Looking for work after college (part3)

At the time, building a professional career was looking impossible. I started sending out applications to fast food restaurants just so I could make any sort of money. Also, without a car, I need to have a worksite where I could walk to. However, before I got started working in fast food, my parents offered me the chance to work with them fixing washing machines so I started doing that instead.

It was July of 2010 and I hadn’t had any luck landing any job despite having my bachelor’s in business administration. Fixing washing machines was good work however it made me feel like I had failed at life. After all, what was the point of having gone to college to become an accountant in the first place? The work was enough to make some money but I wasn’t working more than three or four days of the week. I also had a back up plan of learning how to prepare income taxes. During my miserable job search, I considered picking up some extra skills to make my resume look better and preparing tax returns was one way to get extra experience.

I looked up a big tax preparation company and learned that they offered a 12 week course that would train people to prepare basic returns. After the 12 weeks finished, every individual was guaranteed a job interview and the company advertised that roughly 25% of the interviewed candidates were hired. I figured it was my best shot at trying to make a living for myself. If I got hired, the company would continue to offer any tax class the employee wanted to take an specialize in. After enough experience, a tax professional could become an enrolled agent. And even if I didn’t get hired, just passing the class would make me look like a more valuable employee and might give me a better chance at getting hired.

The tax course started in August 2010 and I continued to work in my parent’s shop to make more money. Eventually, my dad gave me his old car to make life a little easier. Unfortunately, I ran into a headache when I crashed the car and had to pay a few hundred dollars in repairs and fines which effectively cost me all the money that I had saved up fixing washing machines. Back then I used to want to commit suicide by standing next to a busy street, waiting for a speeding truck to come by, and jumping right in front of it at the last second. It would have been faster than acquiring a gun.

I finally caught a break when my dad told me about a job opportunity that his insurance guy had mentioned. I was told that the insurance guy also ran a financial firm and I was excited about the prospects. After a short interview giving me the overview of his company and an exchange of my questions, I asked for the job and I started the following week. I still remember that my heart sank when Rob said that the job paid $12 per hour. It felt incredible, I was never offered so much money before.