Employability?

Reading through various new posts on my reader this morning with some people writing about the origins of Labor Day as well as unemployment issues in our country (and world-wide too, I would imagine) was a good reminder of what this holiday should mean to ALL of us -and that's to give a big thank you, for openers, to those people who fought and some died too, in order to establish a better basis for employment standards today!

All too quickly we tend to forget how important Labor Unions were -and still are -for our working welfare by providing us with many health and safety standards along with fighting to bring about better wages for the working class.

 I've always been one who is pro-union although, I confess that at times I get a bit upset with a few of their demands. But then too, in order to get a benefit, sometimes one has to ask for something outrageously high in order to have a means to bargain too and get that all important compromise needed in the end.

But in addition to reading some of these blog posts on my reader about Labor day, I also came across some articles yesterday in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that included interviews with various Human Resource personnel and some of the comments they had about things they do that will disqualify a potential job applicant -things like the person is currently unemployed, or has a bad credit check or they have higher qualifications than are required for the job being applied for or being willing to accept a much lower rate of pay! Incredible, isn't it to think that in order to be considered for just an interview, the fact that a person is not working at the moment could disqualify their application? That, to me, makes no sense whatsoever but it is an employers' market, that's for sure!

I've been giving considerable thought about trying to find a part-time job but finding one that I would be qualified to do -well, because of some health issues -unfortunately I'm not able to apply for a lot of part-time jobs because of the types of work involved like standing for long periods of time, for openers. Actually, I can't deal all that well with jobs that are totally "sit-down" things either as both types will cause my back and legs to create tons of pain and well, I just don't deal well with things of that nature!

But I did find one job that might actually have some promise for me, believe it or not! Yes, I was pretty shocked to learn about this as a potential for employment for me - becoming an electronic cigarette wholesale dealer!

A cousin of mine who lives out in Texas had told me a while back that her son was trying to stop smoking (and she was recommending I contact him about the method he was using because she figured maybe it would help me to give up this bad, very unhealthy habit) so I had e-mailed him for information. He had written back telling me he was trying to cease smoking by using these electronic cigarettes and he says, for him, they do help.

Apparently he also thought it might be a way for me to kill two birds with one stone too -stop smoking and earn a little extra money from home at the same time.

Interesting concept for sure and maybe it's one that I really should look into because it's about the only job opportunity I've seen that I certainly do have at least one qualification for performing the job duties, that being a confirmed smoker for way too many years!

We shall see I suppose, as that old saying goes.