Turned 40... still haven't found out how to apply myself.

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Hi folks, I'm new here. I turned 40 last year... and feel lost. I have no career or job skills other than sales for a few months. I spent 17 years working and getting laid off from a bunch of soul-sucking, stress-inducing helpdesk jobs just to get by. I hated it to the point of wanting to give up on life, and never learned anything that would help me get a better job. They always wanted me to be technical... but my ability was to be nice to customers and help them with simple things... which eventually was not a useful skill, as I trained my replacements oversees who could do what I did for a lot less money. Now that I finally got out of it... I can see what a bad fit it was. In the last year I've worked about 9 months in a couple of lousy sales jobs.

I have been married for 16 years, have a 13, 8, and 4 year old kid who depend on me for the sole income of our family... I really feel up a creek.

I have always been more motivated at my hobbies, spending time with my kids, and selling things on ebay, etc... and just floundering in my jobs. I was even better at doing the Amway thing... I just don't feel right about too many aspects of the MLM recruiting.

I know I would do great at a business, but I just don't have any capital... in fact, I'm in debt and delinquent on credit cards.... I've bled my family dry of money, and they don't live in the same state.

I just took a job at a car dealership for the 2nd time. The first time was for 6 months, and I did above average, but they kept hiring so many salesman, I was just selling enough to make a little more than minimum wage. While it wasn't as stressful as some of my jobs... I felt stressed by the pushy sales managers, asking me to do things that I was very uncomfortable doing. I am finding the new car dealership even worse, and I dread every minute of waiting around for customers, and dread even seeing any walking towards the door.... I dread being pushed by management to be pushy to customers... which is so against my sensitive, customer-pleasing nature. It's slow, and I haven't sold a car yet. I would quit if I could find another job. I need to make about $2500 month to pay all the basic bills for my family and I.

I could probably do really well at sales if I could find a job that was more consultative, and not pushy... but focused on explaining and demonstrating, and helping the customer using my ability to translate lots of detail into user-friendly form.

I feel I need some wise counsel from someone who could help me figure out what I am capable of doing, and how to do it with my extremely right-brained, over-sensitive, one track, visual mind that will pay a living wage, and I don't know where to begin looking to find the resources or help I need.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Mark

Mark, what's the reason why you have to be the sole breadwinner? Are you married/partnered?

coloradomark, I do not know anything about working in sales, but I can offer the following, general advice.

Credit card debt is expensive to maintain because of the high interest charges, so (at the risk of stating the obvious) do not take out any more debt. (If you have to, cut up your cards.) You might be able to transfer most of your existing debt onto the card with the lowest interest rate, and thereby reduce your overall costs. Alternatively, a credit counseling service may be able to help you work out a better deal with the various credit card companies. Just be sure to investigate the credit counseling service before agreeing to anything because there are few, unscrupulous companies out there that will screw you over.

You can find a wide range of freelance work and odd jobs listed on web sites such as http://www.elance.com/ , http://www.guru.com/ , https://www.odesk.com/ , https://www.taskrabbit.com/ , and https://www.mturk.com/ , as well as in online classifieds such as http://www.backpage.com/ , http://www.craigslist.org/ , http://www.gumtree.com/ , and http://www.locanto.com/ . Both the pay and the requirements vary tremendously. Your wife may be able to do some of those jobs as well, especially those on Mechanical Turk (mturk.com).

Do you have a good driving record and a reliable car? If so, you may want to try working as a driver for uber.com . Longer term, you may want to get a commercial truck driving license. (Some truck driving companies will train you in exchange for you working for them for a couple of years.)

Two things to be aware of. First, if an advertised job sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Second, advances in technology will make some jobs obsolete in a few years. See the links in this old thread: "The Robots Are Taking Our Jobs", http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt228740.html .

Best of luck with whatever you do.

Mark, it's possible that a couple-three of the kids may need to do public school for a while. The unfortunate reality is that homeschooling is expensive, and the families that can sustain it generally have a high-income breadwinner, a farm, or family help. Six people is a lot of people to support.

My daughter's violin teacher homeschooled her four children for years on a shoestring, but eventually she really needed to go back to school and earn money, partly so she could get away from her abusive husband. The kids went to public school and thrived there. Were the academics all they might have been had they stayed with her, probably not, and the religious orientation wasn't what she wanted, but they enjoyed it very much socially and she said that in the end it had been a good decision.

How the kids feel can change, too. My daughter begged me to homeschool her early on, and I'd have loved to; as a single mom, I couldn't. But I don't think she'd even consider it now (except for the possibility of sleeping later).

Anyway. The intentions are noble but you all have to eat, and your wife may be an able breadwinner. Take care of that part first, I'd say.