Parents refusing to help

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I'm 20 and I've never worked or held a job before. My parents (whom are separated) refuse to help me find a job. I live with gram and there are no jobs available in her area. There's a good chance I won't be able to work since I'm naturally slow at everything I do. I even walk slow. Any tips on how I can find a way to support myself? I'm at a loss here.

Any DYI jobs you could probably try?

Dog walking for example? Its not a full time job but it qualifies as part time in terms of earnings if you do it well enough. It could give you some money to start saving up.

looking for something part time, or seeing if there is anything like walking dogs...maybe watching peopes dogs/pets while they are away and/or house-sitting may be an idea to bring in a little money. I have made a little money house/pet sitting. As an adolescent I tried babysitting a few times, but came to the conclusion being responsible for other peoples children is not something I feel too comfortable with.

Or don't know how your relationship is with your grandmother, but would she potentially be willing to pay you a little to help around the house? for a while my mom was giving me 20$ a week to sweep and mop the floors to help me some. Or there is self employment but not even sure how people do that, unless they have a real skill and good enough people skills to get it going.

Otherwise if you really cannot work there is the option of SSI, but its not a lot of income and can be difficult going through the application process and appeal process if you get denied, also having medical documents/records that go in depth of your condition helps.

Could you go to an employment agent? All of my jobs came from employment agents. They tell you how to do everything.

Or, a more intense version of the same thing would be a life coach. They give you guidance as well but with more emphasis on long term career development whereas an employment agent finds you a job faster.

There is an employment agency in Lexington which is two hrs from where I am now. But you have to qualify before they starting helping you. I'm technically in "the country" so there really aren't any dog walking or babysitting jobs. I don't know what to do.

Can you afford to get a place in the city? If not maybe you could flatshare. The city has to a nicer place than Hell right? You'll never find a job if you stay out in the sticks.

If you're in the country, are there any jobs available on farms?

Small town community colleges often have job training programs. Some are often the only way to get into various companies. Things like certificates rather than degrees. I was surprised to find a program in plant nurseries, horse handling, horse shoeing, working on farm equiptment, and other strange unusual jobs. If you do not have a degree you can usually be completly fundedif you are in the USA. Grants apply to first degrees. Also, I am not sure if there are gender requirements but the YWCA used to run a good apprenticeship program where young people apprenticed with plumbers, electricians and painters.

I believe that some unions also look for apprentices. The highwa department looks for people to hold flags or paint lines on roads. Apparently the pay is very good.

You are going to run into some obsticles because by 20 most people have a plan and some direction.

Crap! I'm even older than that
Will that make me less employable?
Do they hire 30 year olds who just graduated?

If you're in the countryside then have you maybe considered doing small business type things?

Like, making compost to sell to either farms in the area or city businesses that sell plants
.. or growing flowers / veggies to sell?
.. a bit far off but its always been something I'd love to do: beekeeping. As a beekeeper you can be hired to have your bees help pollinate fruit farms...and you sell the honey, wax and other bee products too.

I finished my bs at 31... I just omit the years from my resume.
'oh, you got your cs degree at slu? ~random reminisces~' No one has ever asked me what year I graduated.

OK MissDorkness, maybe you've got a point. Though in your case it's not quite a resume gap. I don't think anyone could accuse you of being idle.

Maybe my age won't matter regardless (though I've heard stories of interviewers saying resume gaps are a sign on laziness). But maybe it won't matter, especially if I can get into a high growth industry.

well, true... fear of not having health insurance has kept me busy.

BUT, if I hadn't mentioned, the resume people at our writing center at UNI understood my concern that I'd only had one employer (the rest being contract work) that wasn't fast food and retail.
So, they advised I skip the typical chronological resume format (x job with y tasks for z years) and instead go for what's known as a functional resume where the focus is on what you can do (computer skills with these bullets, management skills with these bullets, financial skills with these bullets etc).

Contract work doesn't count? If you spend some years doing contract work do they consider that to be idleness? Sometimes I think that I've got an eight year resume gap but the truth is that I've been working for five of those years, it's just that it's in a job that I'm not very proud of. If I could list fast food and retail instead I'd consider that to an improvement in my case though I guess it's sort of the same paradox either way. What I should be concerned about is not how bad I think it looks on my resume but how bad employers think it looks. Some might be ignorant of the nature of my last job (which in my case would be a blessing), some might get it and not mind and some might be picky.

I've heard some horror stories on the web about job interviews (one interviewer said the interviewer didn't work while she was in college therefor she was lazy) though I probably shouldn't trust internet stories because even if they're true, it could still be confirmation bias due to people posting horror job interviews but having no reason to post normal job interviews. I know the internet has lies on it but I think the most deceitful thing about the internet is people always get whatever they want from their search terms which means people can use the net to prove anything they want.

A functional resume? I might try that.

Well, mine weren't long term contracts. It'd be a product review her or editing a book there or doing software usability testing for an hour or two, or doing crowdsourcing work for 10cents a pop.
And, a lot of the contract work I did was ghostwriting for programmers or engineers who couldn't write very well... sometimes helping them write reports that technically needed security clearane or privacy nda's or something signed on, which I did not have... so I couldn't talk about those gigs publicly.
I couldn't say 'consulted with x company for y weeks', because that's not the type of contracting I did.

I did put a line item in saying 'freelance from 2004-present' but it's not the type of steady experience some employers are looking for.

and those are some true words.

It might be worth a try, I'd never heard of them before, but, it seemed to get good feedback.
Sorry I can't access my bookmarks here at work, but, there are samples out there to help you organize your thoughts and skills... https://www.google.com/search?q=functio ... cal+resume

Sign up for Voc Rehab and go from there, they'll try to determine whether or not you can work and can help you get a job and maybe pay for you to go to school too. Some people have bad experiences with them but this last go around I've felt like they've genuinely tried to help me.