Insert catchy title here (in Off-topic)

I'm 22 years old. I live with my parents and I work full time delivering pizza for an average of about $7/hr.

I've got no chance of moving out of my house at this rate and getting a place, even with a roommate.

I just don't know what to do about it. And I'm sure I'm not alone. In fact, at least in this area, I know I'm not.

I don't know if this is something that has changed over the years, or if I'm just now noticing it as my generation comes to it. But I fall into an large group of Americans (I'm assuming this is an American thing) who have nothing to show for the 7 years they've lived past high school at the age of 25.

I put in some time at a community College. Started off putting in some Gen Eds, failed my first semester because I was lazy and spent more time shooting pool and playing Tekken Tag that doing my home work and studying. Or even just doing my home work OR studying. What time I wasn't doing that I was playing incredibly brainless internet games like this (no offense, but this game should be called "Down, enter") and other click fest, or time wasters.

It seems like my generation is FULL of your life time Wal-Mart employees that live on dreams and spagetti-o's. Am I alone? Am I the only one who at the age of 22 still has NO IDEA what he wants to do with his life, or if he did even where he'd start?

I've thought for a long time about just trying to get a dock job or something, but (And I know I'm gonna get called a slacker or a lazy butt or a cry baby or something else, just can it.) real life is intimidating. If someplace doesn't have a public face, like a counter in front of which you order fries, I don't know how to get a job there.

I guess where I'm trying to go with this is, "Hey, what should I do with my life?" Any suggestions? One thing I know is that at 24 you hit that last magical age, like 18 and 21, only this one you actually get something good for you, not booze or smokes. At 24 your parents income no longer applies to the amount of financial aid you can get, yours does. So in... a year and a month I could go back to school. But other than that.... I'm stumped.

How do you break into Corporate America? All those companies that have nothing to do with the public, just other companies, what body part do I have to sell to get a job there? With little schooling, but a lot of raw talent for not being an idiot is there anywhere I can go that's gonna value me for more than my ability to lift heavy objects?

Give me the low down on how I'm supposed to make a life out of this.

so, well, really..
yer 22..
that's nothing..
the only thing is we grew up with a lot of parents trying to hide how their lives actually worked
30 is career time..
sure, it would be great to have or be nearing a college degree and have this amazing life on-track and blah blah blah, but it's not a requirement and there's a lot of pressure to feel that it is..
you hear about all this 'oh so and so was a mom of twenty kids and went to night school and she is now the greatest lawyer of all time' and think 'yeah right' or 'that was so last generation' but seriously..
i dunno, i really don't know either..
im recently 26, about to start working another retail job and maybe ill actually shoot for management this time.. but my main focus is going back to school..
and actually have the support to make that a realistic goal this time..
i was supposed to have a great job coming out of a highly technical job in the military and the dot com bust put way too many people back on the market with much more experience and what not..
ive retail now with lots of people who used to be in a similar field making decent money and now are in the same boat as you or I..
and these are people with years of experience in corporate america who are now scraping out a living and hoping for a place to live..
its an ugly place to dig yourself out of without parents around for support..
i've known lots of people who had a point in there life where they were living out of hotel/motel kinda rooms and barely had enough money to feed themselves..
i dunno, read some bukowski, chill out, and get over it.
for good job type things.. connections are everything, but also..
the economy sucks.. we're just starting to recover from levels that were worse than the great depression..
another thing i wanted to say, i had a lot of friends who had daddy and mommy pay for college where they partied and partied and partied and somehow actually earned a degree and then they get to grad school and gain this complete holier than thou attitude about it all and forget they would not even be close to where they were without mommy and daddy footin the bill to begin with..
just wanted to get that off my chest :)

(disclaimer: this is my point of view, your point of view is well, your point of view... thanks)

and not I've retail but I've worked retail

and just cause im on a roll
its better to work a job that has a career path of some sort..
i.e. walmart employees can become walmart managers..
that type of thing..
you may not see yourself wanting to do that for the rest of your life or whatever..
but it's a good living, and that's really all it boils down to..
pizza delivery may lead to pizza management, but they probably don't make a whole lot either..
i have 6 years retail experience under my belt since i first started working, and it makes me a desirable employee now and someone definitely suited for a management position..
whether or not it becomes my life is only up to me..
but the money definitely provides other opportunities..

Keep the pizza job, it's income.

A college degree is almost a necessity for a decent job now. Definitely get back to school, even if it's 3 hours a semester.

Undertow,
You seem to be honest with yourself in terms of identifying where you are and where you want (or don't want) to be. That's a big step that not everyone your age achieves so I applaud you for that.

COLLEGE
There's no doubt that a college degrees opens doors to several jobs. More important than the college degree is the college experience. College will expose you several different fields and chance are, you'll likely end up interested in a profession that you probably never thought of. I went into college thinking that I'd like to be a sport psychologist and then ended up majoring in biochem. I did miserably in bio and chemistry in high school, so it was surprising that I ended up liking it in college. That's just part of the college experience--it brings out things in you that you never knew you had. The other benefit from college is networking. Your college buddies and even professors will probably help you get a job in the future.

