No Jobs in Boise, ID - Don't Move Here!

I worked in a large city on the east coast for eight years and did very well there. I bought a home, made good money, and did well at my job. I got regular promotions, bonuses, great retirement account, perks...I was a good employee with good skills. Then I fell in love and my new husband moved to my city from a small town. He didn't like the big city and we were both tired of terribly long commutes, high housing prices and crowded everything. So he found a job in Boise, ID - pay was OK for him. I decided to quit my good job and I assumed I would be able to find another great job in Boise. We paid more than $7,000 just to move here and get an apartment. It has been a nightmare...

It has been over a year and I have yet to find a normal, 40-hour-a-week office job with decent pay and benefits. Here's what Boise has to offer to seasoned professionals: nothing. The average job in Boise pays between $7.50 and $12 an hour, is part-time and does not offer benefits. Employers expect you to work your ass off for this pathetic pay too. Customers are treated well in Boise. Employees are treated like shit. Be warned, there is no money in this town. Retail and non-profits are going under. I once accepted a job for $17 an hour (more than half LESS than what I once made) and found that I was expected to work 55 hours a week, use my own car and gas, and then they changed my job description at a whim. I quit that job.

So then I thought, I want to do something fun and enjoy myself at work. I worked for Starbucks for exactly one month. They offered me $7.50 an hour (even though I have eight years of excellent experience). Let me tell you, as an employee, they are on your ass every 5 seconds. A co-worked got mad at me because I wasn't encouraging enough tips for the tip jar. I had to BEG for bathroom breaks! I had to pick up trash off the ground outside, basically I was treated like a teenager that had never worked before. Quit that job too.

So I thought I would try retail at a new clothing store. I found out they treat their employees like criminals and search them (like the airlines) every time they leave the store. Total disrespect for employees. Only the managers get full-time hours and benefits. They hired too many people. We were originally promised 20-30 hours a week. Now we each have 3-8 hours every TWO weeks.

So basically, through it all I have been living on my husbands salary and we are barely paying our bills. We can't even afford to go to a movie. No chance of buying a house or having a baby! I spend countless hours searching and applying for normal jobs... Most jobs on Career Builder do not advertise the salary. There are very few federal government jobs here.

Don't bother with moving to Boise. There are very few good jobs here and they don't pay well!!!

