the feeling of turning down job oppertunities

have any of u have to turn down a job opportunity/ quit ur current job because of your immigration status? i have, several times, and each time, i pity myself a little more.

i've gotten many job offers through friends that are really decent, from office jobs at universities to position at cpa firm, etc. and more recently, today, assistant manager at my friends boyfriends hip/trendy restaurant. and each time, i had to come up with some retarded excuse to give up a job that is wayyyyyyy better than my current one. the pathetic thing is, because my current job kept pestering me about a copy of my ID, i might have to quit this job too.

i'm so sick and tired of this. I'm pretty sure everyone i know is questioning WTH i'm doing with my life. and i'm pretty sure the years i can use school as my excuse is limited because heck, i'm already using getting a masters as a excuse, whats next? get a phd just to use it as a excuse as to why i'm not getting a real job?????????

Has anyone else encounter the same problem????

and people that are gonna tell me to tell them the truth about my status can just save their fingers and stay away from the keyboard. being an illegal immigrant might not mean much to some people, but i was always ashamed of it. i don't need a lecture, i just need to know how others dealt with the situation so i can maybe find an easier way to cope with this self pity.

Yes, most of us are undocumented so encounter similar problems! This shouldn't be a question.

Don't worry, people are more concerted with their own lives then yours.
Anyway, learn to live with this if you plan on staying in the US.
However you plan your future, don't count on DA.

i once had to turn down an offer to work at JPL it was more like an intern but still shit

I understand the frustration. But, it's out of our hands. So, don't feel like an underachiever.

Learning how to deal with it . . .

This reminds me of this video. Listen to it for a while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKTWqa4PEEY

I think it's this video. But, considering that Enriquez was in a solitary housing unit (the SHU) for an extended time, he played tricks with his mind, so he wouldn't get DEPRESSED and go nuts. While (for instance) "jogging" in his cell, he would literally tell himself things like: "I am running through my neighborhood. I love the smell of the flowers. I'll stop by the liquor store where I had my first smoke . . .I keep jogging . . . and now I am back to my cell." <----was actually recorded.

ha! Maybe, we could do the same: "I get in my fancy car. Drive to my fancy office. Damn, it was worth waiting all those years. . . "

Feelin you here 100% buddy. Same issue here. This kid at my gym continously kept asking me why I don't find a job at a company. He even asked some other dude there to give me his card. I then found a job at a liquor store and when I told him about it, he straight up laughed like an asshole at me and told me, "dude don't put that on your resume."

The first time I did that was in the early 90's when I was 17 and living in Indiana with a relative(who was partially responsible for my current mess). Except for a social security card (which clearly said not valid for employment), I had nothing- no DL, no ID except for school and no money so on the weekends my kid sister (who thank god is a Citizen now) and mother used to go the small city's public library.

We never missed a weekend and would be there for hours at a time so either because of that or we were the only non-black or non-white people there, they knew us pretty well. I was also known for checking out every computer book they had. I knew better than to apply for any jobs because I knew I couldn't get it, and also, my relative strictly forbid breaking any laws more so than we had.

So anyway one day the head librarian there who knew me told me they had a job opening and she'd recommend me for it if I applied given that I knew the library very well and could help out with the computers and such and she knew I had nowhere else to go and I didn't have much money so she was very puzzled when I turned her down and a bit disappointed.

Over the years, before I "came out of the closet" sort of speak, my college friends who knew I was working shitty jobs at night would offer to bring me into their software companies and such and I'd have to come up with lame excuses. Eventually I told them about my situation (silly me thought I could get a work sponsorship before 9/11) and I even got one offer but after 9/11 my lawyer told me it was too risky to go forward with it and now days there are barely any jobs as is for citizens so yeah...it stung.

got offered an accounting internship and told the guy i couldn't b/c i was trying to concentrate on school. kept my fingers crossed hoping he would never ask where i work at....too late...he found out i work at a c-store. but no fun made....i guess sometimes u know where a person stands. sucks when all my customers ask me "hey u speak five languages and what are u doing working in a c-store " lol....c'est la vie

Hey guys, new user name, long time poster. I go all the way back to the COSA days hah. Anyway,

Im an actor, and just last week got offered a national commercial for the iPad. Paid $40,000 up front, and then $2,000 every. single. time. it aired.

Last week was torture. ):

I have worked in warehouses, as a janitor, handing flyers and posting ads on cars, as a cashier, reselling stuff I purchased at auctions....

When I was graduating from high school I had to turn down the opportunity to not only do research in a university setting but work with a professor and another person in trying to start a business around ethanol production (I would have taken that opportunity, but this university which would have cost me no more than 4k per year to attend or actually even less considering my grades, was asking for 36k per year because of my status). They did not understand why I did that...

I also turned down many research opportunities my friends found for me. They knew what I was interested in and the worst part of it all is that in order to try and force me to apply for those internships they would tell me that they would not apply if I did not. They were government type research positions with NASA and the Air Force.

Up until a few months ago, there was a PhD. student now a professor at a university who I worked with while in high school and doing an internship in a nanotechnology lab who would contact me and try to find out what I was up to and whether I was looking for a job.

Life can be stressful sometimes, and over my sophomore year I literally cut ties with a majority of my friends from HS. They are starting their professional careers with considerable strength.

I may come out of the shadows at some point, but I want to build as strong a record as I possibly can before doing so.

Undocumented Immigrants are stealing the jobs, that is an ironic statement.... if I could get a job in what I study I would be preventing the job from going to another country when employers cannot find qualified applicants, roughly 1100 materials engineers graduate every year in the United States, instead, my parents work too hard and I help them when I return back to Miami, working a minimum wage job, and I study without gaining much appreciable on-the job experience. It is required that any internships I take have to be paid internships through this school, I cannot do that, but, I will try to make them change that policy, and open more opportunities for others.