GAMING
CB2 and similar games is an absolute trap for advancing in RL. I spent the last 4-5 months in front of the computer working and studying for my PhD competency exam. I had a CB2 window open continuously for those months. I just got the results of my exam two days ago. I "marginally pass," (yay!!!) and my advisor told me that he had to pull major strings because the committee wanted to fail me. I think about the countless hours I spent on CB and how much more preparation I could have done for the exam if I wasn't on CB. That was an eye opening experience for me and one of the reasons why my time on CB is coming to an end. The point is this.... if you invested all the time you put into CB2 and other games into something more focused on your future, you'll probably get there faster. CB2 and other games aren't worth giving up RL. If you give the same discipline to real life as you do to playing games, you'll probably end up as successful in RL as you are on CB. There used to be a great IBM, Apple, or TI commericial 20 years ago where a guy is in a job interview and his resume lists his high scores on space invaders and other game. The interviewers says "wow, that's great... but what do you know about computers?"

Anyways, good luck.

Welcome to America, Undertow. I've already passed on past the thought of actually "breaking in" to corporate America and I'm now taking the "hard road" of the innovator.
I'm 27, White American Male which pretty much excludes me from any government help. My family is poor on both sides, they make ends meet by leaching off of my stepparents. I'm a student going to college, and frankly, it is going nowhere. I've been studying for an AA in Computer Science and Programming and I'm going to have that AA in 8 more months. But all of that means nothing - because there ARE NO MORE JOBS in the private sector. I'm currently trying to design, write, and host some online RPG's of my own in hopes that it will supplement the meager pizza/burger/waitstaff minimum wage job that I am destined to have regardless of my degree. The college's job placement staff were very excited to see new computer entrants a year ago but today they sadly turn them away empty-handed because outsourcing has turned the industry into a hole.

If you really want to make a lot of money in America, you have to innovate and beat the crowds. Invent and patent something that has a semi-wide-spread impact and then sell patent rights. Create a one-of-a-kind product and sell off the design to some rich automobile company for your retirement fund. File a patent for a widely-used software technology, then sue the crap out of companies that use it. Slip on a spill in a supermarket, then settle out-of-court for hundreds of thousands. That's America, baby.

If you want work that isn't crap, you need to pick an industry and plan for it. If you want to, say, work on cars - get an automotive degree AND make sure you know a lot of other things about cars. Work on your buddies' cars and put your car experience on your resume. Get knowledge about newer parts and models that may not be part of school curriculum. Experience goes much farther than education - I had my first computer programming job when I was 17, thanks to experience. It was a crap job with a dead company, though; at least it paid well for the time. Remember, when applying for a job, your resume is an advertisement for you. Make it good!

All having been said, the biggest factor you will face is the dread "downsize". If you find a job you like with a company you like, you have to prove to everybody else there that you are the best - otherwise you WILL be replaced sooner or later. If the company you work for is having financial troubles, don't wait - start looking for more work. If your paycheck ever bounces, find another company. US economy is in the pits right now and everybody is vulnerable. As blue-collar entrants, we have to fight the tide.

i would suggest something through the military might be the best way for you. think about it, if you join the navy, and take their training courses in networking (a big field nowadays) you can walk out of there with a lot of experience. then they pay for your college, hit the tech schools. go to itt tech and get a certificate in networking and business. they dont take long, and then you can get hired by a communications company who is actually going somewhere, and show everything you know about networking to them.

plus, while you are in the military, u will stay away from games for a while, and the best way to break an addiction, is to keep youself removed from it. you will also learn a bunch of life skills that will help you for the rest of your life, get some money for college and after a while get out and go somewhere with your life.

if not the navy, join the air force, go get stationed in hawaii, and sit on the beach in a hotel with cable and play CB while fighting for the government :D and getting paid...

Call me cynical, but you tend to only get a % back from life 'vs what you put in so given the fact you've acknowledged you're lazy I'd suggest either robbing a bank or buying the winning lottery ticket is your only chance...

Welcome to life Sir, take this rope and keep it handy. Your next stop is college or the end of your new rope, please carry on.

Some points, and clairfication:

I'm a big big fat man. There is no way I would join the military, for several reasons. The idea of running 5 miles at 5 in the morning simply does not appeal to me. And I don't even think they'd take me based on several medical conditions.

Yes, I'm lazy. Why am I lazy? I've got a lazy job, with cushy living space and not much pressure. So I'm trying to start the flame under my butt MYSELF.

I'm actually doing some manager training while I'm here. Fahd (my boss) is teaching me basically to run the shop in his spare time. So that eventually, if he buys a second restaurant (which he wants to do eventually) I'll be set up to run that one.

I've been looking around here at the way my boss runs the shop, and it makes me really want to go to business school. If I had this restaurant for a month I could trump the sales he's got. He's become... burned out, working 7 days a week 12 hours a day does that. (I know, I did it for a month and a half. He got more days off than I did.)

I think what I need to do is hit my community college and take one of those "What jobs do your interests match?" type quizes. Maybe that will give me some direction.

