UPDATE: 4:35 pm ET
I'm stunned. Thank you so much for responding people. I really expected to get five comments. Now I have all these plus 10 messages. I've just skimmed comments so far and will answer as I can. (Might have to run out soon: a caterer friend says "come get the leftovers." Somedays I'm eating lobster, which I can't afford normally when I'm working, thanks to him.)
I'm really going to have to rethink my "the internet is not a community stance." I can't tell you how heartening you've all been. Plus, now I see I need to do fewer diaries on politics and more whining about my life.
When I first posted I felt remiss in not taking time to tie my story in with the desperate situation, so much more desperate, of tens of millions of our fellows. Let me correct that, a little, with a link to Roger Fox's necessary diary "Propose a realistic stimulus..."
Back to the original diary:
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So I come to DKos to see if anyone has a job for me. Mind you, I'm not asking for money, but a Job. I just need to net $400 a week to be viable.
I'm in New York City, but I can telecommute with the best of them.
I've been what's called a "Desktop Publisher" or "Production Artist" and what used to be called "Typesetter." But my speciality in that field for the last 15 years -- textbooks -- has been shipped to India.
I actually started as a fine Typographer, first in-house for a printer, then a top Typesetting shop. I've done whatever there is to do in print -- including full page ads in the New York Times, catalogs, annual reports... name it, I've done it.
Right now, though, I'll do anything at all to get that $400 a week. I've even applied to supermarket jobs.
And, truthfully, if I can break into Urban Agriculture, in any capacity, that would make me truly happy. I will be needing a new career sooner or later, and, having a green thumb, I'd love to have a role, even if it were as bookkeeper, or office clerk, in a serious UA business.
If it's anything to do with the word, or with numbers, or with research, I can do it exceedingly well. In the course of my work (when I had it), I also did copy-editing, proofreading, and production management. I think my record at this site shows I can do original, and creative, writing. I'm particularly good at satire and polemics, imo.
If you might have a job for me, please send me a message through this link http://www.dailykos.com/...
and I'll set up more private exchanges from there. Then I'll give you my resume, and references.
If you want to see some of what I've done, you can here: http://www.flickr.com/...
Below the lozenge you'll see some of my "selling points."
I'm a bit of a nut about quality, and I've never missed a deadline in my whole life. I excel with massive and "impossible" tasks, whether I'm to do it completely on my own, or with a team.
A few years ago an acquaintance (who had just been featured as a "headhunter" on the cover of Forbes) arranged a battery of tests to help me pick a career.
The results:
IQ over 130
95th through 97th percentile in speed, and accuracy, using inductive, convergent, and divergent modes of thinking.
94th percentile in empathy. (This last being, apparently, why I'm not rich, although I'm so smart.)
Consequently, I can learn anything at all, quickly and thoroughly. And I can communicate with anyone at all.
The funny thing about the final report from these tests, which I took to find a path in life, was they concluded "Jim P can do anything he wants to do." So that wasn't much help.
A typesetter, at the time, made more money than a Sergeant of Detectives in NYC, and in nine months. There was usually a three month slow period where you didn't work. So I didn't change careers, finding my situation quite satisfying.
The report did warn that, "because he cares so much about people, Jim P might not show due regard for the bottom line."
Still, I do make certain my employer profits from my work. I've a strong sense of duty, and a strong blue-collar, work hard and clean, identity.
I am pretty good with people, who seem to love to tell me their story. I never judge anyone, having done everything a person can do wrong myself. And in real life, I don't indulge the caustic humor you might see in my web scribbling.
So, that's pretty much the story. I'm not unique of course. If I go homeless I'll be joining an awful lot of others.
Now, I'm going to see a friend who is helping me to put together a sandwich board so I can go walking around likely areas of Manhattan this week. I can't tell you how humiliating it is for me to post this, and going around with a board is even more-so. That's the measure of my distress.
So forgive me if I'm not here to respond to comments, as I've my task to do.