Wednesday, May 16, 2007

More on the job hunt

I'm now to the point where I'm going to start applying to some of the retail places around me. My plan was to start on this yesterday, but my shower broke...and by the time maintenance fixed it, it was too late to go out. And this morning I woke up feeling like death warmed over...

I'm still hopeful that my old boss might be able to "create" a position for me. He was such a great guy to work for, I almost hate the idea of having to put up with some unknown boss.

In other news, I was just reading that gas prices hit another record today. I'm so glad that gas boycott yesterday helped!

Jerry Falwell died yesterday. I find myself almost wishing there was a God, because I'd love to be able to see what Falwell's response would be when he finds out just how misguided and screwed up his attitudes had been in life.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi J, what's the unemployment rate like there? Here it's like 3%. It's the new gold rush and we're getting about 1000 people a month moving here to Alberta but the vacancy rae is very low.

Cellophane Queen said...

Procrastinator!

J Alan Erwine said...

Jim-I'm not really sure about the unemployment rate here, but I don't think it's very high.

Marva-Guilty as charged, and now it's going to bite me in the ass...

Anonymous said...

I just did a Google search and the unemployment rate in Metro Denver is 4.2%. This could be low or high depending on the population. Here in Edmonton as of December its 2.6%. You should have no trouble finding work. Just curious J, what’s a monthly transit pass there? Here it’s $59 but it’s supposed to jump to about $75

J Alan Erwine said...

I believe a bus pass is $55 here. You're right that it would be easy to get a job, if I was willing to accept $7 or $8 an hour...but considering that my rent on this little shithole I live in is just over $700 a month, there's no way I could survive on that small of a salary...

Anonymous said...

That’s a decent price for a bus pass. When my wife moved in here 10 years ago I think her rent was something like $300/month for a 2-bedroom apartment. She’s been here 10 years to long and hates it. I’ve been with her 7 years here. I like it because it’s convenient to everything. We’ve got the Lrt, Walmart, Superstore. It’s very convenient.

As per jobs we gave “the Alberta advantage,” Sure we have a lot of $8/hr jobs but in the Call Center industry most jobs are $10+ for experienced employees. In the downtown core there’s a dozen places you could get hired and fired from all within a mile of each other. The only problems with Alberta is we’re a boom/bust City. Right now we’re riding an economic wave the likes I haven’t seen since 1980. It’s crazy and so are the rents. Property management developers are scooping up rental property and turning apartments into Condos. An average condo here in Edmonton is about $400K. Average 2-bedroom apartment is $1200 bucks/month. We’re very fortunate, so far. In other words don’t come to Alberta unless you have accommodations. It’s crazy, seriously. The Trades are the way to go here. Welders. Electricians, pipe fitters are in huge demand. A friend of mine is working for Petro Can and making $33 hour and he isn’t even a journeyman.