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| Thursday, November 10, 2005 |
| A little history lesson about me and money - Part 2 |
I have been prompted by a recent reader to continue my personal money story which I started with this post A little history lesson about me and money - Part 1.
I attended college in the mid-west and those four years were a revelation. For the first time in my memory I did not have a paper route. The bliss of waking up in the morning and not having to work! I did get a 10 hour a week work-study job on campus, but after the hours I was used to working this felt like nothing. I threw myself into my studies and was amazed at how well I was doing. I quickly made friends and adjusted easily to campus life.
While school and social life was going well, it did not take long for money worries to start creeping in. Each semester books cost $300 or more. If I wanted to visit home for Christmas airplane tickets were $500. Having friends and socializing is great for the soul, but not for the wallet – pizza, beers, etc. was costing $50 or so a week. Long distance phone bills to family and friends was also a growing concern. What savings I had left from my high school years was quickly being depleted and money earned from working only 10 hours a week was not stopping the drain.
That is when credit cards started filling the gap. By the time I graduated I had over $10,000 in student loans and $3,000 in credit card debt.
While that may not seem like much to recent graduates now, at the time it was considered high. I made the decision to move back to Boston after graduation and luckily my Mom was happy to have me back home.
Unfortunately this was in 1993/1994 and the Boston area was in the midst of a recession. Well paying entry level jobs were scarce. With the benefit of hindsight, I see now that I should have attended a school in the Boston area and interned with a local company – this would have helped my transition into my first professional job. However, I did not do that so found myself spending a lot of time during interviews talking about my school and trying to explain how my years of working various menial jobs qualified me to work in their corporation.
Out of desperation I finally started signing up with temporary employment agencies. Luckily the Boston area has quite a few of these and I was willing to be on the “morning call” list. Meaning if someone called in sick and the company did not know they needed a temp to cover a switchboard or fill a secretary seat until 7 or 8 AM the agency could call me and know that I would be at the company ready to report for duty at 9 or 9:30 AM. This flexability generally gained me a higher hourly dollar rate and more importantly friends among the temporary agencies job placers. I was steadily working five days a week and after a few months of ping ponging around from company to company the job placers started talking to me about temp to perm positions in area companies.
Eventually I was placed in a financial services company where I made $25,000 a year as an administrative assistant. It was at this time that I purchased my condo at an FDIC auction and moved out of my Mother’s house and into my own home.
I finally had my foot in the door at a large company and after a couple of years was able to transition into an entry level technical position (where I actually took a small pay cut). I was in the right position learning the right skills at the right time and was quickly able to job hop forward during the heady dot.com boom days.Labels: Recession Obsession |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 7:16 AM *
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| 3 Comments: |
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Hey, I like your story and hope that you continue on with it.
I didn't grow up quite the same way that you did, however, I like the stepping stones, if you will, that you manoeuvred.
I'm in the same post graduate position. No real job, ridiculous student loans, nothing but temp work.
So thanks for your story.
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Hi BostonBabe3,
Glad you are enjoying my mini-autobiography. I found the transition from college to work-life difficult. A half-way decent entry level position which pays enough to survive was difficult for me to find.
The best thing about Temp work was the exposure to so many different companies within the city. I spent a lot of time on those temp assignments refining my resume and sending it out to various HR departments. However, in the end it was my Temp agency which landed me my first permanent position after college.
While the position was not something I was excited about, the pay was decent and most importantly I was getting a steady paycheck, benefits, and my foot in the door of a corporation.
I was still struggling financially and at first had to moonlight to afford my condo - but if I had planned on living with my Mom for a few more years I could have done it on the one salary.
Good luck with the job hunt. I have confidence you will find something permanent. Don't get too hung up on job titles or duties for that first full-time job. The most important thing is to get a steady paycheck to build off of...
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I think your story is similar to those of many college students today. Especially the part about the debt you had after graduating. I think credit card companies persuade college students to get credit cards because they know that students will not be able to pay them off and will later have to pay more money. Anyway, I like how positive you sound when talking about debt.
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Hey, I like your story and hope that you continue on with it.
I didn't grow up quite the same way that you did, however, I like the stepping stones, if you will, that you manoeuvred.
I'm in the same post graduate position. No real job, ridiculous student loans, nothing but temp work.
So thanks for your story.