The reason for each individual would vary I suppose. Maybe you like birds, maybe you feel empathy for me, maybe you find the page entertaining. Perhaps you like seeing your name and webpage in the guestbook. Those would all be good reasons I suppose. The primary reason is quite simple for me, actually...I can't afford to go on my own.
Until recently, I had never heard of internet panhandling, but I figure it is worth a shot. I have always been a helpful sort and just a few years ago, I would have given money to Karyn. Shoot, I'd have even given money to the dude that needs a hummer. Just cause the pages are cool. Instead I ask people for gifts, because, just maybe there are people out there like I was a few years ago. Who knows maybe I'll be that way again and will be able to help now that I know these pages are here.
For now, though, I'm unemployed. I have tried to find work. The market for my skills is thin. It's not like there are not any at all, there are some, but I am underqualified for them. My training in office and clerical work did not include such necessities as Excel and Powerpoint and other graphical high tech things. While I was getting my unemployment check, I became distressed to learn I would lose it if I took classes to update my skills because they were during times when I was supposed to be "available for work". They never listened when I told them that without the skills I wouldn't find a job and if I did find one, I'd drop my class. It's almost like the system doesn't want a person to improve, you know what I mean? Now the unemployment dried up and I can no longer afford the classes which leaves me with no real job, no unemployment, and no new skills.
How did it come to this? It's a long story, but the skinny is that I've been working my whole life except for the five years I took off after I left the Air Force to raise my children. Then I got divorced. Child support does not support the whole family, only a child or two. My last "real" employer (I do some commission based things which help feed the family, but don't pay much else) terminated some positions so that he wouldn't have to give raises. I can't prove it of course, or he'd have been sued, but I know this deep down inside me...
I'm almost 40 and have never before this been unemployed longer than I wished to be since I started work in my teens. But this time I can't even get a job at McDonald's (I'm over qualified???) I also have this problem. I seem to want to be home with my children at least three days a week after school. For some reason that is worthy of disqualification at most "unskilled" labor places like fast food and grocery stores.
I could lay down and give up. I could go on welfare. Then I could go into treatment for depression and maybe end up on disability. But I wasn't raised that way. I'm not interested in sitting here running the risk of going on welfare or disability, I want to work. I don't really need a hand out as they say, but a hand UP. Some help to gain a skill which will make me more valuable as a person and employee.
