I write about videogames

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My website (still very much a work-in-progress)
crakestraw.xyz/

apocryphalmess
@apocryphalmess

if you've been following me for a while, you probably already know that I was laid off from a technical position in August 2022, and am still struggling to find work due to the absolute catastrophe that is the current job market, the uselessness of job listing sites, the endless tech layoffs, the flooding of any open application with generative AI sludge, my own disabilities, scammers, my age, etcetera fucking etcetera

everything in my previous requests for help here and here still applies, but to hopefully summarize better this time:

  • my job history is extremely varied: I've done customer service, tech support, system administration, office management, sales support, and many other sorts of things in both the private and public sector. I have what could be described as an extremely wide but shallow skill set; for any given task, piece of technology, or business type, I have probably been involved with it at some point
  • my primary skill is triage: being handed a problem of whatever kind and either fixing it myself or routing it through the appropriate channels for someone else to fix it. I've done this as part of government agencies, small businesses, and large corporations, and for both technical and administrative issues. I am also good at explaining to people what I'm doing and why, and at managing expectations in a crisis, which has a side effect of making me also pretty good at training and writing documentation
  • one of my recent positions ended up involving disaster response for the 2021 winter storms in Texas, which caused a lot of additional trauma and which makes anything based on answering incoming phone calls extremely difficult. I can do it, but I would prefer not to because it's literally a trigger for me now. things like ticket systems, live chats, etc are no problem at all
  • due to my partner's disabilities, remote work would be almost essential for me. bringing covid back home from an on-site job could be catastrophic for them, and being at home to care for them is very important. we also want to leave Texas for queer safety reasons, and being tied to a local office in Austin would make that difficult. sufficiently large compensation might make us change our minds about remote work but it would have to be a lot
  • I am around fifty years old with an eleven-year resume gap due to a period of disability, neither of which companies can legally use to reject me as an application, but they do anyway because this is hell

I'm not looking for someone to offer me a job, because that's not how any of this works. what I am hoping to find are suggestions, new resources, maybe even a internal referral if someone feels comfortable doing that. i've been searching for a year and a half and I've had about six interviews total, with the overwhelming majority of my applications generating no responses at all, which is an experience I'm sure many people are also familiar with

thanks in advance to anyone who can help, either by responding directly or by reposting this. feel free to comment, or if you prefer, my semi-anonymous email address is in my profile sidebar if you're logged into Cohost


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