago when I first moved here from LA. And I have a degree in Anthropology. I started volunteering at the Natural History Museum, and ended up meeting another archaeologist there that knew of a company that was looking for a lab person…one of the hardest jobs to find in my field. I’ve been at this company a year and a half now, whew! Never give up, get up early to answer new CL ads and go up and down Newport and all over OB with a resume in hand. I just saw an opening at one of the stores on Newport a few days ago and I can’t remember which one, sorry! I did get a job on CL when I first came here, to manage a building on a remote Caribbean Island in Honduras for a San Diego couple…for 3 months! I knew I would be coming back to OB and hopefully find work. I’m never leaving now after wanting to live here for almost 30 yrs! Good luck!!
Can’t imagine a wage in OB will pay the rent…..get some buddies together, start and grow a business remembering we already have a ton of antique stores, coffee shops, head shops, tatoo parlors and cheap junk shops. Not that is anything wrong with those businesses but only so many can survive here.
Good luck
The Ponzi scheme known as prosperous America, counts another casualty of disillusionment on its way into the abyss.
Flash back to 1973, who could pass on a deal that allows us to print currency on worthless paper and trade it to other nations for real goods and services as fast as they could consume OPEC oil? What could go wrong with that?
Nothing, except expecting it was sustainable and the world would stand still.
Can we feed ourselves if our only business is feeding ourselves? OB is a microcosm of America’s larger troubles, all the businesses are service and consumer retail oriented, there is no “GDP” per se, nothing produced to export to a larger populace.
The village, like man, is no island.
John, I think what you wrote is here is absolutely true, I think talking to you would actually be a lot of fun. Because our economy is dependent on us being consuming materialists; we are fueling our on slow demise. I can’t imagine what would happen if they became like me and stopped buying clothes, cut back almost completely on going out to eat etc. They would kill the economy, and unfortunately so many of the people spending should be saving and cutting back more, which may or may not kill their job if they do so. It’s like Tyler Durden said from the movie Fight Club, we take jobs we hate, to buy things we don’t need, which money we don’t have.
Such is the dilemma of existence, man’s desires, hunger, and aspirations pursued without restraint, would destroy the planet. Never mind the very nature of modern capitalism being merely a civilized form of every man for himself. Yet if an opposite extreme happened, how many would put as much inspiration into building the best community they could fir the sake of others, not merely their own needs? While the USSR was not pure communist (mainly due to corruption in party leadership) the experiment showed malaise took over and the standard of living was horrendous for nearly all. So it’s hard to discern what the most moral spot on the compass would be, do you praise a Henry Ford for employing thousands and bringing modern transportation to many more? Or should we villify him for corporate philosophy and building machines that scar the earth- even if some were ambulances that saved lives?
It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist’s mind to ponder that perhaps the economic situation, and it’s not just the US but most industrialized nations, is actually by intent of those who sociologists like G William Domhoff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._William_Domhoff call the “elite” like the Rockefellers, etc, who feel a responsibility is bestowed upon them to steer humanity toward progressive destiny. The climate change issue may or may not be as bad as some claim but it is real, moreover, pollution in general is rampant. The oceans are predicted to be “dead” by mid century. Yet industry, progress, and technology march on, and third world people, oblivious just several decades ago about how the “haves” existed, have the internet and satellite TV to see what we have and the information is at their fingertips to build it for themselves. If left unchecked the resulting industrialization further dooms this blue marble.
For us in America, the opportunities previous generations had, are now scant. The decision before us, is should we be angry, or fight it? Endeavor to build more, consume more? Or is it the way it should be? If it’s the latter, then “doing the right thing” (like saving the planet from AGW) becomes a complete contradiction against every primal instinct men were born with of survival, self preservation and providing for our loved ones. In this conflict within ourselves lies perhaps the greatest danger: Society crumbling as mankind reverts to “every man for himself”. There is no right thing to do, the alternative we’re left with will be embraced by many who will excel at it.
