Unemployed in Michigan

I hope I didn't bore anyone reading this in my first post. I felt that I needed to get off who I was and where I had been off my chest before going onto the next part of my life. The present.

At present, I am unemployed and have been so for just shy of a month. I have little savings, due to the poor timing with which I got fired and the fact that it has not been so long since I've graduated college. I'm signed up for a work program and am waiting for them to place me. I've applied everywhere - research assistant jobs, pizza delivery jobs, even a job at Burger King. So far, nothing. In fact I almost got a job today, but screwed it up - more on that later.

My bank account went negative today - I asked my car insurance to send me a paper bill, which I hoped to pay via some other means in the near future rather than have it draw from my bank account, but apparently it takes a few days to process this change. They're willing to send me a check, but that does little good.

That means, aside from around fifteen dollars or so I have lying around my house, that I am officially broke. I suppose this is freeing in some way - that was the bill I was worried most about and it, one way or another, is solved.

I do have some good news - apparently my tax refund will be around $1100. The bad news? I'm going to have to wait at least four weeks for it. My mother apparently claimed me as a dependent when I wasn't one, so instead of the week long wait I expected, I will instead have a month long wait while they sort things out.

Now, onto the worst news of today -

I got a callback about a job today, from Quickenloans. Now granted, from what I've been reading on this job - it would be quite hellish. Long hours and most of the money being commission. I talked to the recruiting agent, and we discussed the two positions I applied for in the company - Mortgage Banker (Commissions) and Licensing Specialist Intern (Operations, he said). He said only the first was commissions based, and me, thinking that I would rather have the non-commission based job and have an actual internship - said I wanted to apply for the internship. Apparently he was only a recruiter for the sales and commissions side, which has by far the more openings. So I lost out on what could have at least been a decent paying (if harsh) job.

That's fine.

It only makes my mind up further that I am going to probably have to leave this place. When I mentioned to my mother my fear of losing my apartment and car - she said that I could still live with my uncle and try to rebuild my life that way. I'm just not willing to stay in a place where I will be reduced to working a minimum wage job within walking distance. Perhaps call me selfish - but I am entirely unwilling to stay in a region where according to U-6 figures, has something like 24% un/underemployment. I will post a link to this analysis later, in my comments section.

I cannot think of the desire to escape this area as being ungrateful, stuck up or anything. I feel (and with student loans to some extent, I feel I need) a better paying job. I went to college for a reason. I will take any job offered to me, without fail, at least for money - but ultimately I feel that I am better prepared for a different sort of life than working at Burger King.

I'm getting in contact with people I know across the country, to find out where the best places to move are or who might be able to get me a job. Thus far, results have been rather negative about it. Everyone says their area is rather hard hit, though I am assuming most regions are less hard hit than Michigan.

Current top choices for where to move are: New York City, Seattle, Portland, Washington D.C., and Boston in that order. I'm willing to go anywhere, but those are the real big ones I am considering. I'm also not averse to California, but from what I hear - California has it almost as bad as Michigan.

Oh well. I will survive and flourish, no matter what happens.

Afterall, I have a new suit and I look sharp in it. Nothing can stop a man in a suit.

P.S. This is the link to the article

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/9/740586/-EconPop-Series-(3)-23.4-Unemployment-in-Michigan