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For about 4 years man. When I moved back from the Bay Area to the Valley in early 09 I was shocked to see how bad the recession had hit this place. Bank owned and Foreclosure signs in almost every neighborhood, businesses that had been around for years closing up and gone. Huge spike in the homeless. I was able to collect unemployment for a year and a half since Obama extended UI benefits. I figured I would have found another job by then but it didn't happen, the unemployment rate in this county had actually reached its peak of 18% by early 2011, half a year later when the media proclaimed the recession to be over.
I figured I needed new skills so I stopped looking for work and went back to school as a Pharmacy Tech. You know, a trade that wasn't going to put me 20 or 30K in debt. Passed the course, the externship, and received both my State and National license. I became CPhT certified this past March. But I learned the hard way that there is just too much competition in that field here in the Valley. I was banking on the fact that Obamacare would raise demand for health care employees. Instead, I find out that the hospitals here are actually laying their staff off in order to cut costs since they will go up having to insure everyone now. Seemed like once again I was shit out of luck.
I'd been applying everywhere besides just the retail and hospital pharmacies and finally I got a break with this company. They had just fired someone for not getting along with the coworkers and I was one of the first ones they interviewed. It's been a long troublesome road for me Sushi, I have a couple of gray hairs showing now along my sideburns to prove it, but I am thankful for finally getting a break.
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