May God, if such an entity exists, help us all- or regret starting the whole dreadful affair in the first place. :-)
Check this out, kind of interesting.
I assume the last comment was yours… if so you uncannily echoed my post above, and did so admirably with much less wasted bandwidth and superfluous verbiage.
Really it always sounds good on paper, these schemes of levelling the playing field of economics, but the flaws are real and I’m not sure if we’re worse off with the greed and avarice camp running the show…
or those who would be so naive to trust a scheme like that is even possible.
On a side note I see what you wrote about not buying clothes, etc, basically dropping out of the economy. Since the high flying nineties I have cut so many things out, I only drive when I absolutely have to, in a 17 y/o Honda Passport. I ride a bicycle everywhere I can. I have a nice bike though, built one piece at a time as I could afford on ebay some years ago, so it’s enjoyable. Bernie says he has to put the white gloves on when he trues the wheels, gotta love the guy. I picked up a pair of hair clippers for $20, the cost of one haircut with tip, and never looked back, even though I enjoyed the monthly visit to Seth’s, he was cheap and quick, but $20x oh, 132 months now? Cut the cable from the leeches at Cox around 2000, who needs TV though digital broadcasts have improved. I bought a washing machine at salvation army thrift store, put it in the dining room with a quick disconnect on the kitchen sink, run the final spin cycle twice and hang the clothes on a steel pipe over the bathtub with a fan. (dryers are expensive to run) I haven’t bought new clothes in years but even if I hit the lottery tommorrow I still wouldn’t, the good thrift stores have SO many deals on clothes. In fact I usually make a little spare change shopping thrifts, some things I can sell on CL or ebay for profit but you have to have a keen eye for merchandise.
I do have a smartphone that I figure pays for itself when I can look up the value of an appliance or tool I see at Goodwill and decide if I can resell it or should pass- though I’m on Virgin Mobile for just $25 a mo. Eating out? Forget it, maybe once or twice a month I hit Jack in the Box or Roberto’s. I feel bad about hitting the “fishes and loaves” line at the church, did that a few times but the others were so much worse off than I, I felt like they needed it more. The food bank has every fourth thursday gov’t surplus near Canon and Rosecrans, at 9 AM. Sometimes good, others, well… got canned green beans?
So I’m with ya, I’ve withdrawn from the economy in so many ways and work is spotty at best. It looks to get worse but you will wake up tommorrow, and you will exist. Giving up is not an option. One thing I learned over the years, is that those who have the least, will give the most, when you are in need.
Perhaps the rich get in a habit of obtaining things and it makes them feel insecure without them? I know the feeling but am realizing it’s all just stuff. Yet if I spend money on stuff, the person at the store thanks me for doing so, and it feeds their family. I am welcome to use their restroom. I am not if I merely need to relieve myself, perhaps someday my health is failing, I may be incontinent, and I can not work so cannot buy “stuff” from them-I am unwelcome. Yet I awake that morning, needing to exist.
Life’s a beach, even here by the ocean.
The suits call the unemployment rate 8-9%…..read up on the U6 true unemployment rate. I wonder why this figure is not talked about more. The 9% number is a joke and kept around by blurry eyed economist.
If you really want some humor read up on HOW they determine the number of those unemployed. You would think it is a number calculated by real numbers and facts and computers right??? It’s not The Labor Bureau has a phone bank of 2,200 they call random households and ask a series of questions about those who live in the home….It is a fing joke.
OB is no different than any other city ….no work no jobs….
This will sober you up though…. google UE figures in San Diego. Then try, say Riverside. Merced. Stockton. We’re not so bad.
Flint MI. 27%
Amazingly, Cleveland is half of ours. Didn’t understand that. I’d have guessed halfway between SD and Flint.
late rent, no insurance, no stability, 5 gallons of gas at a time, watching every dime, nothing new for months at a time…..no prospects….dont matter where you are ob, flint or tin buck two it aint no fun….
It appears you also have web skills and horticulture skills and. . .and. . .Add the manure of experience and stir! Loved your photos, too. You are an individual with many gifts.