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Dumber than a Catbox full of sh*t (02/11/2008) All this can break a marriage over time. That is very sad. Please don't let that happen. And sacrificing even the dream or possibility of having a house or children is awful! Is there any way that you can move back? Borrow $7K and move back. Surely your husband must know how frustrated, disappointed and upset you are. Can you contact some of your own contacts to get a foot in the door so you don't suffer if you move back the way you are now and have been suffering? My sympathy extends to you. I think many people in the last few years did what you did and there are so many disaster stories out there. We wanted to do what you did for 3 years--something always came up and I think I was ultimately lucky that things kept coming up. Now that the housing market (the whole economy) has tanked--I've had to make my peace with where I am doing what I'm doing. But I am increasingly more grateful because I see people around here having a hell of a time. Please beg or borrow money to go back. And remember--you were not alone in your dream or the shortfalls that have come about. Good Luck--get back home! CK (02/11/2008) Here - there - nowhere are there any good jobs! And from what I can see is that it will get worse! Sorry but I call it as I see it! I see jobs in my field paying half of what they use to. Yet cost of living has gone up, the loss of jobs and benefits. What we have is the division of the haves and the have-nots. We are becoming serfs to up upper 10% of our society. I can see that if this trend continues that it could become a powder keg for another revolution. Dumber than a Catbox full of sh*t (02/11/2008) CK--you are so right! We are serfs to the upper 10%--that was beautifully and accurately expressed. I'm glad that I have a somewhat recession-proof job as they put it--teaching. Coupled with my seniority I am pretty safe. But never say never, either! anonymous (02/11/2008) We still keep checking my hubbies' Upstate NY hometown job adds and double check with his large family. Nothing - and it's been like this for a long time. Several years ago they were still bragging here in the Southwest about all the job opportunities. It ranged from unwarranted optimism to exaggeration. People arrived and the promised jobs had vanished. There were only low paying and part-time jobs, employees have no protection and almost no safety net. Forget about any real health insurance or decent medical care from an HMO. So SOBJ you may not be able to get back were you started, but hopefully something else will open up. anonymous (02/11/2008) Work something out with your husband and his family. Postponing babies creates resentments. Later you will think of it as a lost opportunity and what might have been. I am missing one more child, maybe two..... twiz (02/12/2008) I am sorry to hear about your situation. My only worry about going back is that the job you left is not going to be the job it once was. From my perspective, not many jobs stay the same over hard economic times like this. Management changes, and next thing you know that job you loved now sucks or is eliminated. This has happened to me at more than one company. I've learned that I am only truly happy when I work for myself. I know that is not an easy option for a lot of folks, but give it some thought. Maybe you have a dream business you have always wanted to start, or you are great at sewing and can start a home-based alterations company, or you love to cook ... maybe you could try doing some side catering jobs for small parties, etc... There are all kinds of opportunities out there to work for your self if you dig deep and see what you really like to do in life. Start small... something where you don't need to invest much money to try it out... and go from there! Sick of Bad Jobs (02/12/2008) Ah yes, there is so much more to the story...to add to our misery, the housing market is going downhill. Many of the rental homes in Boise are owned by people who live in CA. Now that the prices are going down everyone wants to get rid of their rental homes. The builders have stopped building and there are four homes on our street that have been for sell for 10 months! So this is what happened: one month after we moved into a rental home the owner decided he wanted to sell and asked us to leave (or have realtors and buyers walk through our house every day). We protested and the owner let us stay 6 more months. Now the owner has asked us to leave again because he REALLY wants to dump the house. So now we have to pay $600-$700 dollars to move yet again in the same town. We finally got health insurace last month (from my husbands job) but that means we have $350 less every month. As for jobs, I can't tell you how much begging I have done. I even got desperate enough to promote hair gel at Walmart for a Saturday afternoon. My husband says he is going crazy from lack of money and boredom. We are both feeling depressed. We are starting to sell off what we can do without to consignment stores. I am applying for jobs out of state but we can't move until I am offered another job. Has anyone seen that movie in which Jennifer Aniston is a maid called "Friends with Money." There is a scene in which she is so poor that she desperately presses down on the tooth paste to get the last little bit out. That's me, sadly. If anybody else is going through this I would love to hear your story. Then I won't feel so alone. CK (02/12/2008) I have been reading that some renters find themselves out on the street because the rental house is being foreclosed upon without notice! I have also read that there are becoming more and more 'tent cities' cropping up. Even though I had experienced something close to this I have never seen it this bad ever! As for jobs - get what ever you can! I hope that you can ride this out but I think that we are just begaining to see the storm coming in. The current system in place is to protect the very rich. And they are moving their funds overseas in Euros. In the mean time Prez Bush has bought a lot of land (almost 1000 acres) in Paraguay. And some history, Paraguay offered immunity/refuge to the German Nazi criminals after WWII. You put the two together ... Dumber than a Catbox full of sh*t (02/12/2008) SickofBadJobs--Here is the story with my friends and family: My Mother-in-Law has no money--she is retired and is really broke. My Brother-in-Law slipped on and then fell down some stairs taking out the garbage last summer and needs 3 surgeries for his elbow and one back surgery. He didn't have insurance so the local hospital put his arm in a sling and sent him to the county (free) hospital in Chicago. He has had 2 of the 4 surgeries and has lost his condo. My other Brother-in-Law had to have his crazy girlfriend move in to help pay his mortgage (ARM mort. that has gone up $1,000 a month) and he owes taxes on the house and they are starting to come after him.... My ex sister-in-law now close friend has been living hand to mouth for the last few years. She quit her job almost 4 years ago and it took her 10 and a half months to find one. Right before she quit she purchased a house with inheritance money and put all the rest of the money into the house. She finally got a job, it was awful and she quit. Then it took her months and months to find another one. The job that she has had for a year--medical office--they close for 2 hours in the middle of the afternoon--who ever heard of such a thing? So she starts at 9 a.m. but is there until 7. Two days per week are half days and even though you may work 10 hours on one day--they short you out on hours another day so they never have to pay overtime. She makes $11.50/hour and has a 17 yr. old son and a mortgage and no medical insurance--because the medical insurance through work would cost more than what is in her paycheck. She has had to borrow from her Mom--and her Mom is awful about helping her. We think that her Mom wants her to have to move home so that she won't be alone. She has managed to keep the wolf (foreclosure) on the other side of the door but realizes that she has to dump the house. I feel the worst for my ex sister-in-law now close friend. She has had a rough life with no breaks. And it seems as if the people who "love" her are the worst to her. Whenever she can afford some gas to come over, I take her out for martinis and a really nice dinner. I always make sure that she leaves with tons of great stuff like perfume and cosmetics or new gloves or stuff....When I talked to her before X-mas she was so frustrated--she couldn't ever buy a pizza, or go have lunch or buy a cup of coffee or rent a movie. I knew I would see her soon. I went and got her gift cards for all of the above. When I gave them to her she started to cry. It's her that makes me feel the worst--such a wonderful woman and such a raw deal:( You are not alone, SBJ--more people are finding themselves in your boat everyday. I wish you the best because I, too have had my tough times. CK (02/12/2008) I wan sitting here and on the news BlueCross is looking to drop patients for preconditions and asking doctors to tell BlueCross to rat them out! The reason - to save money! It's all about the money ... Anyone see Sicko?!? dontask 0 (02/12/2008) CK Technically speaking every condition is a precondition or it wouldn't be a condition. Only accidents would count, in that case lets get accident insurance and forget about the rest. If Blue keeps dropping clients wholesale they will reach the tipping scale and run out of people and money. Blue first accepted me after Cobra but then raised the monthly premium after switching me into another group. They used all kinds of excuses. Harmless temporary medication was counted as precondition then my birthday. Since I am rarely sick I dropped them and have been paying my doctor and dentist directly. So far it has been working out. Some low-cost check-ups at malls are also available. They have been missing almost seven years of premiums so far. Sick of Bad Jobs (02/15/2008) For Dumber than a Catbox...: I really feel for your relatives. Life can really be cruel. I am so sick of problems coming up and no way to pay for them. My husband just found out he needs $1,600 worth of work on his teeth. We have health insurance but NOT dental insurance. Guess we are screwed as usual. Greedy banks: get ready to take more of our money at 30% interest! -Sick of Bad Jobs Fedup-Timeout (05/10/2008) I watched Sicko and I'm telling you, it was a real eye-opener. CK you are right on with everything you said. We are in big trouble here in the USA. We have been too busy taking care of everybody but our own. I'm an older person, I've lived through bad times in the past, I've seen bad times turn to good, and back again, but nothing like this, all that's going on now. And nothing I've seen, heard, or read about has, or will, compare to what's down the pike for Americans. This is the end of "good" times. The rats are getting ready to jump ship, they have land and investments and bank accounts in foreign countries, they have their own PRIVATE retirement plans, paid for out of out tax dollars, and yes, the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. Most people can't even dream of retiring because of no health insurance, and BC/BS company is always doing something to inconvenience their customers. People in Venezuela only pay 12 cents a gallon for gas. There are about 11 other countries who only pay double-digit prices for gasoline. Even if the USA had the kind of oil that other contries had, because this is a greedy country, they would not try to help us with lower gas prices. The country's politicians would be too busy selling it to other countries at a cheap price, so we'd have to subsidize those other countries by paying top dollar for the stuff. There should be some kind of revolution such as during the Boston tea Party, only THIS TIME, throw the bums (the politicians), not the tea, into the river, and make it the dirty EAST River! I stay angry. Between killer job situations, the economy, and the future, I feel hopeless and helpless. Fedup-Timeout (05/10/2008) http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=105872 nobody you know (12/25/2008) You sound a bit to me like a spoiled princess. There are people--like me--who have made a third of what you made before or less and deal with it. We would kill to have that 17.00 an hour job. yeah, crap jobs are crap. but guess what--they're JOBS. In this economy, you can't nitpick and whine. you take what you can get. besides, even a crap job looks better to a prospective employer than no job at at all. BrokeinBoise (08/02/2012) I couldn't agree with you more. I moved out to Boise from the Seattle area for the sake of a relationship. Heard all kinds of things about the job opportunities out here and all the great things there are to do here. At this point of my post, you're probably already relating to what I felt and experienced when I did get here. Since moving here, I've been told things like " Boise will grow on you after a while.", "Second-hand shops are the best out here!", and the est yet, "Life can't always be about success and excitement, so try to appreciate living on minimal means. It builds character.". Needless to say, I feel stranded out here now, heartbroken in that I cant help but feel that I've made a huge regression as a successful adult, and I'm absolutely bored out of my mind because, even if I had the money, there would be so little to do with my time out here. So you're definitely not alone. And if you're still I'm the area, I'd be more than happy to connect with you and compare notes/brainstorm/vent anytime. All the best, Frustrated Coastie Fella in the Desert POST A COMMENT »