What Everyone Should Know About Associated Content

Associated Content has undoubtedly changed the lives of a lot of people over the course of a relatively short span of time. However, I'm not certain how many of us have actually stopped to realize exactly what this site has done for us in terms of morale, self-worth, ambition, and yes, even friendship. I'd like to at least give that a try.

When my husband and I returned to Virginia from Oklahoma in 2004, we had been away for more than 10 years. Most of our former business contacts had either moved on, retired, or died. Still neither of us ever gave a thought to our capability of obtaining gainful employment.

My husband had spent about 30 years in computers and another 7 or so years in copy editing at a newspaper. I too had more than 30 years of experience in administrative work from secretarial to business management. We believed that surely someone, somewhere would want to take advantage of our skills. We were not only wrong, we were "dead" wrong. Because dead is exactly where both of our careers went.

Because my husband is stronger than I am, he was eventually able to find general labor jobs; that is, of course, until his recent heart attack. I, on the other hand, couldn't even get an interview for the simplest clerical positions.

I was told I was "over-qualified" for many of the jobs for which I applied. I was "under-qualified" for all of the secretarial positions for which I applied within educational institutions that I once worked with as a peer. It seems that nowadays if you don't have a degree, they don't care about your 30 years of hands-on experience. I was, in short, blocked at every turn. If became painfully clear within a short period of time that the real issue wasn't my experience or even the lack thereof (which was just ridiculous), but my age.