Undertow,

dunno if I can give you any advice that's worth anything. But I'll give it a go. When I was 22 I was unemployed, living at my Mum's. No money in my pocket, no decent qualifications due to being a party animal in my teens and I was in a major rut. Which sounds like where you're at right now. I used to get down about the fact that I had nothing to show for my life and was pretty bitter about it - I hated myself somewhat for not being successful. I hated my friends for being successful. I hated my school for not pushing me harder - which was absolute rubbish because the only person who didn't push hard enough was me. And somewhere along the line over the next couple of years I turned myself around.

I actually got out there and did something about my situation. I got myself some computer qualifications, some office management things and went out and got a job as a temporary secretary. There I was a 24 year old man working as a secretary. I tell you one thing - it got me work because people noticed a man in a pile of resumes that were all women. It got me a few funny looks too but do you think I cared once my pay packets came in? Once I got into the jobs I could go about finding out about the company and finding what other jobs there were that I could do. Now I'm working in engineering - a nice wage and decent position and with no qualifications other than work experience. Admittedly it's taken me a few years but I wouldn't have done it without that first step - getting out there and doing something. If you're in a rut you really need to do something about it, even if it's just changing your routine. If the first thing you do in the morning/afternoon when you wake up is switch on the tv/computer then don't. Unplug them. When you wake up in the morning get up and walk to the store instead. Buy the paper, see what jobs are there. If you see something interesting phone them up. Just the act of doing something about it will make you feel better. And be prepared for rejection. But realise that everyone gets rejected once in a while. If a door shuts in your face you just have to keep on knocking.

If you haven't got the right qualifications go back to school and get them. If you don't want to do that buy a paintbrush and some paint and paint houses for a living. There's nothing wrong with retail, or working delivering pizza. At least in that you have a job - and like it or not things could be worse.

Make a list of the things you're interested in. Then instead of down click down click go into google and find out about them. Find out what qualifications you might need to do those jobs. Find out if there's anywhere to learn online for instance. If you're going to sit in front of the computer make it a useful time.

One other thing to think about. I still don't know what I want to do with my life and I've got a decade on you! But I know one thing - real success isn't measured by how much money you have or how big your house is or what your neighbours/peers/elders think of you. Real success can only be measured by how happy you are. And what you think of yourself. It might sound like some self-help book but it's true. Change how you see yourself and most of the time you will change how others see you.

Get out of CB and get out there into the world! Best of luck!!!

Some more thoughts. Your job doesn't have to define you. I work in engineering. That much is true. But I don't think of myself as an engineer. I'm a musician. I play guitar in a band, we play gigs around London. I have a recording studio in the back room of my house. That's how I see myself. And I'm successful as far as I'm concerned. I write good songs, when I play live people enjoy it. OK, so I'm not playing stadiums but I've recorded 5 albums over the past 10 years. My music is in people's homes, it's a part of some people's lives. I may not make a living out of it, I leave that to my day job. But I enjoy it. Those days when I'm low and finding it difficult to work up the enthusiasm to get out of bed it's there for me. Some jobs - like being a surgeon for instance, you need to get qualified, you need to be employed - I mean what does an unemployed surgeon do? Practice on his friends? But even if I didn't have the day job I'd still be the musician. If there's any creative jobs you're interested in - for instance you seem to be pretty handy with words - why not write? You don't have to earn money necessarily but there are plenty of outlets for writing - set up a website - the thoughts of Undertow =) - and post your thoughts there.

All I'm saying is this: your job doesn't have to be all you do. If you can't get a brilliant job then make more of the rest of your life. At the risk of sounding cheesy again - we don't get a rehearsal for life - this is it

Chernobyl,

There are still jobs out there in corporate America, they're just harder to find now than they were in the 90's. College will certainly help you, but from my experience the industry contacts that you make while going to school will help you more than a degree.

I'm currently employed as a software engineer with a relatively large software company (no, it's not Microsoft). I've been in this industry since '96, and have been fortunate enough to remain steadily employed ever since. During that time I've held positions at three different companies. For both my current job and my previous job, I was referred by individuals that I knew from college. It's safe to say that I would not have been able to get an interview for either one of these positions without the referral. (For those of you wondering, I'm 32, which I suppose makes me part of the older crowd on this site.)

Now that I've been in this industry a while, I've noticed that a lot of positions are filled this way. While it does not hurt to just go apply for jobs with corporations in your area, you will have much better luck if someone already employed at a corporation can personally hand your resume to a hiring manager and put in a good word for you. Otherwise your resume is just one of many in a large stack, and it's unlikely that anyone will notice it.

Since you still have eight months of college left, get involved with some study groups, even if you personally don't need the help. This will help you get to know your peers, and allow your peers to see what kind of work you can do. If one of them gets a job at a local company, odds are they will give you a referral.

There are jobs out there in the private sector, and the economy has noticeably improved (at least in Utah, where I live) over the past year or two. Several of my co-workers have been able to find jobs with other local companies during this time, and many of those companies are still hiring new people.